Seventeen

It was easier to target Hames than it had been Sawyer: he was a man, and men were less careful. They didn’t worry about their own safety and wellbeing to the same extent.

But like Sawyer, he had a routine. One that had developed a certain complacency over time, and one that offered Ghost and Fox a neat little opening in which to access him.

He woke every morning at seven, ate a banana standing up at the counter while he watched the news on a TV far too large for a kitchen, but stationed there nonetheless, amidst all the marble and stainless steel and the big sprays of flowers the missus had delivered every afternoon (Ghost was only now, in Virginia, learning the breadth and scope of the investigations Fox had always run for them, the sheer amount of intel he could gather after a day’s worth of observation; it was staggering.) Then, in a stab at something like health-consciousness, Hames walked – slowly – on the treadmill for fifteen minutes. The machine was parked in front of a window at the back of the house, overlooking a tidy lawn set with a stone patio, and the sun rose as he walked, and watched the news on yet another giant TV off to this left, rather than the miracle of nature.

After, he showered, passed his wife in the kitchen where they traded bloodless farewells, then down to the garage, to his Benz, and out through the house’s main gate. He drove to FBI headquarters, and there he stayed until five, after which time he usually wined and dined some political shmuck – a congressman, a senator, or an attorney – at an expensive restaurant, after which he drove home less than sober.

That, Fox decided, was the time to make their move.

He turned in the rented Suburban, made himself up to look like some preppy country club dick ten years younger than he really was, then went and rented a BMW SUV. Ghost took one look at the polo shirt Fox handed him, said, “No,” and handed it back. He wound up in a plain black t-shirt, sunglasses, and consented to let Fox style his hair.

At eight-fifteen, they were idling at the curb out in front of the steakhouse Hames had entered two hours before. Two people had rapped on the driver window and asked if their parking spot was available, and Fox had smiled, and charmed, and sent them off bemused, but in good spirits.

“Those are witnesses,” Ghost reminded, after the second man walked off, his date on his arm.

“They won’t remember us.” Fox pushed his shades up onto his forehead – ridiculous on both of them, since it was full-dark now – and turned to face him. “You’ve got to stop thinking in Law when it came to Mercy or her children, there was nothing she wouldn’t do, and everyone around her just had to deal with it. A truth Ghost had finally accepted in recent years. But Maggie…

Had hidden Ava and Mercy’s relationship from him, back in the day. Had protected her baby – guarded her secret – even from her own husband.

So, yeah, that tracked, too.

You know what’s really wrong , a traitorous voice whispered in the back of his mind. You know it’s about your lies, don’t you?

“Hey,” Fox said, “can you have your existential crisis later?”

Ghost blinked, and found that Fox had navigated them through choked evening traffic so that they were now directly behind Hames. In the glare of headlights, it became apparent that there were two silhouettes in the front seat: Hames had picked up a passenger.

“Wait. When did that happen?”

“I lost sight of him about a half-mile back. He pulled over at a bus stop, which is how we caught up to him so fast, but now he’s got someone with him.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah. If I could get up beside him…” He checked his mirror and over his shoulder, but the left lane was too congested to merge.

“So now what’s your plan?” Ghost could hear the snap of impatience in his voice, and saw Fox lift his brows in response.

“We keep following. And wait for an opening.”

Ghost didn’t answer, because he was letting his stress get the best of him; the moment, the task, at hand, was important , and he couldn’t lose sight of that, no matter how painful his heart palpitations became.

Wouldn’t that be ironic? Faking a heart attack death only to actually keel over from one while he fucked around playing pretend cop in Virginia.

The light changed, the Benz accelerated lurchingly away from it, and Fox followed at a smoother speed. “Look,” he said, “if you can’t get it together, I’ll let you out somewhere and handle this myself.”

“I’m together. I’m fine,” Ghost said, sounding not-fine, and decidedly not-together.

Fox sighed. “Look, they’re probably fine. They’ve got Mercy, and Colin, and Ten and Reese, and the old man, and Toly, and Gray. Plus, Alex can’t be completely useless. Stop worrying.”

“Says the man whose wife and kid are all the way in London, safe and sound.”

Fox shook his head. “Nah. She’s not my wife.”

Of all the day’s conversations, that comment was what finally punched through Ghost’s fog of worry and provided a little clarity. “Oh, fuck you.”

Fox spared him a fast glance, face carved with blue shadows from the dash lights. “Fuck me because…” he drawled, brows lifted, patient in a condescending way, like Ghost was a child pitching a tantrum, like he’d lost a ball game, or misplaced his favorite toy, and not like he was his goddamn president .

“She’s not your wife ?” Ghost asked. He coughed a humorless laugh that hurt his throat. He felt near-hysterical, and channeled into his best defense: good old reliable anger.

“She– ” Fox started, and Ghost cut across him.

“Lemme get this straight: you live with this woman. You don’t fuck anyone but her – I’m assuming.”

Fox gave a fractional shake of his head, and Ghost continued.

“You have a kid with her. You lie down and go to sleep beside her every night. But you think a wedding ring’s what would make you worry. That’s the big difference between you and me, right? The joint bank account?” He was sneering by the end, and didn’t know if he was more disgusted with Fox’s play at indifference, or his own oversight in assuming that Maggie and Ava would actually get on the plane and leave town.

Ahead, the Mercedes hung a right, and Fox had to accelerate through the intersection to make the light. “It’s not like that with Eden and me.”

“No? Which part was a lie?”

“We’re not as… attached ,” he finally settled on, and the word left his lips as though foreign. The careful pronunciation of someone learning a new language. “Not like you and Mags, or Ava and Mercy.”

“No one’s like Ava and Mercy, that’s some unhealthy shit,” Ghost said. “But are you really sitting there trying to tell me you don’t love her? That you don’t worry about her? That you wouldn’t worry if she was in New Orleans right now hunting Boyle?”

Fox didn’t answer, and that was answer in itself.

Before Ghost could needle him more – it felt good, really, to take pot shots at someone else in his current state – his cell rang. The screen flashed Mike Chambers’s name.

Ghost answered with a fast, “What’s up?” and put it on speaker.

“Hey there.” Mike’s voice was its usual gruff, phlegmy croak, but his tone was off. Downright chipper. “Thanks for taking my call. I’d really like to get this hammered out.”

“What?” Ghost said. “Mike, what the hell?”

“Yeah,” Mike said, “I think this is a good opportunity to make sure my family’s taken care of after I’m gone.”

Ghost started ask another question, and Fox silenced him with a slash of his hand through the air. “Mike, if you’re somewhere you can’t talk freely, say ‘yes.’”

“Yes,” Mike said right away. “Uh-huh.”

“Is it someone from the file you gave us?” Fox asked.

“Right. Yeah, Hames thinks this would be a beneficial arrangement for all parties involved.”

The Beemer slowed, and Fox’s gaze flicked up to meet Ghost’s, and for the moment, all their family woes and worries were shoved aside. That passenger silhouette ahead of them belonged to Mike.

“What’s the plan now?” Ghost asked.

Fox adjusted his grip on the wheel and faced forward. “Mike. When we make the next left, and get on the straightaway, brace yourself.”

“Yeah. Okay, will do.”

The line disconnected.

Ghost said, “I take it Hames decided it’d be safer to bring Mike into the fold than stay at odds with him.”

“Or he’s driving him out to an empty field to kill him,” Fox countered.

“Follow them a little farther, then. And let’s see.”

~*~

To Aidan’s shock, Walsh turned over the financing trip to him, leaving him in charge of talking to the banks, the subdivision developer, and then the Parkers. Aidan was riding a high the likes of which he’d never known before: the high of getting things right. Once the feds were gone, with promises to call back to HQ and finally inquire about Remy and Boyle’s whereabouts, church resumed, and a vote was cast. Unanimously in favor of Aidan’s proposal. Hound threw up his hands and said, “After everything, might as fucking well,” but Aidan chose to take that as a ringing endorsement.

He took Tango with him…and they got as far as the parking lot before Aidan was forced to admit, “Shit, I don’t know fuck about banking.”

Tango had snorted.

With Walsh out of the question – you couldn’t fall back on the guy who’d done the delegating – they turned to the only other financial genius they knew.

“It’s just as well,” Ian had said when they were seated in his office with complimentary iced coffees neither of them touched. “A purchase that large, you’d have needed my help anyway. This just cuts out the middle man with Walsh.” He’d winked at them like they were co-conspirators, and he and Tango traded what have we done looks.

For show. Ian was, as ever, invaluable.

With Ian at the helm, the developers, though bewildered by the sudden interest from one of Knoxville’s wealthiest residents, jumped on the chance to sell. Ian signed all the papers, Aidan at his elbow, and they got the ball rolling on the transfer of the property to Dartmoor Inc., with Ian still a partial owner for all the bookkeeping ins and outs that Aidan wasn’t going to pretend to understand. When he had the time, Walsh could get it sorted. For now, the Dogs owned the one-hundred-fifteen acres that bordered the Parkers to the east.

Now, he, Tango, and Ian seated in the middle between them, had a corner booth at Bell Bar, two empty chairs waiting opposite them for their potential new business associates.

Tango checked the time on his phone. “Eight-thirty-eight,” he said.

Aidan realized he was fiddling with his coaster, and set it aside. “Lewis said he’d try to get his old man here, but I wouldn’t blame the guy if he blew us off.”

“He won’t,” Ian said, confidently. “The proudest man in the world knows better than to let his family starve if he can do something about it – even if it means he has to submit to another man’s authority.”

Aidan shot him a sideways look, and found him smirking, slicked-back hair and diamond cufflinks gleaming under the brass sconces mounted on the wall behind them. “Why do you have to make that kinda shit sound dirty?”

Ian’s lips curved in amusement, gaze slanting over. “It’s a gift, really.”

Tango sat up straight, expression tightening. “They’re here.”

“See.” Ian leaned in to whisper. “What did I tell you?”

Just inside the door, Lewis dragged his ballcap off his head and began rolling the bill between his hands in a clear show of nerves. The man standing beside him looked the way Lewis doubtless would in thirty years: same wheaten blond hair, flattened from a ballcap, silver at the temples. He was clearly the source of Lewis’s nose, and jawline, and eyes, but lined and weathered from years spent in the sun. Hands knobby and callused and work-roughened stuck out from the rolled-up sleeves of his flannel shirt. He looked every inch the farmer.

And every inch skeptical. His brows tucked low as he surveyed the inside of the bar, mouth curved in a harsh frown. He scanned the walls, the floor, the table, the bar in back like he was hoping to find a flaw, but Aidan knew there was none. Bell Bar had never looked better. In fact, he and Tango were the shoddiest things in the place.

Lewis spotted them, and relief touched his face a moment – then his gaze shifted and he caught sight of Ian. His brows flew up, and he froze in the act of turning toward their booth, and Aidan wished he’d been able to keep Ian out of this part of it. He needed his financial reassurances, though, so he gritted his teeth, forced a smile, and lifted a hand.

Lewis stared at him a moment, then nudged his dad, and headed for their table.

“Try not to act like a Bond villain,” Aidan muttered to Ian out the side of his mouth.

“I beg your pardon.” Ian smoothed his jacket, his deep purple shirt, and stood, hand offered across the table as Lewis and his father reached them. “Misters Parker, hello, lovely to meet you,” he said in his Boss Voice, which was more melodious and friendly than the Bond Villain Voice he’d exercised on the Lean Dogs the first day they met him, what now seemed like centuries ago. His smile was wide, and disarming, though cut-crystal enough that it never seemed truly innocent; there was no helping that, it was just his posh genetics.

Lewis had seen Ian at the festival, though he still looked shocked to see him here.

Lewis’s father stared at Ian like he might grow a second head. Once the shock wore off – a span of seconds – his brows slammed down, and a surly frown tugged at the sun-worn grooves of his face. “I’m supposed to be meeting with the Lean Dogs.”

Ian retracted his hand in a smooth motion as though he’d never offered it, and adjusted his cufflinks. “And so you are.” He gestured to either side, Aidan and Tango, before smoothing his jacket and resuming his seat. “My name’s Shaman, and I’m a close confidant, associate, and financier of the Lean Dogs Motorcycle Club.”

It was effort not to roll his eyes.

“This is Tango Estes, and Aidan Teague, who I believe you spoke with over the phone this afternoon. Please.” He motioned to the two chairs. “Have a seat.”

Father looked at son, silently demanding an explanation, but Lewis dragged out a chair and thumped down into it without looking back. After a beat, frown deepening, the father followed suit. He leaned back in his chair, arms folded tightly across his chest, ready not to believe anything they had to say.

Ian gathered a breath to continue, and Aidan held up a hand. “Nah, I got it from here, man, thanks.” He patted the back of Ian’s arm where it rested on the table, and caught the fast flicker of Ian’s smile, quickly smoothed.

“Mr. Parker.” He addressed the father. “I’m the one who wanted to meet with you.” He didn’t offer his hand because he didn’t think the man would take it. “Lewis came to see me a few months back, wanting to prospect the club.”

Lewis made a choked-back sound of affront, and earned a sharp glance from his father, before the man turned back to Aidan. “That’s news to me.” His voice was clear, and cold, and twangy at the edges with Tennessee. Aidan was reminded, uncomfortably, of Ghost. Of his lifelong disapproval, and his stubborn immobility. A reminder chased by grief of the kind that he swallowed, and pushed down, and tried his best to ignore.

“He was persistent,” Aidan said. “Signed up at our booth at the festival, and then came by the shop looking for me.”

Lewis earned another glare from his father, and he glared at Aidan. “ Dude .”

Mr. Parker said, “Six months ago, I’d have called you a damn liar, because no way was my son gonna sign up to be a criminal. But after yesterday…” He shook his head.

“Dad–”

“Was that you?” Parker asked Aidan. “It was, wasn’t it? Sending the FBI to dig up my damn pastures.”

“I didn’t send them.” A lie, but one that couldn’t be proven, thanks very much. “The feds have been terrorizing us, and the whole city, for months. Ask around.”

The man’s frown deepened, which meant he already had.

“I told Lewis,” Aidan continued, “that he didn’t want any part of that when he came by the shop, but he kept trying anyway. Not because he wanted to become a criminal .” Aidan rolled his eyes. “But because he wanted to help his family. He said you guys had already sold off most of the farm and might lose the rest of it.”

Mr. Parker’s gaze slid toward his son, without turning his head, then back to Aidan. “We’re fine,” he said, tightly, folded arms tucking even closer into his middle.

“Yeah. Sure, buddy.”

“I’m not your–”

“Buddy? No. You seem like a real stuckup dickhead, actually. But I’m guessing that’s partly the FBI’s fault. And the fact that you can’t pay your bills.”

The chair screeched across the hardwood as Parker pushed it back and stood.

“Sure,” Aidan said mildly. “You can leave. Or you can sit back down, get over yourself, and hear what I’ve got to say.”

“Dad.” Lewis, still seated, turned a half-desperate look of pleading up to his father. “Can you at least listen to him?” He glanced over his shoulder, and in a quieter voice said, “The Lean Dogs make shit happen in this city. We’ve got no other options.”

“That’s true,” Ian said, “the Lean Dogs do make shit happen .”

“And I can make shit happen – good shit – for you,” Aidan said, catching Parker’s gaze, and holding it, daring him to glance away with a look. “Today, I bought the unfinished subdivision next door to your property.”

The man’s brows lifted, the first sign of surprise.

“Yeah,” Aidan said. “So you can leave, sure, or you can sit down, have a drink and a burger on the house, ‘cause I own this fucking bar, and you can listen to my proposition. At least that way, if you say no, you’ll know what you’re turning down.”

A long beat passed, one in which Lewis sent Aidan a pleading sort of look that Aidan soothed with a gesture.

Parker noticed it – of course he did – and his lip curled, because he didn’t like it – of course he didn’t – but he finally tugged his chair up closer, and sat.

Tango signaled and Jazz sent a waitress their way.

“What’re you drinking?” Aidan asked, and tried not to sound too smug.

“Whiskey sour.”

When the drinks arrived, he launched his pitch.

~*~

Fox waited longer than originally planned to rear-end Hames. Long enough to get outside of the city limits, and onto a stretch of lightless, wooded road that made it clear Hames planned to drive Mike out into the middle of nowhere and shoot him. Far enough that when Fox hit the gas, and the BMW sent the Benz careening off onto the shoulder where it tangled and choked on waist-high grass, there were no passing cars to witness what happened next.

They didn’t revisit the office building where they’d taken Sawyer. Too much risk in the overlap. Fox drove the Mercedes, and Ghost drove the Beemer, and they ventured on ahead, until they found the place that had been Hames’s original destination: an old defunct natural gas storage facility, with a weed-choked gravel lot ringed by chain link and barbed wire, the tanks rusted and, hopefully, empty. There was a shed, with cracked and cobwebbed windows, and a shiny new lock on the door. Fox found a key in Hames’s pocket, and let them in, where they found a camp chair, and a roll of duct tape.

Hames, sweat pouring down his face, eyes rolling wildly, tugged fruitlessly at his bonds and looked up at the three of them, searched each face for some sign of mercy.

In the close confines of the shed, body heat built, and layered, and intensified, until Ghost wanted to take his jacket off, but didn’t dare, worried he might drip sweat down onto the ancient floorboards and leave some trace of DNA. All of them had pulled on itchy wool stocking caps to cover their hair, and sterile, nitrile gloves to keep from leaving prints. Hames’s breath came it short, quick bursts that echoed off the walls, like the panting of a frightened dog.

He settled on Mike, finally, for his appeal. “Chambers.” His voice shook, but Ghost didn’t think there was a drop of alcohol left in his bloodstream, scared fully sober. “I thought we had a deal. I thought we came to an understanding .”

“An understanding that ended up here?” Mike gestured to their surroundings. “I think that’s the sort of agreement that ends with a bullet in the back of my head.”

Hames shook his head, but the way his sweat-slick face paled said, yes, that’s right . “But that didn’t happen. Nothing’s happened yet.” His gaze flicked to Ghost, to Fox. “We can still make this right. I can still cut you in. And you,” he said to Ghost. “Whoever you are. If you want.”

Ghost had run on numb necessity all throughout the car crash, the apprehension, the drive over here. From the moment Fox said, “It’s gotta be now,” Ghost had slid into work mode, emotionless and ruthless as he needed to be to catch Hames, and keep him quiet, and get him here so they could press him for answers.

But now – whoever you are – panic-sharpened anger reared up inside him, and as the crickets and the owls chorused them beyond the cloudy windows, he didn’t try to hold it in check.

He lunged forward, and slapped his hands down on the arms of the chair – on Hames’s arms, where they were taped to the chair. Hames flinched back so hard that he would have toppled the chair over if not for Ghost’s claw-fingered grip. “ Whoever I am ?” Somewhere between his chest and his tongue, his shout turned low and silky-soft, and he thought, once Hames shrank back from it, that it was more effective than any furious scream would have been. “I’m the asshole whose grandson your attack dog abducted, and you don’t even know who I am ?”

He was prepared to drill his identity into the man’s head, perhaps literally, but Hames got it right away.

His eyes bugged, and he sucked in a gasp. “Oh, shit–”

“Yeah. ‘Oh shit.’ Where the fuck is Boyle?”

Up close like this, nearly nose to nose, Ghost could see the prominent red veins in the whites of the man’s eyes; the broken capillaries branching across his cheeks, and the sides of his nose. The pouchy give of his jowls, and a spot he’d missed shaving, and Hames was entirely human at this angle. Not a faceless, all- powerful suit or badge, some hand of God smiting the outlaw from on high. Just a man: one with a drinking problem, and a once-athletic body gone to pot; doubtless one on cholesterol or blood pressure medicine or both. He had sunglasses tan lines along his temples, and his scalp showed pink through his thinning hair. He was too high-up to be doing field work; it was easy to picture a boat, a dock, a lake house: some place restful and fun where Hames and his family went to relax after the commissioning of kidnappings.

He was human, same as Ghost, same as any of them. Humans could be hurt .

Ghost pulled the knife from his pocket, flicked it open, and pressed it up against the man’s jugular. Hames went still, save the rolling of his eyes, and the panicked, whistling breaths that flared his nostrils.

The sight of him like that, frightened and at Ghost’s mercy, was soothing. Ghost’s voice was normal when he said, “Where’s Boyle?”

Hames winced. “I don’t know.”

An image flashed in Ghost’s mind, of Walsh in his own garage, face a mask of cold fury, hand vicious on the knife when he killed the man who’d tripped his driveway alarm. It had been a stunning moment, witnessing the fray of Walsh’s notorious calm. Seeing him lash out from a composure that had, somewhere along the way, fractured, and fractured badly.

Ghost stepped back, and let the knife hand fall to his side. He turned to Mike, and lifted his brows expectantly. “You know what I’m after.” He tilted his head toward Hames. “Get it for me.”

Mike gave him a bemused look, then shrugged, and took Ghost’s place in front of Hames – whose teeth had begun to chatter.

“I told you,” he said to Mike, braver than he’d been with Ghost, “I don’t know where he is.”

“Well, I figure he didn’t outright tell you, sure. So you can’t say where he is definitively . But we both know he went to New Orleans, and we both know that he took that boy with him.

“Now.” Mike squatted down with a wince, wobbled, and might have fallen over on his ass if he hadn’t gripped Hames’s knees for support. “I think we both know how you meant for this to go tonight, but, obviously, that’s not gonna happen now. You’re the one over a barrel now, Director, and I might be old and tired, and not as fit for duty as I used to be, but this young man here” – he gestured over his shoulder to Fox with one shaking hand – “isn’t dying of cancer, and he’s looking for that little boy, too. I don’t think I need to explain to you how this conversation plays out if you don’t cooperate, do I?” The last he said almost gently, and accompanied it with a pat to Hames’s knee.

Ghost was reminded of Mercy. Of his voice when he interrogated someone, that play of silken and down home friendly. His conversational, warm tone just before he plied someone’s teeth from their skulls.

Hames panted a moment, looking at Mike, at Ghost, at Fox. Then he pressed his lips tight together and shook his head.

Fox withdrew his own knife, stepped forward, and in one smooth movement, gripped Hames’s ear and brought the knife to bear just beneath the lobe. Blood blossomed, crimson-black beneath the shed’s dangling bare bulb, and Ghost didn’t think Fox was halfway through the flesh before Hames screamed.

“Wait, wait, wait!” he cried, high and shrill on the tail end of his initial shriek. “Please!”

“That’s alright.” Mike patted his knees again. “It doesn’t have to be painful.”

Fox twisted a glance over his shoulder, and at Ghost’s nod, took a step back, blue glove splashed with blood.

Hames wheezed and whined another moment. When he shook his head, droplets of blood scattered across the leg of his pants, his sleeve, the floor. Ghost made a mental note to mop it up with something before they left.

“It’s not me,” Hames said. He tilted his head as the blood began to trail down his jaw, his neck, like he was trying to press the damaged ear into his shoulder, but couldn’t reach. “It’s not – you don’t understand – this is bigger than me.” His gaze fixed on Ghost, finally, frantic, begging . “I was charged with getting rid of the Lean Dogs. Boyle’s just the trigger man, and he's…fuck, he’s insane .” His face flooded with color, dark fury and contempt.

“Which is why you used him in the first place, right?” Ghost said.

“Same with Fallon,” Fox said, and Ghost noted that he was using a flat, generic American accent. Should he be disguising his own voice? What did it matter, at this point? Hames wasn’t walking out of this shed when they were done. “Fallon’s a pedo, and Boyle’s a hothead with blood on his hands. You chose them because you have leverage over them.”

Mike said, “Who has leverage over you?”

Hames sat up straight, leaned back as far as he could in his chair, and clamped his lips shut.

“You’re taped to a chair, and you’re still protecting them?”

Hames worked his jaw back and forth, jowls quivering with tension. “I have a family.”

“And you think I won’t exploit them?”

Hames studied him a moment. “No, I don’t think you will.”

“You want to ask your friend Sawyer about that?”

Hames blinked, startled, but recovered fast, face clamping down again. “If you killed her, then I know you’ll kill me. You’ve got me here now, so you don’t need my family for leverage.”

“Christ,” Ghost muttered. “That’s it, then? You don’t care if he carves you up, one piece at a time?”

“You’re a known entity,” Hames shot back. He sneered. “The do-good bikers.”

Ghost looked to Fox, who stepped forward, knife raised again, and neatly took the man’s right ear off. Fox’s expression never changed, which meant he wasn’t overly bothered by what he’d done – but unlike Mercy, he hadn’t gotten a thrill out of it.

Hames screamed. Ghost wondered, back of his neck crawling, if anyone was in earshot. There wasn’t a house or any sort of building within view, but that didn’t necessarily mean they were alone here.

He checked the windows, peering past the lacework of spiderwebs out at the darkness of night, full black now, moonless. Some ambient glow from the glitchy light pole out at the street flickered and gleamed on the parts of the old gas tanks not patched with rust. On the pipes, and the wheels of the on/off valves. It looked like the set of a zombie movie, a world abandoned by mankind; but it felt like they were being watched.

The back of his neck tingled again, and he smoothed the hair down there and turned back to face the interior of the shed, where Hames’s scream had tailed off into a sad, pathetic whimper.

Ghost was tired, suddenly. Exhausted. His wife and his daughter were in New Orleans against orders; one of his sons was in London, and the other thought he was dead, and would hate him when he found out he wasn’t.

It was time to end this. And maybe, he reflected, it had never been worth embarking upon in the first place.

“Tell us who put the hit out on my club,” Ghost said. “Give us a name, and the pain stops.”

Hames glanced toward the window, and back. “I can’t.”

“I know it’s Abacus,” Ghost said. “I know all about those fuckers. Tell me who , specifically, or he’s gonna take your other ear!”

Again, he looked toward the window.

Fox stepped forward – and Ghost held out a hand. Wait.

He walked in close to Hames, leaned into his face again. “Why do they want to arrest us?” he asked, changing tack. “If they want us gone, why not just kill us?”

He didn’t think Hames would answer. But, finally, the man wet his lips and whispered, “They want to embarrass you. They don’t want to kill you: they want to ruin you.”

“ Who ?”

Warm wetness flooded Ghost’s face. A sudden burst, like hot coffee thrown full force. It filled his eyes, and he stepped back, swiping at them, gasping at the salty, hot layer of slime that bloomed in his mouth, that splashed up his nostrils, landed in hot stripes across his cheeks and forehead.

Blood. It tasted like blood.

A hand fisted in the back of his shirt and dragged him to the floor. “Get down, get down,” Fox barked, and his knees slammed to the floorboards, teeth clicking from the impact, and Fox’s hands pressed his head down, down, covering the back of his skull. It was only then that Ghost realized the ringing in his ears was the fading echo of a rifle shot; that the musical tinkling was window glass raining down to the floor.

“Ho-oly shit,” Mike swore, and there was a scuffle of shoe soles. “Sniper. They fucking sniped him.”

“Who the fuck is they ?” Ghost snapped, and brought his sleeve up to mop the blood and gore from his face, an awkward movement thanks to the way Fox was crouching over him and pinning him down.

When his eyes were clear, he blinked the last bits of sticky blood from his lashes and peered up at the chair. He was eye level with Hames’s feet, and could see a yellow stain spreading across the top of one white sock where the man had pissed himself in death. From this angle, all Ghost could see of his head was his angled-back neck and chin and jaw, but blood was running down it, and there was a jellied mess on the floor beyond the chair where the exit wound had sprayed bone, and blood, and gray matter.

“Let me up,” Ghost said, but Fox pressed down more firmly on his head.

“No one followed us.” He sounded incensed. “No one, I checked!”

“They musta already been in position,” Mike said. “There’s trees all around here. Maybe even a deer stand.”

“Shit,” Fox swore, with feeling. He sounded alive and hot-blooded in a way he normally didn’t, and that sent a cold lick of fear down Ghost’s back. When Fox panicked, it was time to fucking panic.

“Let me up,” he said again, more urgently, and this time Fox’s hands lifted.

Ghost sat up on his knees and mopped his face some more with his sleeve. Spat another man’s blood down onto the floor.

“DNA,” Fox muttered, as his head swiveled side to side, scanning the windows.

“Fuck the DNA. They know we’re here, and they know who we are.”

The shot, he saw, had entered through the window to their right, shattering it before it shattered Hames’s skull like a melon. One of the two-by-four wall studs was shattered beyond, where the round had punched

through and out into the night, its original trajectory altered by the bone and meat through which it had passed first.

Mike stood flattened against a portion of windowless wall, hands pressed back against it, too-thin chest hitching and shuddering as he fought to catch his breath. Fox had pulled his gun, and held it up by his head in his right hand, his other palm braced on the floor, ready to push to his feet.

Ghost’s pulse throbbed quick and dizzying at the base of his throat.

They were all waiting for another shot, he realized. None of them were in a sightline in front of a window, but the sniper had been watching them; it was a small shed, and they could probably guess where each of the three of them was standing.

Blood dripped from the ruin of Hames’s head onto the floor, obscenely loud counterpoint to their panted breathing.

Ghost turned to Mike. “Was this your people or a private contractor?”

“How the hell should I know?” Mike pressed a hand to his chest, not over his heart, but on the right side, and his next rattling breath said his lungs – surely the source of his killing cancer – were hurting. “You want me to go out there and ask the guy who he works for?”

Slowly, keeping clear of the windows, Fox got to his feet. “We are going to have to get out of here. If they’re going to kill us, they’re going to kill us, whether we go or stay, and we’ve got to go.”

“Yeah, no shit.” Ghost stood, too, frowning at the way his knees trembled. He looked at the body, head bent back on a limp neck, reeking of urine, so freshly dead it still radiated heat and fear sweat. They would have to dispose of it; mop the blood off the floor. Ditch the Mercedes. Burn the clothes they were currently wearing. Tasks that seemed Herculean in the moment, pinned beneath the scope of a sniper rifle.

Ghost looked at Fox, at Mike, and back at Fox. “What? Do we just walk out?”

Fox’s expression was grim, but he nodded. “That’s all we can do.”

“Well. Alright. Shit.”

A phone started to ring.

~*~

The first time Ian’s phone buzzed in his interior jacket pocket, he ignored it. Aidan was doing a splendid job with his sales pitch, and Ian was content to sit, and listen, and would then be ready, once the Parkers inevitably agreed, shook hands, and left, to reassure Aidan that he’d done well, and that he’d made a smart decision his father could only approve of.

(And wasn’t that going to be an unpleasant revelation? Ian had planned on keeping his lips tightly sealed as to Ghost’s little fake-out death, but sitting with Aidan, speaking with him, was making that very difficult. He wanted to blurt it out: your father’s alive! He’d always been good with secrets, but this one wanted to come out.)

The second time his phone buzzed, he slipped it from his jacket and checked the screen. He had a missed call from an unknown number, and a text from Alec.

Take the next call. It’s important .

A prickling of uneasiness moved down his arms, raising the hairs there. Alec knew what his meeting was about tonight, and he never interrupted unless there was an urgent matter at hand. “Let me know when you’re done,” he’d said, earlier, and kissed him quick and sweet before Ian went out the door with Bruce.

He glanced now across the interior of Bell Bar, and made eye contact with Bruce, where he stood unobtrusively against a section of wall just inside the door. When Ian lifted his phone and then his brows in silent question, Bruce shook his head and frowned. He didn’t know what it was about either.

Tango leaned in and said, “What?”

“Nothing.”

Ian’s phone buzzed again, and he said, “If you’ll excuse me, I’m afraid I’ll need to take this.”

Mr. Parker – who still hadn’t offered his first name in some show of distrust or stubbornness or both – shot him a suspicious, dark look, and Ian smiled in response.

“I’ll only be a moment.”

Tango slid out of the booth to let him past, and Ian answered while he was still striding toward the back of the bar, toward the staircase that led up to the second floor. Ghost wouldn’t begrudge him the use of his office.

“Good evening, this is Shaman,” he greeted, low and smooth. A shadow behind him proved that Bruce was following. “What can I do for you?”

“Mr. Shaman.” The voice on the other end of the line was smooth as well, and accented, too, though not British. Ian faltered halfway up the steps, then continued, Bruce’s footfalls heavy behind him. “I’ve just gotten off the phone with your lovely husband.”

The prickling on Ian’s arms shivered into gooseflesh, and a cold sweat broke out between his shoulder blades. He envisioned Alec as he’d left him: casual lounge pants and t-shirt, soft from countless washings, glass of wine at his elbow, book open in his hands. A quiet evening in, and he’d be waiting, sweet and welcoming, when Ian got home. He thought of him like that, and thought of his phone ringing, and of this silken voice filling his ear, and his stomach flopped wildly.

Ian had been a shot-caller, string-puller, man-manipulator, and drug dealer long enough to know that he wore a loud, red target on his back. But someone knowing Alec’s identity, knowing his phone number , filled him with clammy dread.

His voice was light, though, as he reached the landing and said, “He is lovely, isn’t he? There’s lots of lovely boys in the world, but he’s just so amenable , I haven’t had the impatience to move on to someone new yet.”

“Hm. I imagine an opportunity will present itself,” the voice said. “After all: amenability can be bought, and word has it you’re a wealthy man.”

What word? Ian’s heart raced. He reached to tug at the already-open collar of his shirt as he rounded the corner into the office. The rug that Big Jonny had bled all over had already been replaced, as had the chairs and photo frames that Boyle had destroyed during his search. The computer on the desk was so new no one had bothered to peel the protective film off the monitor screen yet.

“Oh, I don’t like to boast,” Ian said, pushing a smile into his voice as he crossed the room to lean a hip against the edge of the desk. There was a new paperweight there, a black marble base with a bronze eagle in flight atop it; he traced the wings with a fingertip to give his nervous hand something to do. “But I’d say I’m comfortable.”

“How modest.”

“What about you, friend? Are you comfortable?”

The stranger hummed a considering note. “More than most, perhaps. And certainly in a position to make others very uncomfortable .”

Ian had established himself as someone who spoke in riddles and inuendo; had dealt with men who did the same. But he’d spent too much time with the Lean Dogs at this point – professionally and personally – and so this man’s, this stranger’s, veiled threat set his teeth on edge.

But he kept his tone agreeable. Breezy. “I imagine so. My imagination fails me, though, I’m afraid, as I try to conjure your face. Where was it that we met?”

The man’s chuckle was rusty, somehow pleasing, and sent a chill skittering across every inch of Ian’s skin. “We haven’t. Not yet, at least. But you’re a smart man, you already know that.”

Ian did know that, but that didn’t ease the throbbing of his heart. He rested his hip more firmly against the desk, and stared unseeing out the floor-to-ceiling windows, the illuminated street and buildings against the smoke-black backdrop of the night sky. He wondered how Aidan was faring downstairs; if Mr. Parker had taken his hand, finally, or stormed out.

Ian dropped his pleasant act, voice firm, vibrating faintly with nerves and anger when he said, “If you’re calling to threaten me, you’re wasting your breath. Though calling my husband first was certainly a good attempt.”

“If I wanted to threaten you, I’d have my man in Viriginia shoot Kenneth Teague and his friends right this moment. He’s watching them through his scope as you and I speak. They’re smart enough to avoid the windows, but that won’t be a problem for my man’s rifle.”

Shit. Shit, shit, shit . Ian took a slow breath and let it out carefully, so as not to let the man on the other end of the line hear it. “Ah, Kenneth. He does like to get himself in trouble.”

“Currently, he’s in the company of one of his people, and an FBI agent, both of whom I’m prepared to let live if I have your cooperation.”

“Cooperation with what ?”

“You don’t know my name, but you know who I am.”

Ian curled his hand around the eagle paperweight, squeezing until his knuckles turned white. “You’re with Abacus.”

“I am Abacus,” the man corrected. “It’s grown beyond my wildest imaginings, but it was born with me. I’m it’s originatior.”

“You know,” Ian mused, “I have a friend who accuses me of being a ‘Bond villain.’ I think he’d reevaluate that definition if he had the chance to speak with you.”

“I want to make you an offer,” the man continued, without acknowledging the jab. “An opportunity, you might say.”

Ian’s stomach turned over again, acid gnawing at the base of his throat. He blinked, and he saw his reflection as it had been at twelve, at fifteen, at eighteen, with kohl ringing his eyes, and a feather boa looped around his throat. “You want me to join Abacus.” He wanted to retch once he’d said the words aloud.

“You’re the one who skewered one of our highest ranking members yourself. It’s only right you should take his place.”

“How does it help you? Bringing me aboard?”

The man sighed, though patiently. Kindly, as a tutor would at an especially slow student. “We have a system in place by which we control law enforcement. We have federal control of all our operational systems, and agents in place internationally. If local police start sticking their noses in, then the federal authorities can dissuade them. It’s the outlaws who’ve proved…troublesome.”

“You never counted on the Lean Dogs,” Ian said, with satisfaction.

“Initially, no. The criminal underworld operates with a blind eye; aside from turf wars, no one cares what others are doing. But the Lean Dogs, as you said, weren’t supposed to be a problem. They won’t be, in the long run. I’ve tried to handle things as subtly as possible.”

“By arresting its members? By kidnapping a child?”

He made a dismissive noise. “Decisions made by my delegates, I assure you. And I, personally, have decided to approach things differently.”

“By getting me to help you traffic girls.”

“By partnering with you,” he said, again with that tone like Ian was especially stupid. “You’re no saint, Shaman, that I know. I want you to come to New York, and meet with me. Hear my proposal, and I can promise you a violence-free parlay environment. Whatever you decide, you’ll be allowed to leave of your own volition, and we’ll pursue either our partnership, or our adversarial relationship, going forward. I do think, though, that you’ll come around to my way of thinking.”

Ian said, “What’s in it for me? Why come? Why take the risk that you’re lying?”

“Because if you don’t agree to come, Kenneth Teague and his two friends are going to die the moment you end this phone call. I will then pick off each and every Lean Dog until the entire club, and all its friends, is decimated.”

Ian wet his dry lips and breathed for a moment, watching the dark beyond the glass. His reflection as this distance was a faint ghost, too-pale, weaving slightly where it was braced on the edge of the desk.

“What shall it be?” the man – Abacus – asked. “Will you meet with me?”

What choice did he have?

“Yes,” he said, in a small, choked voice.

“Very good. I’ll reach back out with details soon. Have a pleasant evening, Mr. Shaman.” The line went dead with a click.

Ian held the phone to his ear for a long moment afterward, silence ringing around him.

Behind him, Bruce shifted his weight, and the floorboards creaked. “Sir?” he ventured, at last.

“It’s fine, Bruce.” Ian pulled the phone away from his face long enough to pull up his call log and tap on Ghost’s name.

~*~

Ghost’s phone was the one ringing. He let it go to voicemail. But then it rang again, and when Mike huffed in annoyance, he pulled it from his pocket and saw Ian’s name flashing on the screen.

The call ended, then started up again.

“Not the time,” Ghost snapped when he answered.

“Kenneth, listen to me.” Ian’s voice was high and strained with tension, and so unlike his usual half-flirtatious coy tenor that Ghost did indeed listen. “Abacus called me.”

Ghost stared at Hames’s lifeless body and tried to get his thoughts in some sort of order. “They did?”

“ He did. The man who considers himself its founder. Don’t ask for his name because he didn’t offer it. He’s European – Eastern, at a guess, but there was a note of French in his accent, I believe, and–”

“Ian.”

A gulping sound issued from the other end of the line. “He’s in the ear of the sniper who has you pinned down. He said – he said you can walk out, and you won’t be harmed.”

“What? Why not?”

“I made a deal with him. Leave the body, and the car. Walk away, and you won’t be harmed.”

Ghost walked toward the nearest window, the one that had been shattered by the bullet, and peered out into the darkness, heart thumping now for a different reason. “What was the deal?”

“Leave that to me. For now, you need–”

“Ian. What was the deal ?”

“It doesn’t matter, it kept you alive tonight,” Ian spat, and Ghost could hear the quake of fear beneath his waspish tone. “Get out of the bloody place and ask your FBI man where the nearest private airfield is, and I’ll meet you there in two hours.”

“Ian–” he tried.

“ No . I’m coming. But please – Kenneth, please get out of there. Promise me you will. Leave, and find somewhere safe to lie low, and I’ll meet you at the airfield.”

He was so desperate, so frightened, pleading with him, that all Ghost could do was agree. “Okay. Okay, we’ll leave.” When he turned around, he found Fox and Mike giving him different versions of the same darkly incredulous look.

“Leave now,” Ian pressed.

“We will, we will.”

“Call me when you’re away,” Ian said. “I’m calling my pilot now.” Then he hung up.

“What’s he done?” Fox asked when Ghost tucked his phone away.

“Made a deal with the damn devil. But he says we can walk out of here without getting shot.”

Mike’s brows flew up. “Who says?”

“A friend.”

“If he’s that good of a friend, why hasn’t he been here the whole time?”

Neither of them answered him. Ghost looked at Fox, whose gaze had gone somehow withdrawn and dark at the same time. A look that expected – no, demanded – action on Ghost’s part. This is your mess, now fix it . Which was fair, even if it left Ghost bristling.

“Come on,” he said, and turned to the door.

His hand was on the latch when Fox struck across him with a blocking arm. Ghost stepped back, and Fox opened the door, and stepped out first. He’d put his gun away, and he held his empty hands aloft, walking with slow, deliberate steps. He made it fifteen or so paces before he turned back, shrugged, and invited them to follow with a tilt of his head.

They made it to the BMW, inside, and Fox started the engine. Not a single shot was fired.

~*~

“What do you say?” Aidan asked, and offered his most disarming smile. He’d always used it on women in the past, but it eased some of the tension in Mr. Parker’s face now. “Do we have a deal?”

Aidan had freaked a little when Ian left the table, not at all confident in his ability to run the numbers game. But Tango had slid over to take Ian’s empty seat, and, sitting with their shoulders pressed together, he’d reminded himself that he’d looked at all the paperwork, and that he’d actually listened when Ian did the math with the bank, and that he knew this. That it was his idea in the first place. He took a deep breath, and centered himself.

Across the table, Parker scratched at his jaw, which was an improvement: he’d relaxed enough to uncross his arms, and finally ordered a second drink, and his cheeks were a little pink from the alcohol and his mouth no longer a flat, pinched line of unhappiness. “My grandfather would be rolling in his grave,” he commented, and there was something rueful about the shake of his head, and the twitch at the corner of his mouth.

“Sitting down with Lean Dogs?”

“Letting someone else run the family farm.”

“Well, technically,” Aidan said, encouraged, “you’d still be running it…”

Parker was nodding and waving him off before he was finished. He drained the last of his whiskey sour and said, “Yeah, yeah, I know. You laid it all out.” He tapped the folder Aidan had offered him earlier, filled with a comprehensive business plan, one only edited by Walsh, but initially written up by Aidan himself.

Parker sighed. “Well. I don’t guess it matters what he’d think: he lost eighty acres before he died. I’m about six months from having to sell of what little’s left, and then the whole place’ll be gone.”

“Dad,” Lewis said, prompting, and Parker nodded and motioned for him to be quiet. Aidan didn’t miss the kid’s unhappy look.

“Fine,” Parker said at last. “But if something happens to my son–”

“I’ll sponsor him myself,” Aidan said, with a twinge of guilt, because there was no way to protect anyone associated with the club fully or indefinitely. “I’ll watch out for him.”

Parker contemplated the ice in his glass, the folder, and then a patch of empty table, before he finally lifted his head, and met Aidan’s gaze head-on, unflinching. He stuck his hand across the table. “We have a deal, Mr. Teague.”

Aidan gripped his hand, and tried to keep his smile in check. “Just Aidan.”

“Glenn,” Parker offered, and his hand was dry, and work-roughened, and his grip was honest.

Ian reappeared, suddenly and far less gracefully than normal. He’d been his usual composed and self-assured self when he excused himself from the table, but now sweat sheened his temples and his hair was ruffled, his collar rumpled like he’d been tugging on it.

“Whoa, what happened to you?”

“I’m afraid I can’t stay.” He turned a toothsome, half-crazed smile on the Parkers that left both men pressing back in their chairs. “Lovely to meet you both. I trust Aidan conveyed our interest in working alongside you? Wonderful,” he said, without waiting for an assent. “Aidan, be a dear and walk me out.”

Bewildered, Aidan pushed up from the table as Ian, Bruce in his wake, stalked to the door. “I’ll be right back.”

On the sidewalk, Ian was pacing a tight circle. The Jag was parked in one of the slanted spaces at the curb, and Bruce hit the remote start on the fob; the car came to life with an expensive purr.

“What’s going on?”

Ian stared across the street a moment, and when he turned to Aidan, he looked so pale and spooked that Aidan felt a lick of cold fear echo in his stomach.

“ What ?”

Aidan could see Ian weigh what he wanted to tell him. “The phone call…that was Abacus.”

“Shit.”

“They want – well, it doesn’t matter what they want, because I’m going to handle it. But I have to leave tonight.”

“Shit,” Aidan said. “Do you need me to come with you? Do you need…”

But Ian shook his head. “No, they need you here.” He smiled, pained. “You’re doing splendidly. And I – I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

Ian shook his head again. “Please be safe. Call me if you have need of the jet and I’ll send it back down.”

“Ian…” he said, feeling unmoored, and helpless. “The bank stuff…”

“You have it handled, you just lack confidence. Kingston is very good at it, ask him for help if you need it, but I think you’re doubting yourself unnecessarily.” While Aidan was still gaping at him, he said, “Be safe. I’ll call you.” He swooped in and kissed Aidan on the cheek.

Then he climbed into the back of the Jag and was gone.