Shoot 'Em Up

by Janey Mack

  “Yeah,” Lee said. “I like the irony.”

  I don’t.

  “What’s the matter?” Lee knocked his knee against mine. “You scared?”

  A hundred smart-ass remarks bubbled up to the surface. Instead I said, “Yes.”

  He hadn’t expected that.

  Neither had I.

  Awesome. Way to admit to your hotshot partner you can’t hack it.

  I grabbed the phone from my pocket, tapped AJ’s contact icon, and dialed. He answered on the first ring. “El Cid.”

  “Hi,” I said. “You busy?”

  “Nah. Just crushing my enemies, seeing them driven before me, and listening to the lamentations of their women.”

  “Nice, Conan.” As in the Barbarian.

  How close is that to reality?

  “You get me, Valeria. You really get me.” AJ chuckled. “What’s up?”

  “You know the vacation I took to see you? The five days ?”

  “How could I forget?”

  “Maybe it’s time for a longer return visit.” The words were stilted and off, sticking in my mouth. It was impossible to flirt under Lee’s intent stare.

  “Miss me?” AJ said, genteelly filling the conversational void.

  “Desperately.” I made a face at Lee.

  “How long can you hang with me?”

  “Two and a half weeks.”

  “Now, that’s something I can get behind.” AJ paused. “When?”

  “Well, that’s up to you, isn’t it? I mean, if I’m coming all that way, I’d like for us to spend some quality time together.”

  “You should know by now, you never have to ask, Maisie.” He let that settle. “You come back, I’ll make it extra-special.”

  Lee’s jaw slid to one side.

  “You’re a king among men, baby,” I said as throatily as I could.

  “Later, princess.”

  I swiped the phone off and took a sip of beer to keep the smirk off my face.

  “You talk a good game. But that’s all it is. Talk.” Lee leaned back. His arm still rode across the back of the bench behind my head, but he was as far from me as possible. “Shouldn’t play like that.”

  I felt a perverse rush. “Oh? Why’s that?”

  “Doesn’t work out so well when you need to put up or shut up.”

  Hank’s Law Number Nine: Confidence is not competence.

  “Brass tacks or brass knuckles, Lee. I can hold my own.”

  “I know you think you can.”

  Maybe he had a point. “Gee, is this the pep-talk part of our partnership?” I laughed but it was high-pitched and nervy.

  “You’re not built for this.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “But I’ll take my chances.”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  He was angry with me, with the situation.

  But there was more to it than that. Lee carried around a molten red core of fury inside. About what, who knew? But it’d take a more than a little “opening up” from me to make that happen. The quid pro quo would be exorbitant.

  My beer had gone flat.

  Propping my elbows on the table, I dropped my head in my hands and rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands.

  Hank.

  Lee’s warm hand slid up the nape of my neck, stopping where my neck and skull connected, and started kneading.

  Pressure hissed out of me like the release valve on an engine. His thumb and middle finger rotated in small, firm circles.

  My lower lip trembled.

  I jumped up with a jerk, knocking into the table, tipping over my half-empty beer bottle.

  Lee caught it before it hit the table. “Easy now.”

  But there was nothing easy about any of this.

  “Hang on.” He dug a twenty out of his pocket and tossed it on the table. “I’ll walk you out.”

  “Please,” I said hoarsely. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  Chapter 23

  “Snap!” Cash said, shaking my leg. “Wake up!”

  I rolled over and covered my head with a pillow. “What do you want?”

  “Declan’s on the phone.”

  “Unnnngh. So, talk to him.”

  “He’s been calling you all morning. Your phone’s off.”

  “Tell him I’m busy.” Cash’s grip on my calf turned into a claw.

  “Aiiiiigh!” My foot kicked involuntarily. “Let go. Let go! Alright. Geez.”

  I sat up and he slapped his iPhone into my palm. “Hello?”

  “What’re you doing, Snap?”

  “Sleeping.”

  “Get up. I need you to fill in for Mom at the club. We’re in a mixed-doubles tournament.”

  Are you fecking kidding me? “Declan, you do remember I’m recovering from a stab wound to the leg?”

  “Cash told me you’re right as rain, running on the tread.”

  Goddammit.

  “I haven’t held a racquet in six months. And all my tennis gear’s at home.”

  “Jaysus, can you fuss any louder?” Declan said. “Our opponents had the option to reschedule and wait for Mom or accept you, an erratic 3.6. They chose you.”

  Naturally. Mom was a strong 5.0.

  “I’ll be there in thirty. Mom packed your tennis bag.” He hung up before I had the chance to say no.

  * * *

  Eighty-two minutes later, Declan picked me up in his black F-Type S Jag, which meant I got to change into my tennis whites in the front seat of his convertible. We sped to the Midtown Athletic Club, Declan spoon-feeding me strategy the entire way. “Okay, Snap. Here’s the thing, these guys work for Hobbs, Aspen, and Mooney. Good guys, but crappy tennis players. Bad enough to where they can throw your game by their sheer ineptitude to get a ball back over the net.” He smirked at me. “Which is great, because you’ll be playing at about the same level.”

  I batted my lashes at him. “Gee, you’re swell.”

  Declan popped me in the arm. “Thing is, Mom and I are gunning for the finals. No one has the balls to take on Avirett and Beaumont from the state attorney’s office. We’re gonna crush those asshats. They’re trying to rape us on your pal Keck’s case. Mom’s seeing red, sweating that it might blow back on you. Ha.” He shook his head. “Like we’d let that happen.”

  The gears in my head shifted into overdrive. Special Unit was going to need Christo Keck out and about and daisy-fresh if Lee and I were going to infiltrate the Veterattis. “What are you talking about?”

  Declan turned on the stereo and shuffled to Mom’s Mix. Prince’s “Kiss” pulsated through the car. “Gotta have Mom here, in spirit, as God knows your game will need a little divine intervention.” He grooved behind the wheel. “Fecking ASA Avirett is giving Daicen the shivering fits.”

  Typical. Christo Keck was more his client than Daicen’s. Which was truly the “devil’s gift.” When Declan let someone else shoulder the responsibility, he let go and never looked back.

  “How?” I said.

  “Aside from the fact that he’s a goddamn vindictive bastard? He’s trying to swaddle us up in a piss and puke blanket.”

  “A natural-born poet, Declan.” I toyed with the strings on my racquet. “Richard Avirett’s gunning for you, huh? Who’d you sleep with? His wife, mother, or sister?”

  He shot me a sideways glance. “Mistress.”

  Cripes. “Does Daicen know?”

  “He should’ve figured it out by now.” Declan shrugged. “First Avirett dismisses, then refiles and re-arrests, forcing Keck to make a new bond. Only now, in addition to the increased bail, Avirett’s demanding a surety package. So Keck’s back in lockup, needing proof his source for bail is legitimate.”

  I chewed a knuckle, thinking. Declan’s philandering aside, Coles’s mark on Keck’s case was as puerile and obvious as red PETA paint on a fur coat. If Coles couldn’t have Stannis, he’d do everything in his power to watch him burn.

  Can’t anything be easy? Ever?

  We pulled into the parking lot o
f Midtown Athletic Club with its eighteen indoor tennis courts.

  I was pretty edgy, actually. Not about the match as much as my leg. I stopped in front of the pro shop. “Hey, Dec? I’m gonna grab a pair of compression shorts before we start.”

  “Hustle up,” he said. “You’re making us late.” I held out my bag. “Jaysus.” He rolled his eyes and grabbed the duffel.

  Vintage Declan. Pick me up an hour late and it’s my fault.

  “Court eight,” he called at my back.

  I billed the compression shorts to his account, and put them on in the pro shop dressing room. I yanked up my Bolle undershorts and finally my Fila tennis skirt, and trotted down to the courts, telling myself that tennis was going to be great for my recovery.

  Declan was on the court warming up, his serves smooth, fast, and perfectly placed. Across the net were two men. Also warming up. I jogged onto the court. “What the hell, Deck? Those are guys.”

  “Oh?” He tossed me a ball. Then another.

  “You said mixed doubles.”

  “Did I?” He tugged my ponytail. “Well, I didn’t wanna hurt your feelings.... Last man off the line and all that.”

  “Wow.” I served the ball. Then another. At least they made it over the net. “Aren’t you sweet as an Easter Peep.”

  “Six months since you held a racquet? Are you sure it wasn’t six years?” Declan threw me another tennis ball, this one slightly out of reach. I lunged and caught it, sucking in my breath at the sharp pain that zinged through my thigh.

  “Get it together, crybaby,” he said.

  All I ever wanted was a sister. Just one.

  But no. I got five brothers. Five.

  And they all suck.

  I smacked the racquet against my palm. “Come a little closer and say that.”

  He grinned and tossed his dark hair out of his eyes. “Poach like an East-Ender at a highbrow pheasant shoot, and I’ll put ’em away.”

  The duo from Hobbs, Aspen, and Mooney weren’t a tennis powerhouse by any stretch of the imagination. We were up four games to zip within thirty minutes, and things picked up from there. I cozied up tight to the net and let Declan do all the legwork.

  Serves him right.

  Literally.

  * * *

  My leg was throbbing. I needed a stiff drink and an Oxy. Declan nudged me with his elbow over the armrest. “Nice work, Snap. Mom would have had my head if we’d lost.”

  “Now you tell me.”

  “After watching you warm up, I wasn’t sure you could take the additional pressure.”

  “Ha-ha.”

  He turned the wrong way at the stoplight.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “Well, you’re gonna take a victory lap with me and Dai, yeah?”

  “Of course,” I said, basking in the warm glow of brotherly love. All I had to look forward to at Hank’s was watching Cash eat and squabbling with him over the TV remote.

  Declan parked the Jaguar in the underground parking garage. We took the elevator up to the tenth-floor apartment he shared with Daicen. Declan fished out his keys as we walked down the hall. “That was fun today,” he said. “We haven’t done that in a donkey’s age.”

  “Yeah.” I nodded, finishing the pun. “Long years.”

  He fit the key in the lock and swung open the door. Music and voices washed out of the foyer into the hallway.

  “A victory party?” I said.

  “I can’t help it if I live at Delta House. After you.”

  I limped into the apartment. Flynn, Rory, Cash, Mom, and Daicen were chasing Jameson Caskmates Stout with Stella Artois. Or at least that’s what the near-empty whiskey bottle on the counter suggested.

  “Maisie!” they chorused.

  Daicen popped the cap off with a bottle opener and slid a Stella across the counter.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Well?” Mom demanded. “Did we win?”

  Declan clasped his hands, held them up, and shook them first on one side then the other, like a 1930s prizefighter. “Was there ever any doubt?”

  “Thanks for filling in for me, baby,” Mom said to me. “How’s the leg?”

  “Stiff, but I’ll live.”

  She patted the armchair next to the sectional she was on. “Come sit down.”

  Beer in hand, I did as requested and put my foot up on the coffee table. Flynn stood up and turned the stereo down. The rest of the guys swarmed into the great room.

  It took a few seconds for it to sink in.

  “Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph.” I slouched down in the chair. “It’s an Irish intervention.”

  “Very perceptive, darling,” Mom said.

  I waved my beer at them. “Go ahead. Have at me.”

  “That’s not funny,” Mom said. “My connection to Walt Sawyer is the only reason you’re not in jail.”

  I slid my thumbnail under the paper Stella label, quashing the litany of responses building inside my chest. It wasn’t the actual undercover work that ate away at me as much as the constant lying.

  “It’s like you’re out, tin cup in hand, begging for trouble, Snap.” Cash moved in and perched on the edge of the coffee table.

  “Don’t call her Snap,” Mom said automatically.

  Cash put his hand on my leg. “Lee told me about the truckload of hate mail you’re receiving over your op-eds.”

  Gee, Cash. I’m not sure whose knife is sunk deeper in my back—yours or Lee’s.

  Mom took over. “You promised to be home when Hank wasn’t around. You’ve gone back on your word.”

  “Yeah, well, after Da betrayed me, I guess words aren’t worth the breath they’re given anymore. I know at least a couple of you knew he was behind my expulsion from the police academy. And not one of you did a damn thing about it.”

  “I suspected.” Flynn ran a hand over his face. “And I owe you an apology for that.” He locked his dark eyes with mine. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not,” Rory said bluntly. “Da’s had the right of it all along.”

  No one saw that bare-assed admission coming. Least of all me.

  “Just look at the feckin’ mess you’ve made of your life last year. You fecked up as a meter maid, pissed off the mayor, and played kissing cousins with a goddamn Serbian enforcer called ‘The Butcher.’ And now? Stabbed in the leg in the middle of a Class X felony while playin’ gel reporter at that commie shite news rag.”

  Gee, when you put it like that . . .

  Cash gave the wide-eyed look-away that said he thought Rory was off his rocker.

  Everyone else seemed to think he had a point.

  Lovely.

  “Real sweet of you to fill in for Da, Rory,” I said flatly. “Seeing as he’s not here.”

  “This ain’t about Da, though, is it?” The corner of his mouth curled in a snarl. “Last time I checked it weren’t Da that let a Leavenworth mercenary buy you a car and keep you as a mistress in his house.”

  He looked at each of my brothers in turn. “Did I miss anything?”

  Not much. Only that Hank was everything to me.

  My lungs collapsed, shrink-wrapping my heart into a tight, smothering knot of anger “Would it make any difference if I told you Hank asked me to marry him?”

  Mom caught that one before it hit the floor. “And your answer?”

  “Contrary to the McGrane Clan Bylaws, getting engaged isn’t a family decision.” I raised the beer to my mouth and took a swallow.

  Six pairs of dark eyes lasered in on the Cartier band on my ring finger. They looked at me like I’d smothered a puppy.

  Ughhhhh.

  Stannis’s ring. I forgot I’d had it on.

  “Looks like the decision’s already been made,” Flynn said.

  Except it wasn’t. “It’s not like that.”

  Cash patted my leg. “A test run. Right, Snap?”

  “No. The ring was a gift, not an engagement.”

  Because when you’re staked out on an anthill, you
might as well have extra honey.

  Daicen cleared his throat. “This discussion has devolved to unhelpful. The tennis play has taken a visible toll on Maisie.” He rose to his feet and exchanged a long look with Mom. “I’ll return her to Bannon’s.” Daicen faced the rest of our brothers. “Our youngest sibling is a gainfully employed adult who is considering becoming engaged to a financially stable independent contractor. Tempest in a teapot comes to mind.”

  He held out his hand. “Shall we?”

  * * *

  “Thanks, Daicen.” I fastened my seat belt in his Audi.

  “Yes,” he said as he latched his buckle, “well, I am the nice one.”

  It was hard to breathe.

  He pulled a roll of Wint O Green Life Savers from the center console and handed it over. “Are you engaged?”

  I slid the foil from the candy. “No.”

  “The ring?”

  “A gift. From Stannis.” I handed the candy back.

  He separated one with his thumbnail and flipped it into his mouth. “But Hank did ask you to marry him.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  Daicen didn’t turn his head to look at me. Didn’t say a word. So I did.

  “It didn’t happen how I thought it . . . I didn’t expect . . . I mean, I didn’t think it would be so—”

  My brother focused on the road ahead, saying nothing.

  “Hank asked me if a license and a ring would help.” The confession poured out of me like new ketchup—halting and slow at first, then rushing out in a gloppy mess. “He asked me to quit. Everything. To just be with him. And when he asked me like that, I knew if I said ‘yes’ he’d have gone ahead and married me any which way I wanted it. But I wanted him to want to marry me.”

  “Yes,” Daicen said quietly.

  Unshed tears crept up my throat. “By the time I realized Hank loved me all the way enough to do that—for me—because to him nothing mattered except us . . . It was too late. And he had to go.”

  My brother remained impassive.

  “I can hear how so completely stupid I sound.” My fingers plucked at the pleats of my tennis skirt. “It’s just . . . Things don’t matter the same way to Hank as they do to our clan.”

  “No. They don’t.” He put his hand over mine. “You don’t always have to play it so tough, Maisie.” The heat from his hand was overwhelming, his words lighting my hair on fire.