Page 22 of Prodigal Son

She sighed. “Yeah. I can make that happen.”

“Excellent,” Phillip said. “Dad, get ready to be dead.” He lifted his glass. “Cheers.”

~*~

The prospect – Albie still had no idea what the poor kid’s name was – took the girls off to find them rooms and towels and whatever else they’d need to stay the night; he had a brief, inward chuckle imagining someone’s ratty old oversized t-shirt being offered to Vivian Adkins. Everyone else trooped down to the pub, save Fox, who Tommy and Miles laughingly dragged to a room to sleep it off, and Phillip, who retreated to his office.

Albie gave him a few minutes, and then followed.

His oldest brother sat behind the hulking antique desk that bisected the room, backlit by the smeared orange streetlamp glow coming in through the windows. He glanced up when Albie entered, and nodded and dropped his gaze back to the notebook he was paging through. “Our guests alright?”

Albie settled in the chair across from him, one of his own designs, pleased by the solid way it caught and held his weight. People could say what they liked about him, but he made solid furniture. “Guess so. I’ll check later.”

“Hmm.”

It was quiet a beat. Albie hadn’t come here with any particular question; Phil no doubt hadthoughtsabout what had just occurred, and he would share those he deemed sharable, in a way he deemed fit.

After a comfortable stretch of silence, Phillip folded both arms on the desk, and looked up, expression weary. “I keep waiting for it.”

Albie made an encouraging sound.

“For the police to show up at my doorstep and tell me they’ve fished Dad’s body out of the Thames. You know: ‘So sorry, but the old fuck’s gone and got himself killed.’”

Albie felt a fleeting smile touch his mouth. “Any particular way you imagine it?”

“Oh, lots of ways. He’s drunk and falls in, hits his head on the way down. Or he owes someone money – a professional hit, you know. But my favorite is that one of our poor mothers finally does him in. Stalks him night after night, and hits him over the head with a rolling pin.”

“A rolling pin,” Albie said with a snort.

“Or a fire poker. Could be anything, really. Don’t mean to go making suppositions about the fairer sex.”

“No, of course not.”

“Chelle would have my balls for that.”

“How is Chelle, by the way?”

“Happy.” A brief, pleased smile touched Phillip’s mouth. Then he sighed. “Damn, Albie.” He wiped a hand down his face. “I don’t want to deal with this.”

“None of us do.”

“But I can’t…I mean, should we? Do like Charlie says and just let the old goat rot?”

Albie opened his mouth to deliver an automatic response…and then closed it. Giving himself a moment to actually have an honest thought about the whole thing. “I…” The problem was, he’d spent his whole life taking all his emotions related to his father and stuffing them down deep, never dwelling, never letting them color the way he lived, the way he loved, the way he decided things. Each of the nine of them had handled their father differently. Phillip, as the oldest, had taken it upon himself to serve as a father figure for the rest of them, and his cool, unfeeling hatred for Devin was well-founded. Walsh wore his hate as an outright coldness. Raven was cutting and sharp. The little ones were torn, as was natural. There was hate, and distrust, but there was longing and sadness there too. Maybe even a bit of hope on Cassandra’s part. Fox had never seemed to have any kind of opinion, relaxed and indifferent (though after today’s display, and Fox’s current state of drunkenness, Albie was rethinking that).

And then there was Albie. And he…he wasn’t sure how he felt. And that was dangerous. Uncertainty had no place in the MC life.

“You stopped Charlie at the shop,” Phillip pressed. “You said no, that you guys needed to come see me, and to protect him. What were you thinking?” He sounded truly curious, like a scientist observing animal behavior.

Albie swallowed a sudden lump in his throat. “I just…heisour father.”

“And that means something to you, clearly.”

Albie slumped back in his chair, wincing. “Don’t head-shrink me, okay? I don’t know. Is that what you want to hear? It seemed wrong to just – to just –do nothing. I have no love for the man, but I’m not keen on letting some massive, shady, government-funded corporation do whatever they damn well please.” He knew that he was breathing a little hard, and made an effort to rein it in. Shit. He hadn’t had a Devin-related emotion in his life; he wasn’t going to start now.

He reached up and scrubbed a hand through his hair. Shit.

Phillip chuckled, not unkindly. “Ah, Albie. You suppress too much. It comes back to bite you that way.”

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