Chapter 18 Gage
GAGE
Something snaps inside me. My chair skids against concrete as I surge to my feet. “Say that again. I fucking dare you.”
Rafe’s weight comes off his chair. Cruz drops his taco with an irritated sigh.
Bishop rises slower, deliberate, meeting my height without breaking eye contact. “You don’t plan jobs, Gage. You execute them. That’s the division of labor. And now suddenly you want us to gamble everything because you want to fuck some girl you liked ten years ago? Grow up.”
Something in my chest fractures, but before I can figure it out, anger pours over every inch of me like lava, burning everything in its wake.
“I’m the reason half our jobs didn’t go sideways. I’m the one taking hits while you sit back moving pieces like it’s a fucking board game. How does it feel, Bishop? To not be in control, hm?”
“Boys,” Coco says mildly.
Bishop rounds the table, taking a step toward me, his voice dropping. “She cut and run years ago, and if you think she won’t do it again, you’re a fucking idiot. That girl would sell you out in a sec—”
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” I grind out, taking a step toward him.
He studies me for half a beat too long.
The corner of his mouth twitches upward, eyes crinkling at the edges while something cold flashes behind them—that same look he gave me when we were kids and he'd figured out which buttons to push.
My stomach drops as his words form before he even speaks them.
“You didn’t protect her then, and you’re sure as fuck not doing it now. And if you’re so desperate for a fuck, I’m sure she’d give it up for a hell of a lot less than one-eighth of our cut.”
The world goes white-hot, my vision narrowing to a pinpoint focused on Bishop's smug face.
I swing on him, my knuckles already burning with the anticipation of impact.
At the last second, some buried instinct makes me pull back just enough so it doesn't land full force.
My fist connects with his face in a sickening crack that vibrates up my arm.
His head jerks to the right, a spray of blood catching the evening sun.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Rafe and Cruz moving toward us. Bishop drags the back of his hand underneath his nose with a wild sort of grin.
“Goddamnit, Bishop,” I snap, preparing myself for the chaos that is my brother.
He’s an underground fighter, for fuck’s sake. I can hold my own, but I’m not in the ring every fucking week like he is.
He doesn’t say anything as he lunges toward me.
His fist clips my cheekbone instead of my jaw, and pain explodes bright and sharp like a flashbulb behind my eyes.
My body reacts before my brain catches up, muscle memory from a thousand backyard brawls taking over.
I drive my fist into the soft spot between his ribs where I know it'll hurt, feel the solid meaty thud of knuckle against flesh, hear the half-grunt he tries to swallow.
I follow with a shot to his shoulder, my arm a piston, the impact jarring all the way to my teeth as my knuckles connect with the hard ridge of his collarbone.
“Fuck!” Cruz barks. “Can we not do this on taco day?”
Bishop grins as he grabs a fistful of my shirt, the cotton bunching between his white-knuckled fingers, and yanks with enough force to make my neck snap forward.
We slam chest to chest, the collision knocking air from my lungs, our ragged breath mixing in the inches between our faces—beer and blood and fury.
“Don’t you fucking do it,” I warn, already bracing for what’s coming. I’ve seen it hundreds of times in the ring, right before he headbutts his opponent and it’s lights-out.
His eyes narrow as he swings again. I catch his arm mid-arc, feel the coiled muscle beneath my grip, and shove him backward into the table hard enough that plates jump and silverware clatters against ceramic like wind chimes in a storm.
“Enough,” Coco says.
My eyes flick to her for half a second—just long enough for Bishop's knuckles to slam into my lower lip, splitting it against my teeth.
Something warm and metallic pools beneath my tongue.
I plant both palms against his chest and heave, feeling the solid resistance of muscle before he loses balance and staggers backward.
“Rafe.” Coco’s voice is a blade leaving its sheath.
Rafe’s between us in a heartbeat, one hand braced on my chest, the other shoving Bishop back. “Break it up,” he snaps. “Both of you.”
“Get off me,” Bishop snarls, shoving Rafe’s hand off of him.
Rafe plants his feet. “You done?” he asks Bishop, low. Then to me, “You?”
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, breathing hard. The red haze is thinning, leaving pain and clarity behind.
I glance at Coco.
She hasn't moved from her chair, rim of the margarita glass pressed against her bottom lip, eyes tracking us with the quiet calculation of someone compiling evidence for future use.
“Yeah,” I mutter. “I’m done.”
Bishop exhales sharp through his nose, jaw tight, then gives a single, jerking nod.
Rafe drops his hands to his sides, but he doesn’t take his seat again.
Coco takes a slow sip and sets her glass down with a soft clink. “Now that you boys have gotten that out of your systems, remember who you are.”
No one moves. I’m not even sure anyone takes a breath.
“We’re a family,” she continues, voice softer and somehow more dangerous. “We fight. We bleed. Then we move forward. Because the only people in this world you can count on are in this backyard.”
For a second, I almost feel twelve again. Scraped knees, split lip, learning what loyalty costs.
Coco's chair creaks as she leans back, ice clinking against her glass. Her eyes, the same blue-gray as Bishop's, sweep across our bloodied knuckles. The corner of her mouth twitches.
“Now.” Her fingernail taps once against the rim of her glass. The sound hangs in the air between us. Bishop shifts his weight, jaw clenched tight enough that a muscle jumps beneath the skin. When I swallow, I taste copper.
She waits, patient as a sniper, until the silence itself becomes an accusation. “Who wants to tell me why my sons are throwing punches over a girl?”
Bishop lets out a short, humorless laugh. He leans over an spits out blood. “Go on, Gage. Tell Ma how you’re breaking her only rule.”
My stomach drops like I've just missed a step in the dark, acid churning hot and sour. Coco doesn't even glance at Bishop. Instead, her eyes lock onto mine, unblinking.
“What did you do?” she asks quietly.
It shouldn’t hurt. It shouldn’t feel like a blade finding a soft place.
But it does.
Before I can answer, Bishop’s shoulders square. Something stubborn and ugly flashes across his face.
“He brought Bellamy Hale into a job,” he says, looking right at me.
Everything stops. The breeze dies against my skin, leaving sweat to cool in place. Even the goddamn night seems to hold its breath, cicadas cutting their chorus short.
Coco goes very, very still. Not the frozen stillness of shock or the rigid stillness of anger.
This is the liquid stillness of a predator—muscles coiled, senses heightened, perfectly calibrated for the kill.
Her manicured fingers rest against the weathered tabletop, red nails like droplets of fresh blood against the wood.
Her gaze sweeps the table, slow and deliberate, pale eyes reflecting the porch light as she catalogs each of our expressions, like she's counting pieces on a board she already knows how to clear. Then it lands on me, heavy as a physical weight.
“You brought her in,” she says quietly. “Bellamy Hale.”
The words stick in my throat like sand. “She found it first. We're—”
“Yet somehow,” Coco interrupts, her voice sliding through my flesh like a stiletto knife.
“My sons are the ones with blood on their knuckles.” Her gaze gentles just enough that I can see the disappointment beneath the steel.
“When you let an outsider into family business,” she says, each word precise as a bullet. “You put your name behind hers.”
Coco's hands come together on the tabletop, fingers interlacing with deliberate precision. “And if something goes sideways, the one who vouched takes the fall. Not your brothers. You ready for that?”
Heat crawls up my neck. “Ma—”
“No.” One finger lifts. That’s all it takes to shut me up. “Their mistakes are your mistakes. Their luck is your luck. And their consequences”—her mouth curves, sharp and humorless—”are yours.”
The silence turns heavy, and I force myself to breathe through it. I sink into my chair.
“I didn’t bring her in. I proposed a partnership for one job. She has the in we’d need. Working this together bumps the take up considerably. I haven’t told her shit about us.”
That last part comes out sharper than I mean it to.
Coco’s brow lifts a fraction. “How do you know this isn’t a setup?”
“Because she has more to lose than we do,” I say without hesitation. “She’s already inside. If this blows up, it hits her first.”
Her fingers tap once against the condensation on her glass. “And why am I hearing about this now?”
I exhale slowly. “We took a vote.” The words feel like a misstep the second they leave my mouth.
“A vote without me,” she murmurs, glancing around the table.
“The majority took it,” Rafe says.
She nods slowly, anger tightening her gaze. “What kind of take?” she asks.
This is my opening, maybe the only one I’ll get.
I lean forward, elbows on my knees. “With Bellamy, seven-fifty, maybe more if we play it right.”
Coco hums low in her throat—the sound she makes when she’s running numbers instead of emotions.
Then she looks at Bishop. I try to not let it sting.
“Is that true?”
He shrugs, one shoulder hitching higher than the other, gaze dropping to the table before meeting hers again with reluctant steadiness. “That’s what they said.”
“And what do you think?” she presses.
“I think this job has a lot of variables, including the take. But I got outvoted, so I’m gonna take every fucking penny we can,” Bishop says.
A needle of resentment worms its way underneath my skin. Bishop. Always fucking Bishop. The golden son whose judgment she trusts even when he's on the wrong side.
Coco sits back, studying us like entries in a ledger instead of her sons.
“All right,” she says at last. Her smile is small, exacting.
“You boys want to be men and take votes without me? Then you get to carry the weight like men too. You voted the job in. That means you own it—all of it. If it goes well, we celebrate.” She pauses, and her gaze hardens.
“And if it goes sideways, you do not come crying to me. You don’t ask me to fix it. At least not for free.”
Bishop's jaw tightens as he dips his chin once, eyes never leaving Coco's face. Rafe's nod is curt, military. Cruz lifts his brows, like he’s unsurprised. My own head feels heavy as I lower it, the taste of blood still sharp on my tongue.
Coco takes a slow sip of her drink. “We have rules about outsiders for a reason. You boys think you’re grown enough to make your own rules, that’s your business. But if she brings trouble to my door.” She pauses, letting her gaze bore into mine. “I’ll send your brother to clean up your mess.”
It's not an idle threat. Her words hang in the air like a promise written in smoke.
I sit back, chest tight as a clenched fist, the taste of blood coating my tongue. My heart hammers against my ribs, adrenaline still buzzing under my skin like electricity searching for ground.
Because the truth burns like acid in my veins: I made my choice the instant Bellamy appeared on that sidewalk, her shadow stretching toward me like a lifeline I'd drown for.
And God help me, I'd do it again with a knife at my throat and my family watching.