Bad for Her

by Christi Barth

  Rafe almost laughed out loud. Did that idiot think he’d won? Think that the second highest ranking mobster in Chicago—ex-mobster, whatever—kept a stranglehold on the riffraff that filled the Second City by being outplayed by a pissant pout? Did he think Rafe would shrug and give up now that Kellan had pretended to lay down the law? Good thing they’d kept the kid away from the racket. He didn’t have the cojones.

  Rafe started and ended each day with fifty one-armed push-ups. He could hold his beer in midair until the Gorse closed down and not even blink. This time, he aimed his glass at Flynn. “You’re a bartender now. You know it’s bad luck to toast and not drink.”

  “Bad luck?” A harsh laugh grated from his brother’s throat. Practically the same noise a drawbridge over the Chicago River made when its gears ground together to lift it. “You really think we could have any more bad luck rain down on us?”

  That did it. Rafe thumped his glass so hard against the scarred wooden table that foam flew off the top. Because Flynn knew better. He knew the answer to that question. It was hard to believe he needed to be reminded.

  Sure, he’d been protected from the worst of the violence. After all, Flynn used to sit behind a desk all day running the legit cover business for the organization. The one they could launder money through, when necessary. With books that could be legit audited. The one that supplied paychecks on the up-and-up to everyone in McGinty’s crew so that they all looked like tax-paying, law-abiding citizens.

  As long as you didn’t look too hard.

  The U.S. government was now doing exactly that: combing over the construction company’s books and its employees with a magnifying glass, thanks to Rafe’s pointing a spotlight on it. Which meant there were a shit-ton of pissed-off, vengeful, violent people just looking for someone to unleash all that anger on. Mainly, them.

  He put his arm back up in the air and would keep it there until somebody god damned clinked his glass. Then Rafe leaned forward. All the way until his chin was practically over the center of the table. It clued his brothers to lean in, too. Almost under his breath, Rafe growled, “We could be at the bottom of Lake Michigan right now. In cement shoes. Or full of bullet holes. Or both. So, yeah, things could be a lot worse. Don’t you fucking forget that for a minute.”

  Flynn gave in fast. He nodded, his gaze skittering away to the cranberry red wall with the jukebox. “You’re right.”

  “I wish to hell I wasn’t.” Rafe meant that. With all his heart. And was glad it hadn’t taken much to remind Flynn of the life-and-death severity of their situation.

  Kellan, however, was more stubborn. And in this family, that was saying something. He squinted. Gave actual side-eye. “You’re sure you’re not exaggerating?”

  The temptation to drag him outside and slap him around for even asking the question was . . . strong. But it didn’t fit their marshal’s strict instruction to fly under the radar. To go unnoticed and be model citizens.

  Christ, but it was hard work.

  Yet again, Rafe tried to tease Kellan out of his funk. And dial him in to the harsh but undeniable truth of their new lives. “You think the US Marshals Service would be going to all this trouble to keep us safe if I was exaggerating?”

  “Or spending all this money on us,” Flynn added. About time he pulled his weight with straightening Kellan out. “They funded this blend-in-with-the-locals makeover.” Then he sneered down at his own flannel shirt like it was covered in dog shit.

  Not helpful.

  Yeah, Flynn had been big into clothes. His weakness was expensive/trendy workout gear. The guy was into the gym scene. It kept him in fighting form for when he participated in the underground MMA circuit.

  It’d reminded everyone that sitting behind a desk didn’t mean Flynn was weak. Didn’t mean he couldn’t hold his own and then some.

  Now? The closest he got to a good, head-clearing fight would be if things got wild here at the Gorse.

  Which was unlikely.

  Or Delaney wouldn’t have placed him here.

  Rafe missed his custom-tailored suits, too. His weekly shoe shine. The guys all respected him more for looking like McGinty’s right-hand man. It hadn’t sucked. The slick duds got him women, which also didn’t suck.

  On the other hand, it seemed like all it took to catch Mollie’s eyes was a flex of his biceps. Luckily, Rafe carried those guns under whatever he wore.

  “Can we be real for a minute?”

  Uh-oh. Kellan had avoided asking questions for the last six months, which worked well for all three of them. This would be a truly shitty time to reverse that trend. But Rafe couldn’t say no. The stewing anger that rode beneath almost everything that came out of his brother’s mouth since they’d joined the witness protection program was gone. His face was curious, unguarded. A bit like when he’d asked Rafe all those years ago if there was really a Santa Claus.

  Of course Rafe had told him the truth back then. That was before he’d learned to lie to his brother on a daily basis. Plus, knowing it was their parents who wrapped the presents made it easier to get what you really wanted. He did Kellan a favor by busting that myth.

  He’d tell him the truth now, too. Because he’d sworn, from the day he and Delaney snatched Kellan outside his law school, shoved him into a big black SUV, and took the kid’s whole life away, that he’d never lie to him again.

  Enough was fucking enough.

  “Yeah. Ask me anything, K.”

  “You claim these people, these guys from your organization, they’d kill us if they had the chance. But from what you said, you were in charge. Does that mean . . .” his Adam’s apple worked up and down a couple of times, “. . . did you ever kill? Anyone? For your job?”

  Fuck.

  The Maguire brothers didn’t do the hugging thing. Except at their mom’s funeral, and then their dad’s a year later. Now, though? Rafe wanted to sweep the kid into the kind of a hug they hadn’t shared since his voice changed and he broke out a razor.

  It hadn’t occurred to him Kellan could be wondering about that. From the total lack of color in Flynn’s face, it hadn’t occurred to him, either. No wonder Kellan had been so pissy since they’d told him the truth about their lives. He thought the brothers he’d lived with for twenty-five years were fucking murderers.

  That’d be enough to scare the shit out of anyone. Let alone being marooned with them after learning just enough to lead to that assumption.

  That did it. Rafe put his beer down. Gripped Kellan’s arm, right above the blue-and-silver Movado watch they’d given him for college graduation. It was classy. The kind of thing a soon-to-be lawyer needed. But now he’d never be a lawyer. When they hustled out of Chicago, Kellan was forced to leave his law books behind, his Northwestern sweatshirts, and the promise he’d made to their dad right before he died. That watch was the only thing left of the life he’d planned.

  The life that his brothers had wanted so damn bad for him to have.

  The life they’d abruptly ripped away.

  “No. Never.” God, Rafe hoped Kellan heard the sincerity and absolute fucking truth in the words he almost grunted out, they felt so raw.

  “Same goes here,” said Flynn. And son of a bitch, if he didn’t reach out to grab Kellan’s other wrist. Like they were squeezing their honest admission deep into their little brother’s skin to make sure he believed.

  Looking from one brother to the other, Kellan stayed quiet for a minute. Then he looked over Rafe’s head to the tiny stage where some local hack was plugging guitars into amps. And he pulled out of their grips to cross his arms over his chest.

  “I don’t want to say that’s how it always goes down in the movies. That sounds dumb. But if you’re worried we’ve got a target on our backs, clearly, killing people is a thing. A real as fuck thing. And you said you were a big shot, Rafe. Didn’t you have to, ah, get initiated and shoot at least a few people to advance up the career ladder?”

  Flynn snorted. “Do you think Darth Vader’s real
, too?”

  “Asshole,” Kellan popped back automatically.

  Jesus H.

  Bad enough they had Kellan way the hell up on his high horse about how they’d ruined his life. Which, technically, was as true as it got. So Rafe gave him some leeway—that was overdue to run out—with the attitude. But Flynn became more and more of a pain in the ass with every passing month. Flynn used to be as even as a level. A rule follower. A peacemaker.

  One little double-cross, one single god damned near miss of being thrown in jail, and suddenly Flynn transformed. Like he’d given up.

  Getting the three of them into WITSEC was supposed to keep them alive and together. Only getting one out of two of those things . . . sucked.

  Rafe rammed the tip of his boot against Flynn’s ankle. Then two more times, until he finally clued in and spit out a mumbled, “Sorry,” to their younger brother.

  Okay. Back to the real problem. How to explain that they’d knowingly jumped into a profession famous for being both violent and fatal?

  Rafe made a fist. Realized that sent the wrong message, and consciously splayed his fingers flat against the sticky wood. “Yeah, I bashed some heads over the years. Knocked people around who weren’t pulling their weight or paying their way. Ones who knew exactly what they were getting into, and the price they’d have to pay if they screwed up. They all deserved it. Had all crossed a line.” Maybe not a line the Chicago P.D. would approve of—but rules were rules.

  Even in a lawless organization, there was respect.

  Rules.

  Consequences.

  Eyes squinting, mouth screwed up like he’d just done a shot of straight lemon juice, Kellan said, “I guess I get that. I don’t condone it. But I get it. You were a . . . what, an enforcer?”

  “For a while. As I worked my way up.” Not like there was an org chart. You did what the boss asked. Period. “Think of me more as a debt collector. People agreed to pay us. I collected—and if they were late, I made sure they knew not to slide again.”

  Kellan drained half his beer in three hard swallows. “So . . . why didn’t you have to kill anyone?”

  Guess the kid would’ve made a good lawyer. Because Rafe sure as hell felt like he was on the stand getting the third degree. But before he could figure out how to get that shadowed look of mistrust out of the blue eyes locked on his, Flynn jumped in.

  “This isn’t the movies, K. It doesn’t happen so much anymore. Because we’re not fucking animals. And in the wired-up, dialed-in internet era, you know how hard it is to make someone disappear?”

  Flynn was not helping. Whining that it was hard to get rid of a corpse didn’t send anywhere close to the right message. Especially since Flynn had not one fucking clue about what it took. Running the legit cover business meant his hands never, ever got dirty. Or even smudged.

  He kicked Flynn under the table again. To shut him up. And, yeah, because it released a little bit of his frustration. Rafe wrapped both hands around his mug. “The truth? I told Danny McGinty when I joined, when I took the oath, that I wouldn’t. Ever.”

  “How come?” Kellan’s words sounded . . . challenging. Like Rafe still needed to prove to him that he wasn’t a fucking murderer.

  The way he kept pushing this topic? Showed it’d been eating at him for a long time. Rafe just wished his brother had spoken up sooner. Gotten this all out in the open. Because if the three of them couldn’t trust each other, this whole witness protection thing would never work.

  It blistered his heart a little that his kid brother would think he was capable of killing someone. No way could Rafe let that stand.

  “Come on, K. How can you even ask that? You’ve known me your whole life. I taught you to save part of your allowance for the collection plate. To defend the weak kid on the playground against bullies. Killing people is hands-down wrong. You know it, and I sure as shit know it.” He thumped his chest for good measure.

  The brackets around Kellan’s mouth smoothed out. He jerked a shoulder in what Rafe chose to call acceptance. “Thought maybe you’d forgotten. Good to know you haven’t.”

  They could let it lie right there. Get up and play some darts. Shake off the heaviness of the conversation. But Rafe couldn’t. He’d promised to come clean with the whole truth, even though talking about this was as painful as a kick to the nuts.

  “There was a bigger reason I told Danny I wouldn’t kill. I’d carry a gun, I’d protect him, shoot to wound, but never, ever go out and so much as help to execute anyone.”

  “What was it?” For the first time all night, Flynn’s interruption was actually helpful. Rafe had never told him this secret, either.

  The Maguires weren’t talkers. They’d shoot the shit, but they didn’t share, for fuck’s sake. The best way—or at least the one that worked for them—to deal with their parents dying was to not talk about it. They’d talk about the Bulls’ chances in the finals, or if Flynn had a shot with the waitress at the diner they hit every Sunday morning. The casual stuff that filled a day. Never the things that went deep and dark and mattered.

  Guess this new life, the new names, the new jobs, meant a new approach to being brothers, too.

  “With Mom and Dad gone, I was responsible for both of you. I couldn’t risk doing anything that would get me put away for life. My number one priority was providing for you guys, being there for you. That’s a hundred times more important to me than any oath I took, than any money I could make. Being your brother comes first.”

  He didn’t expect them to do a pansy-ass group hug or anything. Rafe just had to get it off his chest. He needed them to know that, no matter what, they’d always be his first consideration.

  After a couple of too-long, too-quiet beats, Flynn slowly raised his mug into the air. “To Saturday night.”

  Kellan clinked his glass, and then Rafe’s.

  It was enough.

  For now.

  Rafe wiped the foam from his mouth with the back of his hand. “We’re alive. All three of us. We’re not in jail. That’s only true because we’re here. In Bandon. And it doesn’t exactly suck to have to work our way through pint after pint until we find a local beer we like.”

  “The beer’s the least of our problems,” Flynn muttered.

  He should’ve known one and a half minutes of peace was the maximum he could expect. But they were going to sit here and fucking enjoy a Saturday night together if it killed all of them.

  Around a smile that felt more like a grimace, Rafe asked, “Now what?”

  Frowning, Flynn said, “Everything about this town is small—including the dating pool. No point getting buzzed at a bar if we can’t end the night with our hands down a pretty girl’s bra.”

  Fair point. “Bandon isn’t that small. Not with all the tourists that I’m told will flood in for the next six months. You might have to put some effort into it, for once, instead of just flexing your muscles in the gym, but you’ll find a woman.”

  Kellan flipped him off. “You’re only cocky because you’ve already scored with the hot doc.”

  “I haven’t scored.” Not that Rafe planned for that to be the case much longer. But the blue-balled truth would score him some sympathy cred with his brothers. “Just rounded a few bases.”

  “The women in Chicago couldn’t resist your moves.” Kellan rolled his eyes. “This small-town doc doesn’t stand a chance.”

  He didn’t like the implied dig at Mollie. And he wouldn’t let it stand unchallenged. “She’s not small-town. Or at least, she is, but by choice. She’s smart. She could’ve worked anywhere.”

  Flynn did a slow roll of his head, taking in the less than two dozen tables, the obviously hand-painted (aka crappily so) picture of a gorse bush over the stage, and the lack of a crowd at the bar. On a Saturday freaking night. “She can’t be that smart if she came back here of her own free will.”

  “Cut it out. No bashing Mollie.”

  Flynn jammed his forearms onto the table’s edge. Squinted at him the w
ay he used to squint at contracts behind his big glass-and-chrome desk. “You’re awfully protective. Is this turning into more than a dine and dash with her?”

  No. No way. Not in a million years.

  Couldn’t a man go back for thirds on lasagna at dinner without promising to only eat pasta for the rest of his life?

  Rafe drained his beer. Raised his hand to signal for another round. “Please. I don’t plan ahead with women. I sure as hell don’t commit.” Never seemed like an option as a mobster. Seemed like even less of one as an ex-mobster in hiding. It was impossible to build a relationship based on a whole life of lies. “Trying for something serious with Mollie would be stupid. It’d never work. Not with our background.”

  With both eyebrows raised almost to his hairline, Kellan murmured, “If you say so.”

  “No bashing Bandon, either. It’s our home now.” Their last chance at a real home without being on the run. “So you’d damn well better find something to like about it.”

  “Find me a better job, and I will.” Kellan worked in the giant cranberry plant that employed more than half of the town. Rafe didn’t think he was being a snob about the manual labor; the kid truly just missed using his giant brain.

  After too many silent seconds went by, it was obvious Flynn wasn’t going to jump in and do anything to put out this brush fire, either. Even though he knew the WITSEC rules as well as Rafe. Even though it was just as much his fault they were stuck here.

  Fucknut.

  Great. He got to play bad cop. Again. “Delaney only promised us jobs. She didn’t say they’d be good. If you don’t like it, look for something else.”

  “Flynn seems to be doing enough looking for both of us,” Kellan teased.

  Rafe swung around to follow the direction of his middle brother’s locked-and-loaded stare. It was at the waitress headed over with three more beers and a basket of chips. Long brown hair. Nothing exceptional. No dramatic curves or coloring like Mollie.

  What the hell? Mollie wasn’t the only woman in the world. She sure as hell wasn’t the only woman to ever make his dick hard. How’d she suddenly become a measuring stick for hotness? Rafe forced himself to take another look at the waitress. To try and get turned on by her.