Page 169 of Fearless

Michael nodded and glanced down at his hands.

Mercy felt the compliment all the way down to his toes. Yeah, things were different. Tides were shifting, grudges washing away.

“We have to be a united front,” Ghost continued. “This isn’t like anything we’ve faced before. This isn’t just club against club; this is club against club, town, mayor, PD. This is about the future of the Lean Dogs, boys. Let’s make sure there actuallyisa future.”

When church was dismissed, as the boys were filing out, Ghost snagged his VP with a snap of his fingers. “Collier. You got a sec?”

“Sure.”

Ghost thought the vice president had a nervous set to his chin as his eyes followed their departing brothers. Hmm. Ghost propped a hip against the side of the table, very casual and unofficial, and lit a smoke, gave off the impression of being comfortable and unworried.

Collier put his hands back on the table and leaned against it, between two chairs, head facing the doors, eyes flicking over to Ghost. There was a tension in him, one he kept well-hidden, but one out of character for him. It had been there for days. Ghost had written it off as grief.

“What’s up?”

Ghost tapped ash in one of the heavy crystal trays on the table. “Just wanted to make sure you were doing okay. What with everything.”

Collier snorted, one corner of his mouth lifting in a humorless smile. “Everything’s kinda going to shit, isn’t it? We can handle it, though.”

“Yeah.” Ghost took a long drag and let the smoke out through his nostrils. “But that’s not what I meant.”

Again, Collier’s eyes shifted over, quick, furtive. “You mean about Andre?”

“I know you cared about him. Our prospects start to feel like our sons.”

Collier snorted. “One of your prospectswasyour son.”

“True.” He’d only ever sponsored two – he wasn’t big on the mentoring – and that had been Aidan and Tango, both together when they’d prospected at sixteen. That hadn’t been much different than parenting. “But still.”

“Still,” Collier echoed, heaving a deep breath. “I’m alright. Guess I shoulda been expectingsomethingto happen, given his habits.”

Ghost made an agreeing sound.

“I just wanna focus on dealing with the Carps right now,” Collier said, pushing away from the table. He looked older than he had a week ago, more stoop-shouldered and less vital. “Andre’s buried and the girls took up a collection for his kids. There’s nothing else I can do for him now.” He turned to face Ghost fully, guilt pressed deep in the lines of his face. “Right?”

Guilt could kill a man. Guilt over not having done enough. Guilt over missing signs.

And they couldn’t afford for any member to be distracted by something as acidic as that.

So Ghost said, “Right,” and clapped his old friend on the shoulder.

Ava’s hangover settled in during her second class of the day, the sweeping nausea, the crippling headache, the exhaustion, the god-awful loudness of every whispered voice and jostled backpack, pushed-back chair. She put her head down on the table at some point in the middle of the lecture; she didn’t mean to, it was just that the faux-wood grain of the table kept getting closer, closer, closer…Oh, what the hell. She’d just shut her eyes for a minute. Maybe then she’d stop feeling so sick.

“Miss Teague!”

She snapped to attention, head jerking back on her neck, nausea threatening to overtake her, temples pounding. The room swam and refused to come into focus for a second, then her professor, the formidable Miss Coleridge, solidified into a solitary tweed-clad figure.

“Miss Teague, am I boring you?”

Ava pushed herself up on her elbows and heard someone behind her squelch a laugh. There were eleven of them in this class. In those big undergrad auditorium classrooms, one sleeping student was easily missed. But with just eleven, she was a disruption.

“No, ma’am,” she said, dashing at her cloudy eyes with the back of her hand. Oh God, she was going to be sick. “I’m fine. Just…not feeling well, is all.”

Miss Coleridge harrumphed. “I take it your condition has nothing to do with alcohol and everything to do with staying up late to go over my syllabus.”

Ava flicked her a bare smile. “Of course.”

Miss Coleridge gave her a stern look – weren’t grad professors supposed to be more laid back than this? – then resumed her seat on the front of her desk and picked up her MLA manual again. Professional Report Writing: a dry class by normal standards; throw in all the Johnnie Walker she’d consumed, and Ava was ready to take a nap with her head in the wastebasket.

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