Chapter Eight
Micah
F or the next two days, we have minimal drama. I don’t know who’s more surprised, me or Tadhg, but I’ll take what I can get.
It feels bizarrely peaceful.
It’s easier than it should be to fall back into old habits and patterns. He lets me take care of him without as much grumbling as I expected, but almost immediately we bicker the same way we used to as kids. He teases me a little, even if there’s a hesitance to him. And I let him get away with it because it’s nice to see him do anything other than go from one intense freak out to the next.
Slowly, the terrible circumstances of our reunion feel farther and farther away, replaced by the constant magnetized pull to stay in each other’s orbits we always used to have. Which should feel weird but doesn’t. Almost right away, it doesn’t matter that time has passed. We’re in a brand-new version of our own bubble, where we’re the only two real people in the world, and nothing else matters.
I should probably be more concerned about how unhealthy that is and always was, or how readily my mind slips back into it. I don’t have the energy to worry, though.
What’s important is that he’s here and getting better. He can get up and walk around unassisted, even if he’s slow and needs to lean on the furniture most of the time. He’s eating solid food and keeping it down, and I was able to pull his IV. The infection in his wounds is continuing to recede, and there have been no signs of any catastrophic organ damage I wasn’t previously aware of.
I tentatively allow myself to hope for the best. I let myself be lulled into feeling like this is just a normal, long-lost brotherly reunion, and not the sign of impending chaos in our lives.
Last night, while he was heavy-lidded and ready to drift off into another of his near-catatonic sleeps, he even thanked me for taking such good care of him. His big, meaty paw squeezed my hand, and my heart seemed to squeeze itself at the same time.
I don’t know what I would have done if he hadn’t survived.
This is all movement in the right direction. And that Tadhg isn’t fighting me on any of it is giving me the confidence to finally ask the question I’ve been dying to ask.
He’s sitting on the couch, his arm thrown casually over the back of it in a way that makes his bicep look unfairly juicy. I’m trying not to be jealous. Not that I have any interest in looking like him; I’m very happy with my body. But it must be nice to walk around looking like a human weapon of mass destruction.
His leg on the injured side is stretched out, propped up on the cheap chipboard table so he doesn’t put pressure on the wounds, while his other leg is bent so he’s half-sitting, half-reclining. I think he feels better not having to lounge around like an invalid.
It’s all the same to me, obviously, but if I’ve learned anything in the past few days, it’s that his pride is as robust as a spun-glass spiderweb.
Which isn’t his fault. Anyone would be fucked up by our violent, miserable childhood. Especially if it was followed by a life of crime and violence that you never wanted to be a part of. And that’s exactly what I need to ask him about, even if I’m worried that broaching the topic is going to set back all the progress we’ve made and potentially trigger another one of his panic attacks. The ones that neither of us is allowed to acknowledge exist, obviously.
Straight men are such delicate beasts.
I shimmy into the narrow wedge of the couch that Tadhg isn’t occupying, and he turns his head to take me in with a lazy half-smile. He’s a little glassy-eyed, because Tristan came by two days ago with a handful of street-sourced Percocets that his mother, of all people, acquired.
Which I hate giving to Tadhg and am rationing as tightly as I can. But they’re at least stamped and branded so the chances of being laced with fentanyl are relatively low. I’m monitoring him around the clock, and Tristan had the common sense to bring me an emergency dose of Narcan with the pills. Just in case.
And I’m not leaving the stash anywhere he can get his grubby paws on them. Because I love my brother—even if that’s a little weird after all this time—and the level of instability I’ve seen from him in the past three days has made it clear he doesn’t belong around anything with the potential to harm himself or others.
I even stole the bullets from his gun when he was sleeping. Hopefully, he hasn’t noticed and won’t need it until he’s feeling more stable. Or ever, if I have my way.
“What’s up, Bambi?” he says to me, only a hint of a slur to his voice.
“Can we talk?”
His eyes darken at that. He cocks his head, and a veil of focus immediately comes over his face. He doesn’t say anything, just watches me intently, waiting for me to say whatever is on my mind.
Which I wish I’d formulated more clearly in my head beforehand, because now that I have to wing it, I feel like it’s going to come out wrong.
“What happened?”
Yeah, that’s really clear. Good job me.
Tadhg cocks his head even more and squints at me. “Do you mean what happened during the shooting?”
“God, no.” I shudder. I can fill in the blanks on that and definitely don’t need a more vivid picture than what my brain is already making up. “I mean, what happened with you to end up here? We always… You always swore we were going to run away once we were old enough. You never wanted to be like him. I know it was shitty of me to leave you alone?—”
“You deserved to get out, Bambi.” His voice is barely a whisper, and he’s not looking me in the eye. But I can tell he’s serious when he interrupts me.
“I know, but so did you. I always believed you would, with or without me. So, what happened? Why did you stay? Does he have something he can hold over you? I just want to help, if I can. I feel like I owe you that much.”
Tadhg laughs and looks across the room; his head turned as far away from me as possible. There’s no humor in his laughter, and every muscle in his body seems tense, despite the fact that he’s barely moving.
“You don’t owe me anything, Micah.”
For some reason, the fact that he uses my real name stings a little.
I lean over him, resting one hand gently on his good thigh for balance and using the other to turn his face so he’s looking at me. He lets me move him, but his eyes continue to dart around the room, belying how anxious he is, even if the rest of his body isn’t showing it.
Looking into his eyes, I keep my voice calm and even, and don’t let him wiggle his way out of this question.
“I don’t want to fight about it, Tadhg. We both deserved a million times better than what we were born with. But I always hoped you got out. I’m just asking what happened. Maybe I can help.”
He stares at me. His mouth moves like he’s about to start speaking, the beginnings of a half dozen words hanging on his lips, which are finally pink and smooth again after days of being pallid and split from sickness.
There are tears shimmering in his eyes, but like always, I pretend not to notice them. I can see his breath catching. I’m convinced that if I stay as still as possible, holding his chin so he can’t escape from me, eventually he’ll crack and tell me the truth.
He has to know that there’s at least one person in the fucking world who’s on his side and thinks that he deserves good things. I’ll convince him of that if it kills me.
Right when I feel the energy in the room turning like he’s about to speak, there’s a pounding at the door.
Fuck these fucking selfish, violent people. Fuck their insistence on showing up uninvited. I know it’s more mafia morons without even having to look, based solely on how they knock like they’re the big bad wolf trying to get in.
I’m about to get up and let the idiots in. Tadhg’s reaction to the sudden interruption, however, is something to behold.
It’s instantaneous.
Gone is my brother—vulnerable and weirdly shy—sitting in front of me. In a heartbeat, he’s replaced by something cold, violent and utterly still. I can see him listening to the sound, the wheels in his head turning while he calculates I-don’t-know-what before ultimately sliding off the couch.
He’s still injured, but it’s a more controlled and graceful movement than he’s managed so far. He doesn’t say anything, but he looks at me with the same stern, protective look he used to get in our closet-hiding days and points toward my bedroom.
Fuck that, though. I’m not leaving him. Besides, it’s definitely his fucking friends. Or maybe my super. Or a million other possibilities that aren’t here to murder us, despite whatever his jacked-up nervous system is telling him right now.
As a silent compromise, I stay put and don’t follow him to the door. He has his gun in his hand, pulled from somewhere on his person despite the fact that he’s barefoot and dressed in sweatpants. I cringe inwardly at the fact that he doesn’t know I stole the bullets, but I’m still convinced he won’t need them.
His thick, callused fingers wrap around the grip of the Glock like they’re a second skin, and he pads over to the door to look through the peephole. There’s tension in every inch of him, his muscles straining in his attempt to be as quiet as possible. I can only imagine how much pain and energy this must be taking in his state.
As soon as he sees who’s on the other side, he blows out a giant breath. The gun gets lowered, which eases my nerves, although not put away entirely. Without saying anything to me, Tadhg unlocks the door, unhooks the chain and then opens the door just wide enough for a person to slip inside.
The first one to enter is named Colm, I think. He was helping Patrick when they were all here arguing over Tadhg’s dying body, and out of all of them, he was the only one who seemed remotely calm. He was also the only one who looked at me like a human instead of either looking right through me as if I were the help, or looking at me like I was something disgusting, like the mohawk-moron that Patrick called Lucky.
And speak of the devil. After Colm comes Lucky, with the bleached, faded, disheveled mohawk, still carrying himself with the same twitchy, reckless energy that he had before. Of course, as soon as he sets foot inside, his eyes land on me and his face morphs into an expression of undisguised disdain. I think he even flexes his arms, uncovered by the raggedy cut off denim jacket he’s wearing, like he’s trying to intimidate me.
Sure, pal. Try all you like. I’ve faced much scarier homophobes than you. Your insecurity is screaming at me so loud I could hear it from the fucking moon.
And then the last person to enter my home is someone who wasn’t here before. He’s tall, blond, and leanly muscled, like a coyote that hasn’t had enough meals. He has that weird predatory energy to him, too. His eyes roam over the space, taking everything in, and all my warning bells are immediately set off.
My blood curdles like milk as he steps further into my space; a predator on the prowl.
I’ve spent my short but action-packed nursing career learning to read people quickly, and I’ve spent a lifetime learning how to pick bigots and homophobes out of a crowd, and then determine from their body language which ones were all talk, and which ones would throw down and really hurt me.
And which ones would say all the vicious things, then try to drag you behind a bar to fuck you into submission. Because it’s somehow not gay if the sex is vicious and cruel, even though you’re still taking pleasure in another man’s body. The fact that you’re taking it instead of being given somehow makes it a trophy or a hunt.
Because queer love is disgusting, but hunting “weaker” people for sport is their birthright, no matter where your dick ends up.
I’ve met a few men like that before, especially when I was younger and less cautious about the bar scene. But if there’s any gift Patrick gave me, it’s a finely honed radar for violence in men. I’ve always been able to avoid them in the past. I’ve made a point of it, even though it shouldn’t be mine or anyone else’s responsibility to not “allow” themselves to be in a position to be brutalized.
So why is one of them suddenly standing in my living room?
I don’t know how I know. I just do. Every internal alarm I have is screeching, and the way he’s helping himself to the space, walking around and casually touching everything on the shelves like the dark shadow of a curious child, is only confirming it.
Tadhg and the other two are murmuring to each other, and I was so distracted by my own thoughts I didn’t really hear what they said. Not that they wanted me to. Or acknowledged that I was here.
I watched my mom get treated like this for years. This gangster-wife bullshit, where she’s a shadow until they want a beer or a fuck or a scapegoat for their misplaced anger. And somehow, by agreeing to take care of Tadhg, I’ve ended up falling into that same space in their tiny chauvinistic brains.
When Lucky walks into the kitchen, opens the fridge and grabs a beer, I bristle with irritation. When he twists off the cap, sniffs it and makes a face—probably because it’s a decent IPA that I have left over from a date, and he’s never drunk anything that didn’t taste like ditchwater—I feel my jaw clench. Then he jumps up on my counter, happy as anything, and takes a giant swig.
“Can I fucking help you? Or are you just here to touch all my shit without permission?”
Lucky’s eyebrows perk, but he stays seated and keeps drinking my beer. Blond guy comes closer though, licking his lips and looking at me lasciviously without seeming to give a fuck that the others can see him.
Colm ignores my outburst, turning to Tadhg to point in blond-guy’s direction.
“This is Eamon. He’s the local guy we put in charge of setting up. He’s been helping out your father while you’ve been recovering.”
Eamon takes another step toward me instead of looking at them.
“No one told me that the famous Savage has a sister ,” he says, his tone dripping with intent.
I’m fucking pissed. I’m not surprised, and I’ve been prepared to hear all sorts of shit out of their mouths for as long as I have to deal with these assholes, but for whatever reason, this guy is rubbing me all the wrong ways.
He’s creepy, he’s invasive, and he’s staring at me like I’m a piece of meat, right in front of all his homophobic little friends. The vibe in here is rapey AF.
I’m about to lay into him, but before I get the chance, there’s a blur of motion in front of me.
Savage
I have that fucker’s throat in my grip before I know what’s happening. I’ve felt completely off-kilter for the past few days. Longer, if I’m being honest. Years. A lifetime.
But this is something I was trained to do. Bashing in someone’s skull isn’t something I’ve ever enjoyed or actually wanted to do, but in this case, I can make an exception.
How dare he look at Micah like that? In his own fucking home?
I’ll squeeze him until his eyeballs pop out of his skull and then scoop his brain out of the empty holes with a melon baller, loving every minute of it.
The fucking audacity of this piece of shit.
I squeeze hard, already feeling cartilage being crushed beneath my strength. There’s pain screaming from my side and I’m so much weaker than normal, otherwise I would have snapped his spine by now, but I’m not in a rush. I lean my body weight into him, pinning his body between me and the wall. We’re about the same height, but I’ve got more bulk than him and, more importantly, his colossal arrogance has left him unprotected.
Clearly, someone thinks he’s king shit big dick around here, and is about to learn that is not the case. Even though I only said the words in my head, I still punctuate them with a growl as I tighten my fingers even more around his throat. His face is turning an absolutely delicious shade of purple, and there’s serotonin in my body for the first time in months.
I feel light and buzzy, like my blood has been replaced by champagne. I could do this forever. Fuck the pain.
My ears are ringing. I’m so high on adrenaline and the sheer, raw pleasure of destruction. Which is why it takes me a while to notice the yelling. But eventually, the ringing becomes hollow and then echoes out, replaced by the flat, intrusive sounds of the real world.
Everyone is yelling. Lucky is screaming like a lunatic, grabbing uselessly at my shoulders. Colm has his hands wrapped around mine and is trying to peel my fingers back from the fucker’s throat while giving me firm commands to release him in the same tone you would use with a disobedient guard dog. And beyond that, I can hear Bambi yelling at me to stop.
That’s what catches my attention. I’m distracted momentarily, which makes me weaken my grip enough for Colm to get my fingers off the man’s neck and allows Lucky to haul me back a half foot.
I barely bite back a scream, because Lucky wrapped his arms all the way around my torso to do it, and it pulled on every wound I have. The pain is so sharp and abrupt; I feel like I’m going to puke. My breath stutters, and all the fight drains out of me abruptly as I’m struggling to stand upright and breathe. I feel like I got punched in the chest, it’s so hard to get my lungs to expand, and my stomach is still churning, threatening to erupt at any second.
Then Micah’s not yelling at me. He’s barreling into Lucky, telling him to keep his hands off me and creating a blessed bubble of space around me while I catch my breath. I’m distracted from the pain for a moment by how impressed I am, watching my slender little brother body-slam that fucking idiotic bulldog like it’s nothing.
To protect me.
There are spots swimming in front of my eyes, but they’re clearing. Oxygen is getting into my lungs slowly, and the ripping pain is receding, although I know that I’ve fucked up and done damage to my wounds. Eventually, I’m able to stand fully upright again and look at the other men in the room.
Colm is looking at me with a shocked expression. Lucky looks pissed, and the blond fucker, Eamon, is still struggling to catch his breath, worse off than I am.
“Savage, are you fucking high? What the fuck?” Colm, usually rational and measured, looks at me with disbelief.
I wipe my face, which is now a mess of spit and sweat.
“He’s lucky he’s still breathing. Get him out of here. If I hear one more shitty word out of his mouth again, I’ll stake him to an anthill, naked and covered in honey. I don’t care who he is.”
Lucky’s eyes look like they’re about to pop out of his head. I have a well-earned reputation for extreme violence in my organization. It’s what Father wanted from me. He bred me for it. I hate it, but it has its uses. And even if I’ve been slacking lately because of all my… other stuff. I have enough of a history for everyone to know I’m not joking.
Colm frowns, because he’s probably the only one who can get away with calling me out on something other than Father.
“I think that would be an overreaction, and we both know it. And so would your da. We came to talk business, but obviously you’re still fucked up on painkillers.”
The mention of Father brings me a little closer to reality, and I’m immediately grateful that Colm is putting a PR spin on this incident barely three minutes after it happened, using the painkillers as an excuse.
I really didn’t think through what Father’s reaction would be. I don’t know who this dude is or how important to the organization he is. I just reacted. He looked at Micah like that, and I snapped. It’s a habit that’s too ingrained in me to get rid of.
“We’ll come back tomorrow, Sav. And maybe you’ll be a little dried out by then, eh?” Colm gives me a meaningful look with one eyebrow raised. Lucky’s gaze is darting between us, like he’s trying to pick up on everything that’s not being said.
I don’t say anything. I can’t compromise now, or I’ll look weak. I just stand there, watching them with a grim expression while they file out of Bambi’s apartment and pretending it isn’t still overwhelmingly painful to breathe.
When they’re gone, I sag. I need to sit down before I collapse.
“Jesus, Tadhg.”
Micah reaches for me, but I flinch away from his touch. Goddammit. Being near him is too strange. There are too many conflicting parts of myself that are being forced to interact, and it’s making me feel weird and weak.
He looks surprised and hurt when I won’t let him touch me, but I don’t have the energy to explain. Instead, I drag my aching body back to the couch by myself. I slip my gun out of my sweatpants pocket where I had very uncomfortably stashed it when the guys walked in and toss it on the coffee table.
Then I lie back, throwing my arm over my eyes to create the illusion of darkness, well aware that Micah is studying me in silence through all of this.
I don’t know what to do. He makes me weak. Before they showed up, I was actually considering giving him an honest answer to his question, for fuck’s sake. And wouldn’t that just be a disaster?
If I told Micah that I wanted to leave the Banna and any of the others found out, it would put not just mine, but his life at risk as well.
It was stupid of me. And selfish. Like everything else I do.
I need to get away from him before I do anything else reckless and pull him into more of my mess.
I want him to come over and force me to accept his affection. The small, sad, desperate part of me that can’t bear to keep doing this is screaming at him to come and touch me, tell me that everything’s going to be alright and maybe I can get out just like he did, and join him here in his normal fucking life.
But the rest of me knows better. There’s no out for me. The violence is rooted so deeply within me that even if I did physically leave, I would still be a walking powder keg of brutality. What just happened only proves that.
I need to get away. Being here is only confusing both of us and putting him at risk. As soon as I can walk more than ten steps without losing my breath, I’ll find a new place to hide out from the Aryans. Or maybe I’ll pick up and run. I don’t care anymore. As long as I can take my brutal, pathetic self away from him and keep him safe.