Page 119 of Price of Angels

“It’s time to come home, girl,” Abraham said. “You had your fun, and now you’ll have to pray for the Lord’s forgiveness for the sins you’ve committed.”

He reached toward her.

Holly heard the soft whisper of Michael pulling the knife out of his boot and risked her first glance at him. He didn’t appear to have moved, but one hand was in his lap, and she knew the knife was in it.

Abraham had heard the sound too, and he was frozen, his hand hovering a few inches from her.

“Hol,” Michael said in a low, even tone. “You sit right there, sweetheart. Don’t move.”

The Jessup brothers sensed what was about to happen the heartbeat before it did. They leapt back, and Michael was right after them, flying from his seat, making a reach for Jacob with one hand while he brought the knife up with the other.

Jacob had the barest head-start, though, and dodged the blade, shoving his brother sideways into a table as they both fled for the door.

The table tipped sideways, its contents sliding to the floor. Beer fountained in a tall golden plume. French fries scattered everywhere. Patrons yelled and shouted, and all eyes went to the trio hammering across the boards to the door: the two men in front of the one with the wicked length of knife.

In the chaos, Holly lurched to her feet and took off after them.

Outside, the street was clogged with evening traffic, the streetlamps burning bright smears against the dark sky. Abraham and Jacob had dodged between cars and were on the opposite side of the road, jogging down the sidewalk toward the ruined Buick she recognized all too well.

Michael was still on her side of the street, passing headlights sliding down the knife as he looked for an opening. One wasn’t coming, though, and he leaned forward at the waist, prepared to make a run for it.

“Michael, no!” Holly grabbed at the back of his cut and he tried to shrug her off, changing course, heading up this sidewalk instead, to run parallel of them.

“Michael!” She latched on with both hands, trying in vain to pull him back. “You can’t catch them now, let them go!”

He spun to face her, and his eyes were wild and white-rimmed.

“Wait,” she pleaded. “They’re trying to get you off-balance. They knew we’d both be there and they came in on purpose. Don’t chase after them right now.Wait. Please.”

She curled her hands around his forearms, and felt the tension in them beneath his jacket sleeves. “Michael.”

His swallowed, his throat working, and seemed to collect himself. He glanced down at her, opened his mouth to speak –

And his phone rang.

He couldn’t take her with him to the clubhouse.Theywere there. Michael stood for a long moment, blindly watching the traffic, trying to decide where it was safe to leave her. The loft, he finally decided. Two flights up and secured behind heavy locks. Rapunzel wouldn’t have been safer there.

He left her sitting on the side of her bed, his gun in her hands. “Don’t leave for any reason,” he told her. She was shaking, but she nodded. He had no time to console her; Ghost was waiting for him.

The Jessup brothers were sitting in the common room when he walked in. Relaxed, comfortable, they were on one of the sofas, beers in their hands. Walsh and Tango were with them, and their calm was a deceptive mask. Walsh had one hand resting on his thigh as he sat in a recliner opposite the brothers, within close reach of the gun at his waistband.

Michael wasn’t prepared for the hot blast of rage, the way seeing them was a physical burning sensation inside him.

He ought to kill them right now. He could, he reflected, and probably neither Walsh nor Tango would interfere. He could cross to the couch in two long strides and take Walsh’s gun from him. But, no – he didn’t want to shoot them. He wanted their blood on his hands. He wanted to feel their skin give as the blade passed through it. He wanted to slaughter them like hogs.

Walsh’s gaze flicked up to his face, expression a subtle warning, like he could read Michael’s intent. “Ghost’s waiting for you in the chapel.”

The Jessup brothers were watching him, and their bold appraisal was a mockery. They knew he didn’t have leave to do anything to them here. They knew they were safe for the moment.

“Okay,” he said, and headed that way, each step more difficult than the last. He couldn’t recall a time when self-control had ever been a problem. Maybe that was why it was being so thoroughly tested now.

The doors to the chapel stood open at the end of the hall, and Ghost waited for him in his chair at the head of the table. “Sit,” he instructed, and Michael closed the doors and did so.

This room had a stale smell. The old, heavy, ornate furniture was polished weekly, and the scent of the wax blended with the musk of the wall paneling, and the accumulated cigarette smoke that never truly dissipated, only found crevices to cling to.

In his usual seat, at the right hand of the president, Michael had a view of the tension in Ghost’s face, the tightening of all the fine lines in the skin around his eyes. There was an ageless quality to the man; he seemed both older and younger than his fifty years. He was so much better-suited for the role as president than his predecessor had been that Ernest James was a laughingstock by comparison. Michael had longed for the day that James would finally step down and Ghost would take the throne.

This was the first time he wished he was sitting beside James instead, because there were no traces of gentleness or understanding in Ghost’s harsh face.

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