A Moment of Weakness

by Brooklyn Skye

  “I’m not—”

  “Save me the bullshit, brother,” Ryan said with a corresponding tone. “She’s a nice girl; I don’t know what the problem is.”

  “She’s a nice girl. That is the problem.” He plopped down onto a barstool, a loud crack resonating in response. Quickly he stood, noticing a solid spilt through one leg. He shook his head. “Really?”

  “That’s the second one to break this week. I’m thinking with the profit we made from The Experience, if we hold an event like that a few times a month, we might be able to afford to fix up the place properly, with decent furniture and working toilets.” Ryan didn’t mention the increase in money being what could help Micah get out from under Russo’s hand, which he appreciated. They both knew that money wasn’t what kept Micah enforcing. The tethers that bound him to the group snaked so much deeper.

  Ryan pointed at Micah. “Let me guess… She deserves better than you. Are you seriously pulling that right now?”

  Arms wide out to his sides, Micah chuckled, sharp and with no humor. “Look at my life. Raising the kid who was literally dumped on my porch by a woman who wanted nothing to do with my Boston Alibi life, working in a bar that is practically crumbling in our hands, and under the thumb of one of the biggest crime families on this side of the country. A fucking hooker could do better.”

  Ryan lifted a brow.

  Micah slugged half his whiskey. “No, I’m not comparing her to a hooker. But that’s my point. She’s so much more, with a really bright future ahead of her. She doesn’t need me dragging her down into my world.”

  “Ever think it was the opposite? Laurel bringing you into her world.” He shrugged. “Honestly, it could be good for you. Obviously it has been for Shae.”

  He couldn’t deny that. His daughter was becoming quite the young lady, no doubt because of Laurel. Politeness, etiquette, accountability… Countless qualities that simply didn’t exist in Micah’s vocabulary. He was like a caveman compared to her. Booze and brawling fueling his every move.

  Jesus, what would Shae have ended up like without Laurel’s influence? He cringed. Surely, if he’d had a son, the boy would be following in his footsteps. But he could never let his baby girl become what he was. Or become the woman who fell for what he was.

  Lips to the rim of the glass, he gulped the liquid. Swallowed hard. “Laurel’s world, Ryan? Do we look like we’re in fucking suburbia?” A girl like Laurel Harris would never end up with a guy like him. He would make sure of it.

  “You know what I mean.” Ryan dipped another glass, soapy suds clinging to the dark hairs on his arm. “She’s all rainbows and unicorns compared to your black cloud.”

  Micah finished off his whiskey, poured another, then slid the bottle toward Ryan. “Didn’t know you were a poet.”

  His friend stopped the bottle with his forearm and shot him a grinning scowl. “Didn’t know you were an ass. Oh, wait. Yeah, I did.”

  Micah smiled back. “Grade school again.”

  Ryan uncapped the bottle of whiskey and took a long pull. “Shit, if we were in grade school, you would’ve had a black eye from fucking with the kids two grades ahead of us.” He pointed to Micah’s scratched-up cheek. “At least now you have the wits to pick on someone your own size.”

  No, the guy who’d done that to his face had been much smaller than him. Weight-wise, anyway. But he wouldn’t go into detail about it with Ryan. Wouldn’t bring him into that world, either.

  “Gotta admit, though,” Ryan added, the upper half of his face smoothing into a serious expression. “Something’s different about you since you hired her. And since you’re not admitting to any feelings, I can at least say that. You’ve been different.”

  Feelings… Damn, the alcohol was stealing his ability to give a shit what he said. “You want feelings, I’ll tell you what I feel.” Elbows on the bar counter, he clasped his fingers in front of him and sighed. “I don’t know what to feel when I’m around her.”

  “God forbid you were ever on the debate team,” Ryan said with a laugh.

  “I’m serious.” Micah shook his head. “It’s like a tornado of confusion when she’s around. Every part of me wants her. But there’s a snag in my brain that keeps pulling me back, telling me there’s no way it could work with her going back to Cambridge for her teaching job in a few weeks.”

  “You couldn’t go with her?”

  Micah rolled his eyes. “We both know me leaving this place isn’t an option, either.”

  “Why not?” Two simple words, and they jolted him like a punch to the face.

  Micah’s eyes snapped up. Because he was too much like his father. Because this was the life he’d chosen, and there was no going back. “The Alibi? You?” Russo…

  “Don’t let this shithole hold you back, man.”

  In his mind, he tried to picture it. Raising Shae in a track-home neighborhood. Working a nine-to-five job. Living in Laurel’s sunshiny world. But that was where his mind jammed. Laurel and Shae fit perfectly. Not him, though. Inserting him into that vision was like taking a can of black spray paint to a brightly colored mural.

  Not. Going. To. Work.

  “I took on this place with you. I would never dump it on you.”

  Ryan nodded at Micah’s words, or more likely his tone. That was the benefit of talking with the guy who’d known him since they were kids. He knew when to stop.

  “Whatever, man.” Ryan dried the last glass and stacked it with the others. “Speaking of dumping this place on someone. You think you could close up for me? I’ve got to get to my mom’s. Apparently her cat has an ass hernia.”

  Micah laughed. “And she wants you to do what with it?”

  Shaking his head, Ryan held up his hands. “No idea. She’s too cheap to take him to the vet.”

  “I’ve read you can just push those back in.”

  Ryan’s eyes widened, mouth dropped open. “Fuck that.” From his pocket, he tugged out his phone. “I better call her before I show up. My luck is she’s been reading whatever fucked-up material you have.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  Ryan raced out of the room and Micah laughed. He loved messing with his friend.

  Micah slid the key from the lock and shoved it into his pocket, the cool, middle-of-the-night air trickling down his neck. Another so-so night in the bar. A handful of customers each hour, but nothing to tip the gains scale—

  The sudden feeling that someone was standing behind him coursed through his blood, cold and disconcerting. Quickly, he packed the ring of keys in his hand, maneuvering one between his middle two fingers, and spun.

  A familiar face stared back at him—black and blue thanks to Micah’s fist earlier that day. Micah cocked his head and smirked. “You come back for more, asshole?” Blood still caked the guy’s white shirt, running a broken line clear down to where it stretched over his mini-spare tire. A quick glance to his empty hands ensured the bastard hadn’t come back to flaunt something deadlier. No gun. No knife. So why was there a bilious fizz bubbling in his stomach?

  “Told’ya I’d be teachin’ yous a lesson.”

  “With that grammar, I don’t think you should be teaching anybody anything. You here to give back my cheek skin, pussy?” Micah threw his shoulders behind him and didn’t wait for his answer, using the brunt of his forearm to clear the path of douchebag. “I know six-year-olds who can fight tougher than you.”

  Yellow light puddled sporadically throughout the vacant parking lot, moths ticking against the glowing bulbs. The eerie silence as he stepped away from this guy—what was his name again? Big Joe? Little John?—turned his blood to ice.

  Half the guy’s mouth turned up in a mangled smile and he swooped his arms, Vanna White style, in front of him. “Can they fight better than these guys?”

  These guys?

  Out from the shadows, a gang of bodies—very large bodies—stalked toward him. At least ten of them. No weapons, Micah noticed immediately, unless he were to count the number
of melon-sized fists.

  Teach him a lesson. Fuck. His stomach sagged to his knees, and he looked to the swollen, bruised-up face. “A pansy who needs other people to do his dirty work? Guess I should’ve figured that when you drew claws instead of fists.”

  Teeth glinted in the light. “Sound familiar?” The bodies strode closer, forming a half circle around him.

  “Not an insult to me, dumbass.” He clenched his fists, the serrated metal digging into his palm. “I am the guy who does the dirty work.”

  The guy shrugged. “Maybe next time yous should research the pansies ya decide to beat da shit outta then. Make sure he don’t have a band-a-brothers who be comin’ to find ya.” A true street fighter, this guy was. One who wasn’t looking for a fair fight, but looking for a win. Shit bags like this would do anything to impose their will, even if that meant calling in every friend he had to pay retribution in the dead of the night. Fuck, please don’t let him have more. The guys stepped farther into the light, the yellow glow washing their hard-set faces and thin-set mouths to an unnatural, sickly hue. The biggest of the guys shrugged out of his black leather jacket, tossed it to the ground, then smoothed his hand over his tattooed scalp—

  The hockey game. Shit, these thugs looked just like the group Laurel had pointed out, saying something about the risk of jumping into something with people he knew nothing about. They weren’t the same guys, of course, but damn if they didn’t remind him of that very moment. Remind him that he should’ve been smart about this assignment, not jumped so desperately into it just to distance himself from the woman he was falling for…

  Rule Number Two, according to his father: Never take on the scrawniest guy in the group. They always have bigger friends.

  Micah knew how fights like this went down. There was no talking his way out of it. No escaping, either, with as many of them as there were. So he did the only thing he knew—widened his stance, rolled his fingers into his palms, and said, “Well…what are you waiting for?”

  A crescent of dingy-toothed grins was the last thing he registered before footsteps rushed toward him, drumming as fast as a handful of change clinking to the ground. The bald guy charged first, both arms extended, and slammed his massive body into Micah’s chest, pinning him to the bricked entrance of the bar. What was this guy—two-eighty minimum? Jagged rock gouged into the crown of his head. Sour, alcohol-stenched breath clouded in front of his face. He’d fought large-and-in-charge guys like this before. Getting out from against the wall and the upper hand was what he needed to do—

  A fist slammed into his jaw from the left. Then another from the right, sending a sharp zinging pulse down his neck and up into his eyes. So this was how they were going to play? His eyes found the skinny one, standing off in the distance, out of arm’s reach. “Are your friends really that scared of me? Won’t even let me fight fair?”

  The face just inches from him growled. “No street-fighting handbook in my pocket, brother,” he spewed out. “We’re here to make sure you don’t mess with our guy again.”

  The pressure on Micah’s chest released, and he instinctively stepped forward, away from the wall. While he didn’t care for the possibility of someone coming up from behind, he’d learned long ago empty space was far more of an advantage than somewhere to be trapped.

  Teeth gritted together, he scanned the group. Each one staggered from the next, fists tightened. Ready. Just as he inhaled a shallow breath and primed to charge, a few sets of eyes flickered to his left. Micah turned in time to see a branch, bigger and thicker than his arm, swinging. It cracked against his head, and he hit the ground face first, taking in a mouthful of cement. Shoes surrounded him, too many to count. Voices echoed through the ringing in his ears. Motherfucker. Pussy. Cocksucker. It was raining spit, and he tried with all his might to make his mouth reciprocate the gesture, but his gasping lungs weren’t having it. This wasn’t going to be good.

  Something smashed into his side. His breath vanished. He choked on his spit. Something else hit his back. Leg. Stomach. Hot blood trickled down his temple, and he tried to look at the guys’ faces, but all he could see was shoe after shoe after shoe connecting with his body, leaving smudges of brown along his clothes.

  Pulling his legs to his chest, he ducked his throbbing head and covered it with his arms. Less surface area to kick. He closed his eyes. Seconds, minutes, eons. He didn’t know how long he grit his teeth against the pain before thoughts of Shae and Laurel inundated his brain. I failed them. Both.

  Before the cloud of black rescued him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Laurel.” The deep voice tugged on Laurel’s mind. Jerked her farther and farther from the roomful of noisy kids.

  Wait. Roomful of kids?

  “Laurel, are you sleeping?” the voice said, louder this time. “Or can you not hear me?” Laurel opened her eyes at the same time the voice in her ear spouted, “Dammit!”

  The world slowly faded into view. The ceiling she stared at every night. The glow of her cell phone blushing against the purple couch cushions. The voice in the receiver. “Who is this?”

  “Thank God. Damn you’re hard to have a conversation with. This is Ryan. From the bar. Micah’s friend. Listen, the hospital just called—”

  “Hospital?” Her body winched up, sending her head into a dizzying circle. She pinched the bridge of her nose to right the room, then quietly scrambled to the wall in search of the light switch. “Is he okay? Was he in an accident?”

  “Not an accident.”

  “A fight.” Her thumb brushed the switch, and she flicked it on. Brightness glared. Along with the sudden drubbing of her heart against her chest and throbbing in her forehead, this had to be the rudest wakeup call she’d ever had. Worse than a bucket of ice water.

  “Yeah, a fight. But listen…it’s not what you think.”

  She swallowed. “Ryan, I know about the side jobs. Which hospital?” How bad could the fight have been? Her mind suddenly started somersaulting. Broken bones? Split cheek? Unconsciousness? Pressure lassoed around her chest, squeezing, pulling, pushing tight.

  Oh god, what if it was even worse than that? A coma? Brain damage?

  “Boston Med. Center,” Ryan answered. “Emergency room.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” She hung up the phone and sprinted into the bedroom, crouching beside Shae’s bed, but then froze. She couldn’t let Shae see her father that way—not without knowing how bad it was first.

  Mrs. Briggs. She could ask Old Mrs. Briggs to watch her. As fast as she could, she threw on some jeans and a sweatshirt then ran across the apartment breezeway and knocked on the door. Please, oh please, don’t let her sleep heavily.

  She knocked again, this time with the edge of her fist, and an eternity passed before the door creaked open and a tuft of red hair appeared. Laurel wasted no time. “Mrs. Briggs, I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Shae’s nanny from across the way.” The words rushed out too fast. She inhaled a breath. “There’s been an emergency with her father, and I need to go see him. Can you sit with Shae until I get back? I promise it won’t be long.” That last part wasn’t exactly true—she had no idea how long she’d be gone, but at least she knew Shae would be safe with the old woman. Micah had trusted her, which meant she could too.

  The woman rubbed her face and said in a sleep-worn voice, “Of course, let me just grab my housecoat.”

  Boston Medical Center was a behemoth of a building, squares upon squares stacked and staggered like Lego blocks. Laurel followed the signs to the emergency room, parked, then burst through the doorway in a much too dramatic fashion.

  Okay, slow down. Don’t panic.

  But her heart was in her throat and her mind was spinning, her breath not filling her lungs fast enough. All she wanted to do was see Micah.

  She rushed past the rows of chairs to the counter that read Check-In. Tapping her fingers viciously along the blue Formica top, she watched as the lone nurse slowly glanced up from the stack
of papers in front of her, folded her plump arms over the mound, and looked Laurel up and down. “Can I help you?”

  Yes, be more on edge. This is an emergency room, is it not?

  “I’m here to see Micah Crane. He was in a—” Shoot, not a fight. That wouldn’t sound good. She pinched her lips, gripping the countertop. “I mean, he was hurt. I was told he was here?”

  Another scan of her weary-looking eyes. Jeez, did she do this to everyone?

  “And you are?”

  His family. She wouldn’t be able to see him if she wasn’t.

  “His fiancée,” she said quickly, trying her hardest not to scream at the woman for her to hurry up and let her in. “Please, ma’am, you have to let me see him.”

  Without a word she shuffled through the papers on her desk. “Micah what?”

  “Crane.” Laurel sucked in a deep breath through her nose. In the waiting area behind her, someone coughed. A baby let out a wail. Then the door to her right swung wide and a doctor stepped out, calling for the family of a Sarah Randolph.

  The nurse cleared her throat. “Micah Crane has been admitted.”

  “Admitted?” Laurel’s lungs seized. No, no, no. “How bad is it?”

  The woman’s fleshy hand, rings circling every finger, motioned to the chairs on the opposite side of the room. “Have a seat over there, and I’ll let you know when you can see him.”

  She was going to have to wait? But… “I’m his fiancée.”

  “I understand that, miss, but we have to ensure—”

  The sound of a deep voice hollering a string of obscenities stole the nurse’s words. They both looked in the direction of the voice, where a row of curtained rooms stretched along the far wall. Oh, no. It’s him. Why was he making a scene? Laurel pointed and smiled politely. “I believe that’s my husband-to-be.”