Chapter 5
Callum
If only I never came over here.
I’m glad I did, though. I wouldn’t trade that summer for anything.
Sanoa Bay was always the exact opposite of everything that made up St. Carmen. We were manicured; they were wild. We were bright and new; they were ancient and decrepit. We were building up, and they were falling down.
We were thriving; they were surviving.
I gaze out the window, taking in the bright-colored houses up on stilts, the dark, overgrown woods beyond, and the way the light glimmers through the streaks of rain on the Cadillac windows.
Even the clouds seem to hang lower here.
Once my father leaves tonight, the fun can start. I can’t wait.
I fill my lungs, savoring the perfume in the air that doesn’t quite reach us over in St. Carmen. Of course, everything else smells good over there. The houses, the hotels, the restaurants, the people…
But here, it’s the air. The ocean, the earth, the palm trees, and sweat…It closes me into a room with a leaky roof and a creaky bed where I couldn’t think and had never felt so fucking good.
“Do you remember the last time we were here together?” Milo asks me.
He and Jerome sit across from Vincent and me—our driver is taking us into Sanoa Bay to get the lay of the land and see what’s changed since we left for college.
I stare out the window, remembering but not caring. We were with Clay Collins and Krisjen Conroy, and we stole a Seminole flag, and all I wanted was for everyone to leave. I was on a downward spiral I couldn’t climb out of by then.
“I remember the first time,” I say instead. “Now, that was a night.”
Of course, I’d been to the Bay before—for the beach, for parties at the lighthouse, for key lime pie at Mariette’s…But the night of that summer storm when Dallas Jaeger issued his first dare to me, that was when we first came over for some real fun.
“I can’t even remember where I slept that night,” Milo jokes.
Vincent laughs under his breath as he taps away on his phone, and I toss Milo a glance, remembering how I didn’t get any sleep that night. I bite back my smile, catching Jerome’s eyes on me before I shift my attention back out the window.
Trucks pull out of driveways as men start to head to work, and we pass a porch with a woman drinking her coffee. Rain bounces off the mud, shrouding the Bay—of course—in its own world.
As we travel down the main drag behind our tinted windows, we note some improvements, though.
There are more paved streets—some with sidewalks and streetlamps even, and there’s a gas station now and a small grocery store.
Mariette’s looks like it’s gotten a fresh coat of turquoise-blue paint, and we pass a sign pointing the way to the beach boasting full services.
I guess that means they’ve put in bathrooms. I remember seeing them apply for permits two years ago when my friend in the town hall was keeping me in the loop, but as far as I know, they never applied for funding.
How the fuck is Macon Jaeger paying for all of this?
“They’re renovating the drive-in.” I maintain steady breathing, but I can’t stop clenching my teeth. “Moving their shitholes off the beach to preserve the coastline. Liv and Clay bought the lighthouse, too.”
They’re turning the area into a recreational destination and renovating local landmarks.
The Jaeger house starts to come into view as we travel up the street, and my heart pumps in my ears, thinking about how close I once thought I might get to that family. Fucking stupid.
The broken-down wing has been completely restored, the cracks in the pink stucco that once exposed the frame in the walls now fixed. Their dilapidated ancestral home with three floors and a Spanish-tiled roof would almost be worthy of St. Carmen. If not for the people in it.
They’re getting money from somewhere, and it isn’t from mowing fucking lawns.
“Their roots weren’t supposed to get deeper,” Jerome says.
“That stops today.” I nod at all of them and then call out to the driver. “Stop here.”
He pulls over to the side of the road, across from the Jaeger house, and I doubt this car will go unnoticed, but I don’t give a shit.
The garage still stands to the right of the house, and I remember that one of the kitchen windows inside looks out into it, but another window looks out onto the pool.
They’ve always operated under the guise that they simply nurture what they’ve been given, but still, they live in a mansion and no one else in the Bay does.
When the going gets tough, will their people fight for them?
“It pisses me off, how he’s managed to thrive,” Milo bites out, all of us staring at the Jaeger house. “Fucking roads and streetlights and a cop in the family now.”
Krisjen Conroy—Krisjen Jaeger now—closes her front door, holding an umbrella to protect her nice little cream-colored suit of dress shorts, white blouse, and a blazer.
A gold broach pinning closed the collar at her neck glints in the sunlight that peeks through the clouds as Macon Jaeger steps out of his garage to get her car door for her.
She must be on her way to St. Carmen, as she sits on the city council.
No need to dress up like that for anyone in this shithole.
Milo seethes across from me. “They can have that bitch,” he spits out. “I already did.”
Krisjen’s husband leans in for a kiss, reaching out his hand, and she darts back out of his reach.
They proceed to play, him trying to touch her as she escapes the car grease on his fingers, which are going to fuck up her nice clothes.
He smiles, finally grabbing her by the back of the head, both of them sinking into a kiss.
I can’t say I’ve ever seen that guy smile before. How fucking happy they all are.
“Married or not,” I say, as if her husband can hear me, “Jerome can still have a piece of her.”
I look to our friend who grew up at the same time as Macon and didn’t give a shit that Milo had her in high school. He wanted to marry Krisjen. Unfortunately, her pussy wanted a roughneck, as most pussy does.
“There may come a night when Macon Jaeger isn’t home,” I taunt.
If my plans go right.
Milo coos as Jerome’s eyes light up; he’s itching to know more. He shouldn’t want to marry her anymore. She’s probably been run through pretty good in that house by now, but he can still have some fun.
Macon Jaeger will kill anyone who touches his wife.
I don’t need to know them now to know that, but I don’t care about that, either.
Jerome and Vincent are useful, but Milo is a hassle and if the Jaegers haven’t hatched a plan to go after him for slapping around Krisjen when she was a teenager, they will for the time we kidnapped Liv back in high school.
If they take care of him, they’ll be doing me a favor.
“Come on,” Milo whines. “Tell us.”
“Tell you what?”
“We’re home,” he points out the obvious. “They’re all home.”
Including Iron Jaeger, the convict.
More car doors slam outside as people get on with their day, and a motorcycle rumbles past us.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Milo.” I brush off invisible lint on my suit.
“But it’s a dangerous time of year, you know?
The rain and floodwaters bring a lot of wild animals and a lot of empty houses.
” I meet each of their gazes. “I don’t think these Swamp Rats will be able to resist temptation, do you? ”
A couple of silent chuckles go off as realization starts to dawn.
“You mean, would Iron Jaeger be able to resist?” Jerome clarifies. “Not a chance.”
“And his favorite brother?” Vincent grumbles. “Nope.”
No, Dallas won’t let Iron go anywhere alone.
Clay Collins steps out of the house, once Krisjen has departed, and I watch the woman who used to be one of us run through the rain, hand in hand with her girlfriend, as they jump in their car.
Aracely Diaz drifts into the garage next, clipboard in hand as she nods at whatever instructions Macon gives her. Her red lipstick still makes her mouth the first thing you notice about her, her long brown hair blanketing her naked back in her red halter top. She manages their businesses now.
“Mmm,” Milo coos, looking through the window. “I think it’s time we start taking some of their women.”
We’ve had their women, but it’s certainly time to get back to normal. Their wives and girlfriends have gotten far too comfortable not dreaming about what our money smells like.
“Go have some fun,” I tell him.
Milo and Vincent jump out of the car and head down to the bar, which is always open and attached to their shitty swamp motel. I’ll send the car back for them.
Macon Jaeger looks over Aracely’s head to us parked on the street. He might know it’s my car and my driver. He seems to always know everything, but he can’t be sure, and he’s not going to kick us out if he thinks it’s a tourist.
His eyes focus intently, unblinking and steady, and I smile to myself knowing he knows.
Punching the roof twice, I send our driver off, keeping my eyes on the Jaeger house as the car takes us back out of the Bay.
Jerome will have to get to the office, and I still haven’t decided if I need one. There are no investment firms in St. Carmen, if I wanted to join one. I would need to go to Miami, and I didn’t turn down offers in the international market to stay in the South but not be in St. Carmen.
I could just keep tending to and growing my own money and using it to fuck up things here.
That sounds more fun.
I need to pick up my sister, though.
“Drop off Mr. Watson at his office, then take me to the academy,” I call out.
Barnes nods. “Yes, sir.”
Sophia might prove useful after all. I thought about her role here when I was preparing my return. Maybe she’d help me get rid of my father, who also needs to be taken care of—after the Jaegers are neatly nailed back down into their places, of course.
Or perhaps I could’ve put her in Olivia Jaeger’s path, a means to put me there, too.