Twenty-Nine

The only other time Ghost had approached the doors of this hospital, Aidan had been waiting for him, shaken and smoking.

He was standing there now, beneath the cover of the porte-cochere. Eight years older. A father now. A husband. The current VP of the mother chapter. He still looked rattled, though, too pale, and he was smoking, gray ribbons twining up from the lit cigarette he held between two fingers.

Ghost adjusted the hood of his jacket against the gentle, sweeping rain that had been falling across New Orleans since dawn, and lengthened his stride.

He could tell when Aidan spotted him, because he stilled, and his shoulders tensed, and then lifted.

Ghost stepped under the overhang and pushed his hood back. He was struck by the sudden, strong urge to close the gap between them, and pull Aidan to him. To hold him like he hadn’t done nearly enough when he was a little boy, and Ghost had been a selfish, wallowing prick who hadn’t been around enough. He wanted to say I’m sorry, son. My boy. I’m so sorry.

But the way Aidan’s face tightened told him that wouldn’t be welcome. He pulled up a few feet away, and shoved his hands in his pockets.

Aidan took a drag, and as he did, his gaze flicked down to Ghost’s boots, and back up. On the exhale, he said, “You don’t look bad for a dead man.”

Fuck, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I thought I was doing the best thing. I really thought…

“You don’t seem surprised to see me.”

Aidan took another drag, gaze narrow, whatever he really felt masked by a shrewd air of contemplation. “Nothing you do surprises me anymore.”

Goddamn it. Goddamn him.

“Aidan–”

“You here to see the walking wounded?” Aidan flicked the butt into the top of the sand tower at his side and turned toward the doors. “I’ll walk you up. Local PD pulled some strings and got them roomed together.”

“ Aidan .”

Aidan paused, and half-turned. He lifted his chin, and he looked like he’d been taking some of Tenny’s face lessons. Always an open book, always quick to laugh, to frown, to shout his anger out loud, the son that Ghost had known for almost forty years gazed upon him now with a stranger’s coolness.

Ghost had no idea what to say to him, how to even begin to broach this clusterfuck. But he was going to try. “I came to see you, too. We should talk.”

Aidan plucked at the VP patch sewn to his chest. “Don’t worry. Walsh can have this back. I don’t give a shit.” He turned again, and strode toward the automatic doors.

“Fuck,” Ghost muttered, and followed.

He caught up to Aidan at the elevators, and when it arrived, they stepped on together, side-by-side. Ghost tried to surreptitiously check him for injuries, but his face was clear, despite the tired bags under his eyes, and he wasn’t limping or obviously bandaged.

Aidan glanced over, sideways, not even cagey, just…unbothered. Totally flat. Christ, but it was spooky coming from him.

“What’s the damage?” Ghost said, facing forward again, watching their reflections in the scuffed silver wall.

“Mercy’s got three GSWs. Two through-and-throughs in his right bicep. Little bit of nerve damage, the docs think, so they’re talking about follow-ups in Knoxville and PT.” His next breath shook the tiniest fraction, belying his suppressed tone. “The third lodged in his left shoulder. They had to dig it out, made a big fucking mess out of…” He gestured to his own shoulder. “They’re flooding him with antibiotics and fluids and shit. He's conscious, though. Sitting up.”

He took another breath, and some of the tension left his voice. “Tenny got hit once, right through the thigh. Missed the femoral by this much.” He held up his thumb and forefinger. “He and Mercy both went in the water with open wounds, so the risk of infection’s high, but with the meds…”

“Yeah. Maybe they can knock it out early.”

The elevator arrived with a ding, and the doors slid open to reveal a hallway clogged with Lean Dogs.

A vigil.

This, he imagined, was what it looked like when a cop got shot, only the white walls were full of cuts, rather than badges.

The whole Knoxville chapter was there, plus a good many NOLA guys. Every head turned his direction, and he could read none of their gazes. No one gasped. No one rushed toward him. No one reacted with an ounce of surprise.

He’d never felt smaller in his life.

The doors started to shut, and Aidan reached out a hand to stop them. As they stepped off, a man in a sheriff’s uniform stepped forward, overweight and friendly-faced.

He stuck out a hand. “Dale Dandridge. You must be the Ghost I keep hearing about.” He smiled.

Slowly, Ghost accepted the shake. “Are you the one I have to thank for keeping the cops away from my down boys?”

Dale retracted his hand so he could hitch up his gun belt. “Less keeping them away, more, we’re the officers here to investigate these shootings.” He winked.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

Aidan pressed on, and again, Ghost followed – single-file, because the walls were lined either side with Dogs, and they couldn’t walk abreast. Gazes followed him, but still, no one spoke.

In truth, he would have preferred shouting. This silence made him feel like he was marching toward a firing squad.

The door to room 207 stood open, and voices spilled out of it, welcome contrast to the quiet in the hall.

The two beds stood against the lefthand wall, the privacy drape between them pushed all the way back. Tenny was in the far one, leg heavily-bandaged and elevated on a pillow, hair greasy and sticking up. He was pale, but the head of his bed was elevated, and he was talking animatedly with Devin, who stood between the beds, looking back and forth between them as the conversation flowed. Reese was passed out across three pushed-together plastic chairs on the bed’s far side, snugged up close, one hand clutched loosely in the blanket at Tenny’s hip.

Mercy was in the near bed, arms cartoonishly bulked up with white bandages from shoulder to elbow. His face was a mess of scratches, bruises scuffed over each cheekbone. Hair loose and even greasier than Tenny’s.

But he was smiling at whatever Devin was saying, and so was Ava, chair pulled up at his side, bent forward with her elbows resting on the bed.

Remy lay curled up across Mercy’s legs, sleeping like a sacked-out puppy.

Everyone out in the hallway might hate his guts forever, but he wouldn’t change a thing he’d done if it led to this moment here. To a family made whole again.

The tight ball of dread in his chest unraveled, and he took his first deep, relieved breath in more than a week.

“Oh.” It spiked again, briefly, a quick rewinding, at the sound of Maggie’s voice. He hadn’t spoken to her since he’d learned that she and Ava had snuck off their flight and gone running to New Orleans. He hadn’t noticed her when he first stepped in the room, where she’d stood against the wall across from the beds. He’d thought, days ago, that he was angry with her, but really, he’d just been terrified. He wondered, now, if she was angry with him, but when he turned to her, and saw her shove away from the wall, and rush toward him, he knew she wasn’t, and that she’d been terrified, too. “Baby. You’re here.”

He caught her halfway across the room, and hauled her into his chest, one arm around her waist, his other hand buried in the thick, currently-damp-and-greasy waves of her hair. She didn’t so much press as slam her face into his throat, and it startled a laugh out of him. “Yeah, I’m here. You give yourself a concussion?”

“No.” She sniffed, quiet and muffled against the collar of his shirt. “After thirty years of exposure to you, I’ve developed a thick skull. We match, now.”

He snorted, and pressed a kiss to her temple that lingered.

“Well, if it isn’t the boss man himself,” Devin proclaimed, “back from the grave.”

“I was never in the grave, asshole, but thanks for sounding cheerful about it.”

“Aw, boss.” Mercy’s voice was a little scratchy, the good ol’ post-sedation dry-throat that Ghost knew all too well, but his smile was his own, if tired. “You missed all the fun.”

“You look like you had too much fun.” He glanced over at Ava, and was met by a gaze that, while content, was as steady and eerily-composed as it had been the night he helped her bury the man she’d shot on her own doorstep. Back to Mercy, he said, “What the hell happened?”

Maggie pulled back from him. “Hold on.” And went to shut the door.

Mercy’s smile dimmed. “It’s a long story.”

“Where else have I got to be?”

He sighed, and nodded. And then, with Devin and Tenny filling in the parts he hadn’t witnessed firsthand, he told it.

At some point, someone came in, and a cup of shitty hospital coffee was pressed into his hand. Someone else, probably Maggie, pushed the edge of a chair against the back of his knees, and he sat. Sipped his coffee.

“Holy Jesus,” he said, tonelessly, when the tale was through.

“I feel Jesus had very little to do with this,” Devin offered.

Ghost tipped his head in agreement. Checked over his shoulder to see that the door was still closed, and was surprised to find that Aidan was gone, Tango standing watch in his place, leaned back against the counter. He hadn’t adopted Aidan’s Tenny-esque charade, but his expression was uncharacteristically closed-off. Troubled, rather than cold, but angry around the edges. Shit.

But a worry for later.

He faced forward, and, despite the closed door, whispered, “And Boyle…you’re sure he’s…?”

“If he’s not in Big Son’s belly yet,” Mercy said, “he definitely drowned. He got held under for at least six minutes.”

“Plus,” Ava said, flatly, “he was gutted. He bled out if nothing else.”

At this point, Ghost couldn’t profess shock that Ava had played the final, pivotal role in Boyle’s demise, but the fact that she’d done it in front of Remy, that she would speak openly about it in front of him…

He found his gaze wandering to Maggie, who lifted her brows in a silent don’t you get it yet?

He wasn’t sure he’d ever get it , but he could accept it. He could understand that his daughter was…the way she was.

“What about Abacus?” Tenny asked, drawing his attention.

At sound of the name, Reese’s eyes snapped open, and he sat up, wiping his eyes and mouth and hitching up straight in his chair like he hadn’t been asleep at all.

Ghost nodded, slugged back the last of his coffee, and spilled a tale of his own.

By the end of it, Tenny had buttoned the head of his bed up as high as it would go, and then sat up further, far enough that Reese got up to tut over his hurt leg and adjust the pillow under it, which earned a fond/exasperated sigh from Tenny and a muttered I’m fine . After, Tenny waved him away, but gripped onto the hem of his shirt so he wouldn’t go far, maintaining contact, and fixed Ghost with a glittering, bright-eyed look that, close as Ghost could tell, bordered on joyous.

“You killed him yourself?” he asked. “With your own hands? You did it?”

“Yeah,” Ghost said, and understood, then, why Tenny started blinking hard. “Snapped his neck. Sounded like bubble wrap.”

Tenny blinked some more, nodded, clamped his lips tight together, and looked down at his knees.

Devin reached for the privacy curtain, and halfway through pulling it, Tango said, “Ghost. Can I talk to you for a minute?”

Ghost stood. “Sure.”

Maggie kissed him before he went. And at the door, he glanced back; saw Ava smoothing Remy’s hair off his sleeping forehead, and saw Mercy watch her do it with the softest, most contented look on his face.

Worth it, he thought again. All of it had been worth it.

~*~

When Tenny closed his eyes, he could put himself in Ghost’s body, could operate his hands and see through his eyes. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t seen the building, the room, the table, the chairs, or the man Abacus himself. It had been like all the other buildings, and rooms, and tables, and chairs, and old, rich, powerful men he’d dealt with in his career. He could feel wrinkled cheeks, papery temples under his fingers. Could feel his muscles grab in a silent, violent motion, and hear the satisfying snick-crack of vertebrae snapping.

It was done. Abacus was done .

Relief crashed through him so rapturously that his stomach twisted, and he thought he might retch, and he was definitely going to cry, eyes stinging hard, no matter how rapidly he blinked.

“Hey.” Reese’s hand was warm and grounding against the back of his neck. “I know.”

Because it was Abacus – its relentless, insidious reach – that had put a bullet in Tenny’s neck, back before he was even Tennyson. That had stolen Reese from him, and put the whole club in danger in the effort to get him back. Abacus had taken, and taken, and taken, and almost taken Reese from him for good, tried to take Tenny from Reese last night, and…

And they were finished.

Oh, sure, there would be a power vacuum, and always another evil around the corner, and all of that bollocks. But right now, here in this room, Reese was well, and was touching him, and Tenny was alive, and Abacus was dead .

Tenny turned and pressed his face into Reese’s stomach, and was rewarded with steady hands pushing through his hair, soothing pets.

“I know, I know, sweetheart. It’s okay.”

Tenny drew in a ragged breath. “Your shirt stinks.”

Reese tweaked his ear, and they both laughed, and it was better than okay.

~*~

Tango wanted to go outside. It was still raining, but there was an overhang in the small smoking courtyard he chose for their conversation. Little birds, finches of some kind, hopped around beneath the boxwoods in search of crumbs, and the rain pattered in a steady, lulling susurrus across the concrete.

There was a bench beneath the overhang, and Ghost took it, leaving a wide space for Tango to join him.

But Tango stayed on his feet. He lit a cigarette and moved to stand across from Ghost, at the very edge of the overhang’s protection. The silvery rain light, and the glimmering sheet of water pouring down behind him, left his face hard to read, half-shadowed. The cherry of his cig glowed bright red, lighting up his eyes, briefly, on a hard drag.

Ghost said, “I heard you were the one who got Fallon.”

The cherry died, and Tango exhaled, smoke a dark smudge against the rain light. “Yeah.”

“Did it feel good?”

“Yeah.” He flicked the cigarette out into the rain. “Look, Ghost, I don’t – okay.” He took a deep breath, unused to initiating hard talks, but braving his way through this one anyway.

Ghost bit back a smile, terribly proud of him.

“I can’t say I know why you lied to us, not really,” Tango continued, voice heavy with disappointment. “I mean, I do . Because you wanted it to look real. You wanted the feds to think you were really dead, and that we were really broken up about it. But.” He scuffed a toe across the concrete. “That means you didn’t trust us to act broken up about you. That you thought we couldn’t fake it. For you. For the club.”

“I…” What defense could he offer? He had thought that. “You – all of you – are a lot of things. But you’re not actors.”

Tango nodded, and his head turned, lashes miles long in profile. So often in moments like these, when he felt vulnerable, he resembled the boy he’d been when Ghost first met him, shaken, and shaky with withdrawal, too thin and afraid of the world. But right now, he looked older than his years. No. He looked sure of himself. Hurt, yes. But a man, now. Quietly confident, finally, after all these years.

And Ghost knew that none of that was his doing. It was all Aidan’s. Whitney’s. Mercy’s. Maggie’s. The club’s. Even Ian’s.

Ghost said, “You know,” and Tango faced forward again, expression concealed in shadow once more, “sometimes, when I can’t sleep – which is a lot of the time – I ask myself why I coddle Ian.”

“You coddle him?”

“Compared to the rest of you? Yeah. But I wonder. I offered him the chance, if he wanted it, to take out Abacus himself. But he told me to do it, and I thought to myself…I thought that’s good . Because I wanted to spare him that, if I could.”

“Ian’s done his share of taking,” Tango said in a flat, unimpressed voice.

“Yeah. That’s not what I meant. I spent so many years being a shitty father. Even when I started trying to do better, I sucked at it; I always made the wrong overture, or said the wrong thing. I love Aidan, but I don’t know how to show it…damn. This sounds pathetic, doesn’t it?”

“Very.”

Ghost sighed. “I fucked up with you, too. And I’m sorry for that.”

Tango shrugged, but the movement was tight, bothered.

“I literally can’t screw up with Ian. He made me a father figure even though I wasn’t even nice to him. He needs me in a way that none of my actual children do.”

“Sounds like Ian has low standards.”

“Oh, he does. But what I’m saying is, screwing up is a pattern: I’ve gotten things so wrong all along with Aidan, that I don’t begin to know how to get them right.”

Tango let out a deep, tired-sounding breath. “Ghost, what you did this time, letting Aidan think you were dead” – he shook his head – “that’s not ‘screwing up.’ That’s not being a shitty father. You broke your relationship with him. Do you get that? He’ll never forgive you for this.”

“I know.” And he did, and had known all along, but the panic of the moment had overridden his hangups. Now, though, the knowledge crashed over him. Pressed him flat like a bug on a windshield. “Fuck.”

“Aidan’s my best friend,” Tango said. “He’s my brother. I love him. I love the club, yeah, and what it is, what it’s offered me – but I love Aidan more. I was with him the day Walsh told him that you’d died. I would say that you can imagine how that hit him, but I don’t know if you can. It was bad.”

Ghost nodded.

“You let him think you were dead .”

“I know , Kev.”

The wind shifted, and the rain blew in under the overhang, cold prickles across Ghost’s face.

Tango said, “I don’t think anyone but you could have turned the club into what it is now. Made it bigger, and stronger. I know nobody else could have kept it together. The club – you – just knocked off the biggest threat in the underground. That’s huge. Nobody’s better at protecting the club. You make the hard calls.

“But you suck at the personal shit.”

His bluntness surprised a snort out of Ghost.

Tango turned his head, and shook it, but Ghost glimpsed a sliver of a grin. “Sometimes I hate you,” he said, ruefully, and that shut Ghost up real quick. “Sometimes all of us do. But we love you, too. And I think most of us made our peace a long time ago with the fact that you were an excellent president who was always gonna piss us off as a brother and a friend. And a father. I don’t know if you can apologize to Aidan in a way he’ll accept. But I know you need to apologize to the club, too. As our president. Because this time, you were a shit dad and a shit leader.”

Ghost felt like he’d been struck. In a good way.

He nodded. “I know. I know that. Thanks.”

Tango nodded, too. “Stand up.”

And here came the real hit. If he felt like swinging, Ghost was going to let him.

He stood.

Tango stepped in – and put his arms around him. The breath that rushed past Ghost’s ear was shaky. “Glad you’re not dead.”

Ghost hugged him back. “Me, too.”

~*~

“Alexandre Bonfils! Are you smoking?”

He was, and he threw his cigarette out into the rain as his mother approached beneath a cheery red umbrella.

“Alexandre Bonfils, are you littering ?”

“Fuck,” Alex muttered, and ducked out to grab the steaming butt and toss it in the trash. When he got back beneath the porte-cochere, Tina snapped her umbrella shut with a shower of cold droplets, and gave it a shake for good measure. Then she looked up at him, and smiled the same soft, sweet smile she’d given him when he was a little boy who’d had a nightmare, and said, “How you doin’, baby?”

“Well, I’m smoking and littering, so take a guess.”

She stood up on her toes and hooked her free arm around his neck.

He bent down to loop both arms around her and return the hug.

“I’m proud of you,” she murmured. “You did a good job.”

He pulled back, brows raised. “Good? I’ve broken about two-hundred laws, and probably don’t have a job. I’ll probably have to move back in with you, because I’ll be penniless…” He trailed off, and smiled when she smiled. “I know. Thanks, Mom.”

She reached to cup his cheek. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For being a good man. You helped your brother, even though you had every reason not to.”

Every reason not to.

That was what he would have said that first day – God, that had been months ago. It seemed like years. When Mike had made his careful way down the carpeted steps of Alex’s amphitheater classroom clutching a packet full of photos. Slimy-brown skeletons dredged out of the water. An old silver belt buckle.

A lifetime ago. Alex had been a completely different person then.

It felt like that, anyway. But he’d been the same person, if a little more repressed. It was why he’d had every reason not to: those blood ties. The blood taint . He’d spent his entire adult life fearing that Remy’s blood would drive him to violence, and he hadn’t merely succumbed, but had submitted willingly. It had always been inevitable.

He was too shattered with exhaustion to feel any sort of way about that. Or to hold his tongue, when he usually did.

“Who was more like him? Remy, I mean. Me? Or Felix?”

Her smile softened further, somehow. “Neither of you.”

“What?”

“Remy was a good man in his own right. He was sweet. But he wasn’t half as brave or strong as either of you.”

“Okay.” He blinked, and nodded, and, when he tried to swallow, found there was a lump in his throat. “Okay, that’s…okay.”

She patted his cheek, stepped back, and peered around his shoulder. “Ah. I think I’ll go on in and check on everyone. Give you two a minute.”

“Us two who?”

She only grinned, and headed for the doors.

Alex turned around just as Duet stepped under cover and pushed back the hood of her FBI-emblazoned raincoat. Her wounded arm moved slowly and jerkily, but she quickly pushed her wince into a smile. She looked tired, but pleased, and, unlike the crew inside, freshly-showered, face clean and mascara tidy, hair pulled back in a low bun.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“How’s everyone inside?”

“Alive. Awake, last I checked. How’s the scene?”

“A fucking disaster,” she said with a sigh, but was still smiling. “It’ll take weeks to sort out who was there and what sorts of illegal ties they had.”

He nodded. “Sounds about right.”

“We took fifteen people into custody, and recovered four bodies from the water.” Her smile stayed in place, but her eyes took on a sharpness, head cocking to the side. “But, interestingly enough, although all the perps we arrested pointed fingers at Agents Boyle and Fallon, neither Boyle nor Fallon have been found yet.”

“Hm. That’s a head-scratcher.”

Her grin widened. “You’re a shit liar.”

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and shrugged. His cheeks warmed. “I’m a profiler, not an undercover guy. Lying’s not really in my purview.”

“No.” Her smile slipped, expression going thoughtful. “For someone helping an outlaw, you’ve been pretty honest.”

His face got warmer. “About that. Um. I know I’ve already asked some big favors–”

“But you want one more?” she guessed, brows lifting.

“Just a little one.”

She looked put out for a moment, and then broke, smiling again, small and close-mouthed this time, eyes sparking with an amusement he didn’t quite understand. “Alex, I wouldn’t have gone this far if I wasn’t onboard. As far as I’m concerned, none of this ever happened.”

“ None of it?”

“I’ve already called my supervisor and told her that, in the course of our investigation into the Grendel murders, my partner and I were able to recover the kidnapped Remy Lécuyer, but, unfortunately, Boyle and Fallon managed to escape. We’ll be returning the boy to his grateful family.”

“I…wow. Thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”

“I didn’t have to legally , no. But.” She studied him a moment, gaze tracking back and forth over his face. He wondered what she was seeing. “I got into law enforcement because I wanted to do the right thing.” She shook her head. “There’s been too many people like Boyle in my time at the Bureau. Ordinarily, all I can do is complain to my superiors – which is not the done thing – or ignore it. This time, I had a chance to do something about it.” She sounded satisfied with that turn of events. “A little boy gets to go home safe. A bad cop is…?” Her brows went up again, questioning.

Alex would never forget the sight of those long, ivory teeth closing over Boyle’s neck; the pale flash of belly as the gator went into his death roll. “He won’t be kidnapping any more little boys. Let’s leave it at that.”

“Let’s,” she agreed. Then she smirked. “Also, you’re pretty cute. Wouldn’t be the first time I did something reckless for a big pair of brown eyes.”

Alex’s face went hot .

“Don’t worry. You’re not interested. I heard you loud and clear.” She reached to touch his arm, too briefly for him to react. “Take care of yourself, Agent Bonfils. Next time I need a profile – and the perp’s not your brother – maybe I’ll give you a call.” She tugged up her hood, turned, and stepped back out into the rain.

She was halfway across the parking lot, and Alex was frowning as he watched her go, contemplating another cigarette, when someone said, “You’re a dipshit,” behind him.

It was Colin, and he stepped up to his side with his own cigarette already lit. “She’s hot. She likes you. What’s your problem?” He shook his head and tsked. “She kinda looks a little like my old lady, actually.”

I’d like to meet her properly , Alex thought. She’s not as terrifying as Ava, is she? He didn’t think that was possible.

What he said was, “It wouldn’t be fair to start something up right now.”

Colin glanced over, curious.

Alex shrugged. “Not until I see where I’m gonna land.”

Colin studied him a moment, and then, slowly, grinned.

~*~

It rained and it rained. Aidan spent some time with Mercy, and with Tenny and Reese, and more with Tango, eating bad hospital cafeteria food. He personally thanked Dale Dandridge and Agents Duet and Patterson for their assistance. Stayed abreast of Mercy’s progress and knew that the docs wanted to keep him for at least forty-eight hours, but maybe more, depending on his white cell count.

He knew that Tango had taken Ghost outside to talk, but didn’t ask what was said.

He hugged Maggie back when she hugged him, and said that he loved her in return, because he did.

But he couldn’t stay cooped up in the hospital for their entire stay, and he didn’t feel like hanging at the NOLA clubhouse.

Which was how he found himself seated in an empty pew at St. Louis cathedral the next morning.

It was quiet in the way of all churches, steps careful, voices hushed. But inevitably loud because of the sheer scope of the place: the high, vaulted ceilings and all its secret nooks and angles trebled each tiny sound into a constant wall of not-unpleasant white noise. A pair of old, stooped women were lighting candles. Two pews ahead and to the left, a young man sat with his head bent and his hands clasped, lips moving soundlessly in what looked to be fervent prayer.

Aidan had thought about praying, when he first sat down, but only because he’d been bowled over by the beauty of the place. Its blue-and-white check marble floors; its gold-set frescoes; its gleaming organ pipes as tall and awe-inspiring as the tubular towers of Oz. There was something…reverent…about the air in here. It smelled of candlewax, and linseed oil, but something rarified, too, that spooked him a little. Like when he was a kid, and Maggie had taken him into a fancy store, and told him, sweetly but firmly, not to touch anything. His boots had left muddy scuffs on the tile, and he was half-tempted to get down on his knees and mop the streaks up with his sleeve.

But he didn’t know how to pray. Other than a few desperate mental declarations of oh God at moments of crisis, he’d never called upon the man upstairs. Had never been to bible study, nor learned any of the hymns. His people were not church people – “church” meant club meetings, in his world. Mercy was Catholic, and doubtless could have offered guidance, but Mercy was still at the hospital, battling an infection.

Maybe it didn’t matter. Sitting here, resting in this place, was clarifying in a secular way, too. He hadn’t known when he first entered that his heart was pounding, but knew it had been now, as he felt it slow and steady in his chest, his breaths even, and deep, and unencumbered.

He was calm, therefore, when he heard the slow, deliberate clip of expensive leather shoe soles moving down the aisle. A thin figure appeared in his periphery, and rested a long-fingered hand on the end of the pew.

Ian wore dove gray, the color Aidan had come most to associate with him. His shirt and pocket square were a deep burgundy the color of wine. Or blood. He’d tied his hair back in a neat knot at the back of his neck, but a few wisps had come loose, curling in the humidity.

He was typing something into his phone, and then slipped it inside his jacket and offered Aidan a small, tired smile. “Mind if I join you?”

Aidan patted the bench beside him. Ian’s shoes, he noted, didn’t smudge the floor.

“It’s lovely, isn’t it?” Ian tipped his head back and gazed at the walls, the ceiling. “Not Notre Damne, or St. Peter’s Basilica–”

Aidan snorted. “You fucking snob.”

Ian’s smile widened into a smirk, and his gaze dropped and slid sideways to meet Aidan’s. “I find it both admirable and bold that you used that word in a cathedral.”

“I find it both admirable and bold that you didn’t tell me my dad wasn’t dead.”

Ian’s head tipped, smirk broadening. Come on . “Out of everyone, you expected me to be the most truthful?”

Aidan sighed. “Nah. Not really.”

“Are you angry?”

“With you? No. I’ve always known you were a snake.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“A good one, most of the time. But.” He shrugged. “You do what’s best for you.”

Ian studied him another moment, then faced forward. “These days, what’s best for me is also what’s best for the club.”

“The club.” Aidan nodded. “Is that what he told you? When he asked you to keep his secret? It was for the club?”

“He said it was for you, actually.” When Aidan glanced over, sharply, Ian gazed back at him with a sort of calm, indulgent affection that left the back of his neck prickling.

“Right. Fake your death. That’s good for your son.” Aidan missed the snide tone he’d aimed for, and instead sounded embarrassingly airless.

“I cautioned him that it would…” Ian seemed to consider his words, and then said, “hurt you. To do it this way. But he was adamant that you be totally, truly innocent in his plot. He chose to protect you physically in that way, knowing that there would be an emotional fallout.”

Aidan’s heart was no longer beating slow and steady. His palms prickled, and he pressed them flat to his knees. “ Emotional fallout ? Gross. Shut up.”

Ian, being Ian, did not shut up. “I don’t know what he’ll say to you – or how badly he’ll bungle it, in truth – but he deceived you out of love. At least believe that.”

“Fuck you, man.” Aidan made to stand, and Ian gripped his wrist. Lightly enough that he could have pulled away – but he didn’t. He was breathing hard, now, pulse racing in his ears, stomach churning. But he stayed seated. “Fuck you,” he repeated, “you’re such a daddy’s boy, you’d let him get away with murder.”

Ian’s brows lifted.

“It’s a figure of damn speech. You know what I mean.”

Ian nodded. “I suppose I do.” His expression turned contemplative. “I suppose, if I can self-reflect – which I’ve been working on with my therapist, thank you very much – that I was so starved for genuine affection that I’m more forgiving of personal faults than you are. I know that Ghost genuinely cares for me. That he will protect me if he can, and will allow me to protect him in turn. That he won’t use my past as a weapon against me.

“Our perceptions of people are all relative, I suppose.” His gaze, though soft, drilled straight into Aidan with a force that left him wanting to sway backward. “It’s all about perspective. Ghost is perhaps not a good man, but he’s the best man I’ve ever known personally.”

Aidan blinked at him.

Ian patted his leg, and stood. Behind him, someone stood at the end of the pew, dressed in black. “Something to consider, if my high opinion of him means anything to you.”

Ian slipped out of the pew, and Ava took his place.

She looked like she’d washed her hair in a hospital bathroom sink, and likely had; it was still damp, and knotted tightly on top of her head. She wore black leggings, and a black hoodie so huge and swallowing it was clearly Mercy’s. Her face was thin, sallow, and scratched, shiny in places with ointment.

Aidan was reminded, forcefully, of almost nine years ago, and a deserted stretch of too-hot New Orleans highway, his sister crouched wild-eyed over Mercy’s unconscious body, ready to shoot her own brother in the name of protecting him.

He said, “You look like shit.”

“I’ve been throwing up all morning.”

“You have the Salisbury steak at the cafeteria last night? I told RJ not to risk it.”

“No. I’m pregnant.”

“Shit, again ?”

Her head turned toward him slowly, and though the sleepless circles beneath her eyes were deep as bruises, the look in her eyes promised a swift death.

“Hey.” He held up both hands, palms toward her. “Congrats and all. But do you guys do anything but fuck? How many are you gonna have ? ‘Cause if you end up with, like, nineteen or something, and they give you your own show, I wanna make sure – ow! Shit!”

She struck low and quick, and caught him right in the kidney.

“Jesus.” He rubbed the offended spot and scooted away from her. “You’re a fucking mongoose.”

Her ferocious look cracked, and a smirk peeked through. “Mongoose?”

“Yeah. They’re fast or whatever, right?”

She shook her head, and slumped down on the pew, head resting against its high back, gaze on the ceiling. “This place is amazing.”

“Yeah. But you’re not seriously gonna tell me you left the most fertile man in the world–”

She kicked at him, halfheartedly, and missed. “Four kids isn’t some kinda freak show, get over yourself, douchebag.”

“A man who’s pretty damn fertile,” he corrected, and caught the sideways slice of her wry grin, “to look at some old church.”

She rolled her head along the back of the pew. “Your point?”

“This place isn’t in walking distance of the hospital. What are you doing here?”

“Ian texted and said you were here.”

“What a snitch.” He frowned. “Why were you looking for me?”

“Because Dad’s looking for you, and I thought it’d be better if I talked to you first.”

He’d expected as much, first with Ian, now with her, but still, his stomach shriveled. He wasn’t going to run, if Ghost showed up; in his twenties, he would have, but not now. His insides might shrink and cringe, but he’d learned to breathe through the anger, the disappointment, the awful twist of love that most of the time felt more like grief. And there was no fear anymore. There hadn’t been for a long time.

He resettled himself on the pew, and then folded his arms. “Okay. So. Talk.”

“That’s the way you wanna play it? Really?”

“Yeah.”

She sighed. “Are you angry with me, too? For not telling you?”

“Nah.” And that was the truth; he saw the surprise of it smooth her brow. “Remy was gone, and you were…” He made an expansive gesture in an attempt at describing how utterly devoid of personality she’d been. “Besides. It’s not your job to make excuses for him.”

“But you’re mad at Mom,” she guessed. “Because she’s the Queen of Making Excuses for Kenny Teague.”

He waved her off. “She’s his wife. She’s, like, legally obligated to make his excuses. It’s whatever.”

“I was with her when you called her,” Ava said. “You sounded upset.”

He made another gesture, this one vague.

“She could have told you then, and she didn’t. It’s understandable that your feelings are hurt.”

“Oh my God, what is with y’all today? My ‘feelings are hurt.’ I’m not in kindergarten – shut it,” he added, when she cocked a single brow. “It doesn’t matter .”

“But you’re pissed at her.”

“Of course I am!” He hadn’t meant to shout, but his own words echoed back to him from unseen corners. The old women lighting candles turned creakily around to shoot him dark looks. He waved in apology, and lowered his voice. Hissed, “But I don’t need you to act like you’re my therapist or some shit. Don’t have one, never needed one, not gonna get one.”

She nodded. “Fair enough.” Adjusted her lean against the back of the pew, wincing. She had to be sore. He couldn’t believe she was awake right now, to be honest.

“You know,” she mused, and the fatigue bled into her voice, now. “When I was younger, I used to get so pissed that Mom would defend him to me. He’d do something so overbearing, and so… infuriating , and Mom was always in his corner. She was in mine, too, but also in his. I don’t think I understoond how damn hard that is until I became a mom.” She tipped her head so she was looking at him again. “I would do anything for Mercy. There’s not one thing I’d balk at. And I finally realized that’s how Mom feels about Dad. And it’s how Dad feels about her – about all of us. Even if that anything means being the world’s biggest dickbag.”

“Heh. Yeah.”

“What are the rest of the guys going to say?”

“No idea. But I don’t think they’re gonna throw him a parade.”

“Good,” Ghost’s voice said, suddenly, from the pew behind them. “I hate parades.”

Aidan swore and twisted around on the bench.

Ghost was in the act of sitting, wearing the same jeans and soft-colors hoodie he’d stepped off Ian’s plane in. He’d added a baseball cap to the mix, white with an orange Tennessee T, and he pulled it off now and set about fluffing his hair back up in what seemed an unconscious gesture. Aidan guessed if his own hair still looked that thick and dark when he was almost sixty, he’d make sure it was always on point, too.

“Always too many people – too many places for bad actors to hide,” he continued, and sprawled back in the pew, arms spread along its top. “And it’s loud. And who even likes marching bands anyway? Nah. Parades suck.”

Ava sighed dramatically, and sat up, and twisted around with the difficulty of the very tired and very sore. “You really are the fuddiest to ever duddy, aren’t you? The ultimate grumpy dad.”

“Oh, ‘cause you love parades so much. You go to a lot between target practice and getting hauled down to the precinct?”

“Maybe,” Ava shot back, “you’re just mad no one ever threw you a parade.”

Aidan had thought, at the first sound of his voice, that he would stay silent, only speaking when spoken to, keeping his answers cool and curt. He’d been able to tell, yesterday, that Ghost was startled by his expression, his tone. He’d intended to continue that now, but hearing him go back and forth with Ava, the familiarity of it, the ease of it; seeing Ghost slumped back, fiddling with his hair, with his hat…it felt like home . And he’d never been one to sit back in silence at home.

He raised his hand, and panned it through the air, as if reading off a banner. “‘Asshole of the Year.’ We’ll get you a sash.”

Ghost grinned, quick and relieved.

Aidan felt his own brief smile dim. He was tired. Very, very tired. But not, he found, all that angry anymore. He was just…okay, he was sad . His feelings were hurt. But not in a little-kid, storming-off, make-an-ass-of-himself way.

“And two marching bands,” Ava said. “Maybe more.” She stood, reaching to knuckle at her lower back. “Ian still outside?”

“Yeah. He waited for you with the car.”

“Cool. I’m gonna head back.”

Aidan expected dread to rise up in her absence. Ghost even turned his head to watch her go. Don’t leave us alone! But the dread didn’t come. In fact, he was glad of her absence. Maybe it was because of, like she’d said, motherhood, or the simple fact of her motherhood, but she had already forgiven Dad. Aidan didn’t want her trying to oil the waters, not for this conversation.

The cathedral doors closed behind her with a quiet crash, and then it was just the two of them. Even the old ladies tottered out down the aisle, fiddling with plastic rain hats and dripping umbrellas. Only the desperate, prayerful man remained, and he’d curled down even deeper on his pew, only the hump of his spine visible.

Ghost turned back to him, and his expression was so foreign that it took Aidan a moment to decipher what it was doing. He looked contrite . It did odd things to his brows, and his mouth, diminished him in a way that Aidan had always thought would feel like vindication, but which instead unsettled him. Deeply.

Ghost took a deep breath.

Aidan said, “Can I say something first? Before you get started?”

Ghost’s brows went up. “Yeah. Okay.”

Aidan hadn’t thought he’d get his way so easily, so he had to take another moment, to gather his thoughts. Ava was the writer in the family. Mercy was the storyteller. Maggie had this deceptively wicked way of coming in soft and twisting the knife of her point at the perfect moment. Aidan could talk, sure, but it was in moments like this that he realized how rarely he said something capable of altering a relationship. It was through sheer dumb luck that he’d managed to convey his love to Sam; and she was a writer, too, had been able to fill in all his many gaps. Now, though, he was flying solo, no parachute, here he went.

“You know how at the festival, you had me and Tango sit in the booth with a sign-up sheet?”

Ghost nodded.

“One guy signed up. This kid. He’s eighteen. Farm boy. I wasn’t gonna let him do it, but Ian was there, and…” When he gestured, Ghost nodded again. Yeah, Ian tended to push people into things, and get his own way, even when it didn’t make sense to those around him. “I didn’t call him, obviously. Shit got crazy, and I didn’t think he had what we were looking for anyway. But then he came by the shop one day looking for me, and gave me this whole sob story about his family farm, and how his parents were gonna lose it, and that he didn’t want to go to college. He just wanted to prospect, and make some money to look after his folks. He’d noticed, he said, that the club was making things happen in town.” He met Ghost’s gaze pointedly. “You wanted us to be known around Knoxville, and beyond, for being able to make shit happen. Congrats, because this kid thought we were his salvation.”

Ghost studied him a moment, and Aidan had the sense he wanted to ask at least a dozen questions. What he asked was, “What’d you tell him?”

“To hit the bricks. He was a dumb kid, and in the past, me going soft didn’t help anyone.”

Go, run , he’d told a boy named Greg, once upon a time, and look how that had turned out.

Ghost tipped his head back a fraction. It was the most attentively he’d ever listened – to Aidan, at least.

“But when you – left town.” That was a mild way of putting it. “And Walsh nominated me to be VP, I started thinking about opportunities. And about not wasting the ones that fell in your lap. I brokered a deal with the kid – his name’s Lewis, Lewis Parker – and his dad. Ian helped me get the paperwork sorted, and Walsh signed off on it afterward. But, basically, we own a lot more land, and the club’s in the farming business.”

Ghost’s brows went up again. “It is?”

“Yeah. And if you have a problem with that, blame it on me. Ian and Walsh helped, but this was all my idea.”

“It was?”

He stuck his chin out, defiant. “Yeah. I thought it would benefit us financially, and strategically – it got the feds’ attention, and got them to back off and actually listen to us, for once – and it’ll bring more locals onto our side. I also agreed to sponsor Lewis’s prospect year. He’s stubborn, and a better fit than I thought at first.”

Ghost watched him a minute, patient like he never was, waiting to see if there was more.

There wasn’t. Aidan shrugged, lamely, and said, “My first and only act as VP.”

Slowly, Ghost nodded. “Okay. It sounds like you put a lot of thought into it.” A kind sentiment, bordering on patronizing, and it put Aidan’s back up…

But he forced it down with a slow, deep breath. At every turn in his life, he’d met Ghost’s asshole personality with a bowed back and gnashing teeth. Defensive, petulant, whiny. He’d always felt like a fox caught in a trap, snarling at the bigger predator.

But he couldn’t do that anymore. Because now, he understood . At least a little. At least better.

He said, “I was VP for, what? A week? And I did the exact same thing I’ve always bitched about you doing: I made a unilateral decision about the future of the club, and presented it at table once I’d already put the deal in motion.”

For a moment, he thought Ghost would smile: the faint quirk of one corner of his mouth. But then Ghost’s face smoothed, and he said, “How’d the guys take it?”

“They were skeptical, at first. Had some questions. But they voted the right way, in the end.”

“Your way, you mean?”

“Yeah.” Aidan sighed. A headache was blooming in his temples, and he wanted a drink, and it was easy to see how Ghost had gotten in the habit of spiking his coffee with every cup. “My way. I guess I’m a lot more like you than I always thought.”

Ghost smirked, and wasn’t successful in reeling it back before Aidan saw it.

Aidan huffed. “What I’m saying is: I’m mad. Yeah. I’m pissed as hell at you for fucking off and pretending to be dead, and letting me be…” A crying, pathetic mess. “In the dark about it. For not telling anyone but Walsh.

“And Walsh, by the way? Got so stressed about it he tried to drink himself into the hospital. A real speed-run of your whole heart attack situation, so that was fun to watch.

“So I’m pissed . But I also get it. Being in charge sucks.”

Ghost studied him a long moment, and then he blinked, and then, slowly, he smiled. Not his usual shark grin, or his grim, close-mouthed press of satisfaction, too long delayed. No, this was a real smile, wide and shockingly free. It deepened the lines around his eyes, and pressed grooves around his mouth. He had a dimple on his left cheek Aidan wasn’t sure he’d ever seen before.

A sharp, jagged pain bit somewhere deep in Aidan’s chest, like swallowing a tortilla chip that hadn’t been properly chewed. He gulped against it, and it broke loose, and moved up his throat, and his face heated, warm and tingling, eyes pricking, nose burning.

In a choked voice that he hated, he said, “It’s not fair, what you did. You’ve never been fair to me.”

Ghost’s smile softened, lips closing, but it didn’t go away, and there was a brightness in his coffee-dark eyes that Aidan couldn’t look away from, though he desperately wanted to.

“I’ve tried really hard, my whole life, to hate you,” Aidan said.

“I know.”

“And I really, really ought to hate you right now.”

“I know,” Ghost repeated, and he sounded wistful. He stood. “Come here.”

No , he thought. No, I don’t want to . Except there was no stopping the straightening of his legs, nor the opening of his arms, and when he leaned over the back of the pew, and Ghost leaned forward, and crushed him up into a hug that went tight, and then gentle, one hand cupped to the back of Aidan’s head, the sharp knot in his throat proved to be a sob, and Ghost stroked his hair.

“I’m sorry,” Ghost murmured, over and over. “I love you. I’m proud of you. And I’m sorry.”

It rained and rained on New Orleans, but under cathedral ceilings, and the acoustic tiles of hospital rooms, wounds began to heal.