Page 127 of Prodigal Son

They’d all managed to slip away from the pandemonium after the boys tumbled off the stage. They stood now behind a curtain, and a row of potted palms, wide fronds interlocking and offering them cover. The show was back up and running again, and if anyone backstage was looking for the strange Frenchman, his models, and bodyguards, no one had made it to this corner to search yet.

From a bag Bruce had lugged over, they tugged tac gear over their t-shirts. Ian and Mercy pulled black knit caps over their braided hair, and Evan smeared his makeup with his fingers, so it looked like jungle camo instead.

“You got your head on straight?” Mercy asked Walsh.

He screwed a suppressor onto the end of a Smith & Wesson and gave a tight “yeah.” That would have to be good enough for now.

Thirty-Five

“You’re Morris,” Phillip said.

The man in question smiled – it was really more a hitching up of one corner of his mouth. Through the windows behind him, the garden lights illuminated the steady silver flash of raindrops. In the silence before he spoke, Phillip could hear the rain, a steady drumming overhead.

“And you’re Phillip Calloway. President of the London Chapter of the Lean Dogs Motorcycle Club. I must admit, I was expecting a beard and a certain level of…uncleanliness.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“On the contrary. Your organization fascinates me. All these years of existence, breaking the law in every way imaginable, and still you’re in business. Stronger than ever, some might argue. It makes sense, in a way, that the children of one of my subjects would wind up part of an outlaw gang.”

Tommy made a disgusted sound. “Are we really gonna do this? Sit around and let this guy act like the villain in a shitty movie? He’s, no joke, a thousand-years-old, and he’s gonna fucking lecture us?”

Three security guards moved forward.

“Tommy,” Phillip said, reaching toward him.

Morris waved his thugs back. “It’s alright, it’s alright. He’s anxious, and opinionated. Subject Nine was always much the same way.” Another quirk of a smile, no teeth, his eyes cruel amidst the lines and folds of his wrinkled face.

Phillip wanted to lunge across the table and beat him to death. It had been too long since he’d gotten his hands dirty, and he badly, badly wanted to see this old creep’s blood on his knuckles. But he swallowed down the urge and said, “My brother’s right. What are we doing here? You want Project Emerald gone? Fine, kill them all. We’ve got nothing to do with our father.”

“Ah, but see, that’s where you’re lying. You’ve given him sanctuary and resources. You even faked his death for the news cameras. You’ve gone to great trouble to protect not just him, but his fellow subjects. And now you know too much.”

A gust of wind blew raindrops against the window.

“But we’re here talking,” Phillip said. “Which means you’ve moved past the idea of just wanting to kill us.”

Morris sighed. “At this point, it seems inevitable that you’ve already shared all that’s happened with the other chapters of your club. Yes?”

Phillip nodded.

“My people are powerful, and our reach is long, but you can see the kind of light it would shine on us if the entirety of the Lean Dogs MC were to be slaughtered all at once. Outlaw organizations such as yours have friends, have ties to communities and governments and law enforcement agencies. Project Emerald was always about secrecy. Stepping out of the shadows takes away any tactical advantage we have, and then we would cease to exist. I wanted to bring you here to talk, yes, because I think we can come to an agreement.”

~*~

Of all her brothers, King was the one she saw the least, but the one whose wisdom Cassandra relied on the most. Phillip acted like her dad – more of a dad than her actual one, honestly – and Albie was kind, but a little distant, like she was a kid, and he didn’t know what to do with her. She loved Tommy and Miles, and Fox, though she rarely saw him; he’d become almost mythic in her eyes, and she didn’t care if that was an unearned reputation, he was cool, damn it. Shane was the softest, the sweetest; he gave the best hugs.

But King was the brains of the bunch. Of the boys, anyway. He’d told her something, once, and she’d taken it to heart.When you start to fret, and things get to be too much, break it all down into manageable pieces. So that’s what she was doing now.

The people who’d taken her had drugged her, at first. Prick of a needle, and then sleep, and then a haze, everything soft and distant. But then they’d allowed her to come out of it. She’d been sick for hours, never actually vomiting, but reduced to slumping sideways, pressing her face to the cool plaster of the wall and swallowing convulsively. That had finally passed, and someone had brought her water and a protein bar that she’d reluctantly consumed. They wanted her alive if they’d taken her this way; there’d be no sense in poisoning her.

She broke it down into these pieces: She was in some kind of office. The desk had been pushed against the wall, but there was a window behind some vertical blinds, and the gaps were just big enough to peep through. It was nighttime, the view a sea of black dotted with lights. Her clothes were still in place, and she didn’t feel like she had any bruises in any especially tender places; she hadn’t been molested, to her knowledge, so that was one for the win column. Her hands were bound with duct tape, but her eyes were uncovered. A man with a thick neck, big shoulders, and big hands sat in a chair beside the door, reading something off his phone, blank-faced and bored. He had a bad hairline; looked like a knockoff Jason Statham with a lumpy nose.

They were waiting for something.

She had a feeling, one that left her breathless and queasy, that the wait was for her brothers, and that once they arrived…

Well, she didn’t like to think about the possibilities. None of them were good, save the fantasy where they kicked their way in and shot everybody in the place. They could do that – she wanted to believe so, anyway.

She didn’t know how long she’d been here – whether it was hours or days – only that her panic had dulled to a low simmer, something sustainable. And she knew that, suddenly, things were about to change, because she heard loud male shouts somewhere beyond the closed door of this room.

---