Chapter 32 #2
“He was staying at a bed-and-breakfast but left early,” Johnny explained. “Someone else was trailing him, probably the Velascos. They must’ve spooked him.”
“Not surprising,” Liam said. “Cal was damn close to nailing down Ivan. I’m sure Ivan would like to snip that loose thread for good.”
Emory agreed with a nod. “Where’s he heading?”
Johnny shrugged and scratched his beard that grew in thick and patched with red.
“Hard to say. California maybe. The Portland police are done with their courtesy calls and wellness checks. Unless someone raises hell, they’ll wash their hands and move on.
There’s one other thing. That kid from the motel was moved out of the ICU.
His doctors think he’ll pull through. If you wanna handle that, we have to do it soon. ”
On either side of Emory, a torrent of disquiet overtook Jack and Liam, but for different reasons. Liam admonished needless violence. Jack exalted it.
“I appreciate the heads up, but no. Leave the kid alone.” Emory ignored Jack staring a hole through him as he stood and shook Johnny’s hand. “Great work. Keep me updated.”
After Johnny left and Liam puttered off to the bar, Jack stood and shoved his chair into the table so hard the wood slats crackled. He stormed off with nothing left to say. Funny for a man who had so much to get off his chest earlier.
On the ride back from the funeral, Jack had passionately proselytized focus, commitment, and seeing the forest for the trees. He spoke in idioms and expected Emory to understand. And Emory had, but only because Jack and Mirabelle shared the same talking points.
“You going to see Miri?” Emory shouted at Jack’s back.
He expected a lie. Mirabelle and Jack had been lying for months and did it with the same vague excuses. Jack’s shoulders rustled with a bitter laugh. He spun slowly on his heel but wasn’t smiling.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Emory stepped out of the spotlight at the head of the table and crossed the divide between them.
“You know what it means. I’m neither blind nor stupid.”
“You going to see Amelia?” Jack asked with the same animosity as half the captains. “C’mon, Em. It’s not like people haven’t noticed, and Sal makes a good point. What the fuck is she in all of this?”
Emory reeled with the unusual sting and met Jack in the middle of the room.
“Mine,” he seethed and stared down Jack with a threat. He’d killed men for less than this. “She’s mine, and don’t you ever fucking forget that.”
Emory drew a line in the sand and sent out the tide because somewhere up above Amelia nursed a broken heart and for what? A double-standard where Jack and Mirabelle could act with impunity, but Emory could not. Fuck that.
“It’s a mistake,” Jack said and backed away. When he reached a safe distance, he turned around and pounded up the stairs.
Emory slipped a finger between his shirt collar and the black tie still coiled around his neck. Relief came with a hard yank and the oppressive tightness loosened. It was just him and Liam. Just like the old days.
Liam used to hold his own court with Emory. He’d sling advice across the bar while Emory mulled it over with a drink. Liam fell into that familiar rhythm as he set out two glasses and pulled bourbon from the shelf. Emory perched on a stool as Liam whistled a Sinatra tune and fixed Manhattans.
“Jack’s drunk again,” Liam remarked and offered Emory the first glass.
He sipped his drink and savored the warmth filling his chest. “You agree with what he said?”
Liam’s tune trailed off. Glass in hand, he circled the bar and sat next to Emory.
“I’ve seen what a mistake shaped like a woman looks like, even held it in my arms once or twice. It ain’t her. Amelia will love you right, but she needs to adjust to our world, prove her loyalty to the organization, to you.”
Make her one of us. Emory stiffened with deep unease. It wasn’t that she couldn’t belong in his world, but that she shouldn’t. He saw that clearly after all that had happened.
“The captains have been split down the middle before,” Liam continued. “It’s nothing new. We always fall back into a unified whole.”
“That’s what worries me. This feels different.” Emory glanced at Liam, who seemed content as he chomped on a brandied cherry. “You can’t tell me you’ve never thought about what the first crack in the foundation might be.”
Liam brushed it off with a shrug. “I don’t dwell on it. Neither should you.”
“I’m only asking what this would look like if it came apart. We need to be prepared.”
“And you think it looks like this?” Liam lifted his glass to the table behind them. “Some back-talk over your new girlfriend? Our men wanting to avenge Gio’s death? Their blood is up. Emotions are running high. That’s nothing, a blip. What are you afraid of, Emory?”
The question caught him off guard. Emory’s instinct was to claim fearlessness. Perhaps that would fly when he needed to be their brave leader. In reality, the past few nights, fear got into him like a fever, burning him up as he laid awake while Amelia slept in his arms.
“I’m beginning to think someone else inside our organization is telegraphing our moves to Ivan. He knew Amelia was with me in Vegas. He knows she’s here now. He knows…”
Emory was content to let the rest go unsaid, but Liam continued where he couldn’t.
“He knows how much she means to you. Your brother will come out of the woodwork eventually. When he does, you have this whole organization to back you. And there’s always a disgruntled street soldier somewhere willing to turn rat.
That doesn’t mean our world is falling apart.
We’ve dealt with it before and will again.
Your instincts are your strength. Don’t dilute them by overthinking. ”
Get outta your head, son. The echo of his father hit Emory hard with a wave of grief he hadn’t felt in years. Liam downed his drink and slid from the stool.
“My show’s coming on.” He squeezed Emory’s shoulder and let his hand remain there for a fraught moment until he frowned and said, “I wonder sometimes if you regret choosing this life, if you wish you could leave it behind.”
Liam stared at Emory in earnest. It wasn’t a curiosity to ponder, but a call for reassurance.
Emory patted Liam’s hand. “Don’t ask me that question tonight.”
“Fair enough. Get some sleep. No burning the midnight oil. You need a break.”
Alone at the bar, Emory sipped his drink, but it soured his stomach and turned bitter on his tongue. The release he needed rested upstairs, and long ago he might’ve hated how much he craved her. It wasn’t just sinking between Amelia’s thighs and dissolving his worries in the pleasure she’d bring.
Amelia beckoned with far-off nostalgia, some golden memory that came like a dream.
The sound of her buttercream voice, the way her mouth moved, the stories she told, the dreams they both shared.
Where she spoke of wants, he suffered from need.
Yes, he needed her; needed her in a way that promised pain, needed her even if it meant his undoing.
Glory to the victor, she had him on his knees.
“What the fuck am I doing?” Emory muttered to himself.
He hopped from the stool and tossed out his drink in the sink. With his heart in his throat, he raced up the stairs and ignored the throng of people crowding the foyer. They said goodbye and hugged one another, exchanged clammy handshakes with insincere smiles.
Mirabelle hurried toward him and snatched him by the forearm. “Em, honey, you did the right thing. I know it hurts, but you gotta let her go.”
“No.” Emory yanked his arm free and rushed up the stairs.
Resolve weakened his knees but set his heart ablaze.
Heroes always ran. No one ever said, “The fireman strolled into the burning building” or “The soldier moseyed into battle.” Cowards ran too; from broken homes, busted hearts, the messes they made.
The only thing separating the craven from the brave was the direction they ran.
When it mattered most, Emory ran to her.
Down the hall, he nearly barreled into her room but stopped outside her bedroom door. Words would surely fail him, but his touch had a language all its own. It’d speak his desire not just for her body, but her heart.
He knocked with no answer then twisted the knob. Locked. She’d locked him out, and he couldn’t have predicted the way it hurt. Heart heavy, he knocked again.
“Amelia, it’s me. Open up.”
Emory listened for sounds of her stirring. Nothing came, and no light spilled from beneath the frame. With the crowd gone, the house was at rest, and so was she.
Defeated and wholly dejected, Emory settled in across the hall for uneasy sleep. He’d see her tomorrow and tell her then what rested behind his palisade of the unspoken, the words he couldn’t manage until then.
Every moment with her was making up for lost time. A comedy and tragedy of wasted years, it enthralled and gutted. Though the past couldn’t be undone and his future was a tangle of uncertainty, he’d carve out his own fate and a place for just them two; side by side and free from this hell.
He’d tell her tomorrow.