by Rhys Ford
His attacker was already on his feet by the time Miki was halfway up. His jeans were wet from where he’d fallen into the puddles left over from the morning rain. Despite the shadows draped over the alley, the sticky afternoon heat grew and a sudden rush of hot air stole the breath from his lungs. The damp, stiffening fabric wrapped tighter around his swollen knee with each bend of his leg, cutting into his flesh, but Miki couldn’t stop.
“I kill you and Danny is free. You should have died back then. You’re a mistake I need to fix.” The man turned, screaming into Miki’s face. His breath was rotten, nearly as hot as the bursts of wind driven down the alley’s length. Up close, his skin was patterned with runnels of broken capillaries and sickly yellowing spots. “I told him you were dead. You have to stay dead.”
“You’re fucking crazy, old man,” Miki spat. “And I’m going to show you just how not dead I am.”
The first few steps he took toward the gun were good, but the alleyway and its slick ground had other plans. His Converse slid out from under him again, and the killer tumbled past Miki, his outstretched hands reaching for the gun. It hurt to feint, but Miki knew he didn’t have a choice. If he didn’t get the weapon before the man did, he was as good as dead. Shoving to the right as hard as he could, he caught the man’s ribs with his shoulder, throwing him off-balance.
Behind them, Dude continued to rage, tearing the air up with his barks. Miki could only hope he would live and be able to calm the dog down. At this point, he just wanted to be able to survive.
They both landed hard. The man rolled over onto his side, and Miki landed on his back, jarring his spine. Miki twisted around, grinding his hip into the ground, but it gave him enough leverage to shove his fist into the man’s open mouth. Throwing one leg across the man’s torso, Miki scissored his knees together, trapping the wiry man’s limbs between his thighs. Holding tight, he dug his thumb into the hollow of the man’s throat, punching again and again until his attacker was gasping for breath.
It was either a lucky shot or the man had seen Miki favor his knee, because in his wild flailing, he struck Miki’s aching joint with a mind-staggering blow. Miki couldn’t hold on, and he jerked back instinctively, releasing the man and pulling away to protect his injured body. The man didn’t follow. Instead, he lunged again for the gun, his nails scrabbling over the drainage grate, ripping them from his fingers.
Unable to catch his breath through the pain, Miki bit down on his lip and climbed over the man, yelping when he felt teeth sink into the tender skin of his underarm. They tangled and rolled, and Miki got a few digs into the man’s eyes, shoving his fingertips into any bits of soft flesh he could find.
And then his free hand brushed against the gun.
Grabbing at the weapon, Miki rolled, knowing he needed some distance between him and his attacker in order to get a clean shot. He hit the brick wall of Damien’s warehouse, his shoulder lodged into the wooden stair frame they’d built between the buildings for Kane. He tasted blood and his tongue felt like it was shredded, but nothing hurt more than his leg, a pounding throb that seemed to run up his body and straight into his temples. He couldn’t see straight, and every time he blinked, the man’s silhouette shimmered.
His attacker had already gotten to his feet, and the gun in Miki’s hand didn’t seem to be slowing him down.
Miki pulled the trigger.
For a brief hiccup of eternity, nothing happened. Miki pulled it again and heard the click, and then he looked up to see the man standing over him, wild-eyed and insane. Lurching forward, he reached, rushing at Miki—then a boom broke over the sound of their heaving breaths.
The man’s face was gone. Fuck, his whole head was gone. So was a bit of the brick wall above Miki’s head, and then his mother’s killer crumpled in on himself, falling forward to land at Miki’s side. There was blood everywhere. Bits of bone and brain scattered around Miki’s hips, a speckled spray of gore covering his shirt and splattering his cheek. The man’s arms flopped and twisted before finally stilling, and his legs gave a final twitch, making a small splash in the runoff from the gutter’s spout.
At the end of the alley stood a woman holding a smoking gun.
The click of her heels on the solid ground oddly reminded Miki of Brigid. As she approached, Miki raised the weapon he’d fought so hard to get ahold of. She was beautiful in the way a praying mantis was, her triangular face canting to the side in a robotic tilt and her delicate Chinese features nearly luminescent despite the alleyway’s dim light. Her business suit was black—or at least that’s what it looked like in the shadows—her pencil skirt ending just above her knees and her porcelain complexion contrasting against the dark color. The red shirt she wore under her jacket was nearly the color of the man’s blood, and the strings of pearls hanging around her neck looked too much like bone for Miki’s liking.
The older woman was still holding the gun loosely in her hand as she approached the man’s sprawled body.
Motioning with her fingers at the weapon he kept trained on her, she said haughtily, “You can put that down. If I was going to shoot you, it would have been from back there.”
She gave the man’s leg a slight kick, and Miki couldn’t tell if it was to check to see if he was really dead or out of spite. He would’ve guessed spite if her pretty but cold features showed any emotion. When she turned her dark eyes to stare at Miki, he finally saw an expression flicker over her face, and it hung there, a hint of regret and familiarity. She stepped over Miki’s feet, then perched on the partially finished stairs, setting her gun down on the deck.
“I was not prepared for how much you look like your mother.” She tilted her head to the left as if to get a different view of Miki’s face. “I knew her, you know? She was like a butterfly caught in the same cage as rabid dogs, beating her wings against the bars, but we all knew she would never be free of my brother. At least not until…well, no, even after Danny went to jail, she wasn’t free of him.”
“I don’t know what you want, but—” Miki started to say, keeping the gun turned up despite the nearly unmanageable ache of pain running through him.
“I don’t want anything.” She sagged a little bit, sighing as she put her hands in her lap, and she began to fidget with a jade band on one of her fingers. “I regret that my brother couldn’t see reason. I am sorry he had to force our family into a corner. You see, your inspector said something to me that struck me deep. I am a mother—nothing I ever forget, mind you—but he reminded me that you are a son without a mother. One we took from you. In Danny’s rantings about murdering you, I’d forgotten that. Your mother was very sweet, but she wasn’t smart. If she’d been intelligent, she wouldn’t have made a living on her back. Still, she never would’ve abandoned you. A mother doesn’t abandon her son.”
“So you came to kill him because you remembered my mom was sweet?” Miki hitched himself up against the wall, hoping to steady his aim. He wasn’t going to drop the weapon, especially since he heard sirens echoing through the streets. “Lady, there’s something really fucking wrong with your family.”
“No, I killed him because I was reminded I was in debt to your mother for protecting my son from his uncle when I stupidly allowed the federal government to hide me away, or I would’ve shot you to protect myself.” She lifted her chin as if to study the clouds she could see in the stretch of sky showing between the buildings. “Really, you can put the gun down. You look like you are about to faint, and I do not want to get shot just because you cannot handle the weapon. I’m the one who called the police. If I hadn’t, I would’ve been able to shoot him and walk away because you don’t know who I am.”
“Then why didn’t you?” Miki asked. It was surreal, having a conversation with a porcelain dragon with the dead man lying a few feet away, but Miki had long given up trying to make sense of his world. “Not like I would’ve said anything. Asshole’s been trying to kill me for the past couple of weeks.”
“You see, my son has done somet
hing stupid. As something he thought he had to do in order to protect the family. I can’t allow him to take the blame for it.” She kept her composure as a cop car pulled up in front of the warehouse, its tires screeching as it came to a stop. “You see, Micah, a mother would do anything for their child, even confessing to her brother’s murder. Because there is nothing a mother wouldn’t sacrifice for her child, including her freedom. Now smile, and be sure the policeman knows which one of us is a killer.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Gypsy roses, and a white daisy crown
Waltzing in circles, We all fall down
Spin a thread, make it of gold
Weave us a family, brash, loud and bold
Let me sing to them in the darkness
Let me sing to them in the light
Let us sing together under the moon
Let us sing to keep back the night
When the road comes a’calling
Let me remember where I’ve been
’Cause once our song is over
We’ll want to come back again
Don’t sell your soul to the Devil
Take a nickel for every sin
Lift your voices so we can hear you
And dance with Crossroads Gin
—Shouting Down the Moon
MIKI’S HEAD hurt.
Not from being slammed against the filthy alleyway ground. No, it ached from the amount of noise generated by a family room full of Morgans and one Damien Mitchell.
Dude barking his ass off wasn’t helping either.
“Hush, dog,” Brigid admonished the terrier. “The cat’s not going to hurt you. You outweigh her by at least ten pounds.”
“To be fair, love,” Donal interjected, “yer cat’s mean. There’s dragons that wouldn’t be taking that one on.”
“You hush as well,” she said, picking up the tiny orange feline curled up next to Miki’s hip. “She is just a tiny little thing.”
“Funny. That’s what everyone says about Brigid,” Damien muttered into Miki’s ear, resting his arms on the back of the couch and leaning forward. “And look how much havoc that woman can wreak.”
“I can hear you, Damien Mitchell,” Brigid remarked as she stroked the cat’s head before putting it down on the floor. “And shouldn’t you be taking up a corner of that couch? Your head is probably still rattled about.”
“I figured Sinjun needed it for his leg. I’m good leaning here.” His brother moved, shifting the cushions behind Miki’s back. “My ribs feel better if I’m standing, and I’ve got one of the ottomans back here to rest my knees on.”
Much of the family and all of Crossroads Gin were settled around the room, nearly bursting at the seams, but no one seemed to mind being elbow to knee with one another. A footstool had been found somewhere in the house, the perfect height for Miki to rest his heel on and extend his braced leg out in front of him. It wasn’t the most comfortable of positions—either the footstool or caught in a crowd of Morgans—but it was better than being dead.
Kane sat on an ottoman near Miki’s good knee, his hand on Miki’s thigh and his thumb rubbing along the inner seam of Miki’s jeans, a potent reminder of how a simple touch from Kane could arouse him. Forest and Connor took up an entire love seat, but Rafe paced about, periodically brushing his fingers over Quinn, who was sprawled on one of the recliners. Sionn had taken one look at the assembly and appointed himself in charge of coffee, grinning when Donal suggested a bit of Irish in the brew for those not on pain medication, pulling a rumble from Damien at being excluded.
Dude jumped up on the couch, squeezing in between Miki and Donal. The older man adjusted the dog so his weight wasn’t on Miki’s hip, but Dude refused to be moved, curving back into the spot he’d already claimed. Sighing contentedly, the terrier twisted over, offering his belly for Miki to scratch.
Miki obliged.
“So, Susan Wong-Lee killed her brother and Zhou, who she hired to be her butler? He used to murder people for her brother and she hired him to serve people tea and cookies? That’s so Borgia.” Quinn hooked his fingers into Rafe’s waistband, then pulled him down to sit on the recliner’s wide arm. “Okay, how did Danny Wong get into his nephew’s car?”
“See, that is the problem, magpie,” Donal replied. “We’ve got two people confessing to a single murder. We know who killed Zhou because Miki is the witness, but there’s a good argument for self-defense there. Or at least, she can claim she was trying to protect him. It is stickier where her brother is concerned.”
“Wong-Lee is claiming she’d put Wong in the car, intending to dispose of his body later, but her son, Adam Lee, found it in the parking garage and is trying to take the blame. He denies this.” Kane glanced over at Miki, the worry in his eyes fading away when he realized Miki was only adjusting the pillow under his left thigh. “One of Lee’s men says he was the one who shot Wong because the uncle had become violent, going after Adam as they fought about him hiding in Wong-Lee’s apartment.”
“Because that’s always the way you end an argument,” Connor drawled sarcastically. “You just shoot who you are arguing with. No one is going to buy that.”
“I don’t know,” Damie cut in. “There’s times when I’m arguing with Miki when I would love to shoot him.”
“You are not needing to add to this conversation, Mitchell.” Sionn came in from the kitchen, carrying a loaded-down tray of mugs. “The ones with spoons in them have a nip. Pass them around, and then I’ll make some more.”
The family room’s couches were long, a relic of times when Brigid had more than a handful of growing boys to accommodate. Over the years other furniture crept in: a couple of recliners and the love seat sturdy enough to hold up under continuous roughhousing. It was one of the rooms Miki loved the most in the Morgan house. The thick rug under his feet was soft enough to lie on and covered nearly the entire open space not taken up by seating. A river stone fireplace at the other end of the room would eventually find its mantel weighed down by a sea of stockings with names embroidered on their white, fluffy cuffs. He’d had to leave the room when he spotted his name among the Christmas offerings, overcome by the elaborate cursive scrawl picked out in a bat-black metallic thread with a red-sequin skull dotting the first I.
His head did hurt—his knee hurt like fucking hell—but cradled between Donal, Dude, and Kane, with Damien pressed into his shoulder, Miki realized he was okay. For the first time in his life, he felt okay. Maybe even better than okay. The smile he got from Kane when their eyes met and the feeling of something warm and precious forming in his soul definitely edged things into fantastic.
“I’m glad she shot him and not me,” Miki added. “I can’t believe she shot her brother. She’s cold. Dead-eyed like a dragon. But man, her son’s trying to take the blame, so that says something about her. I think Adam put Wong in the car so he can say one of them did it, but I don’t think she’ll let him go to jail, right?”
“So far it looks like the same gun that shot Wong was the one she used on Zhou, but we’re not going to know until the lab is done.” Kane shook his head at Connor’s derisive snort. “I agree with Miki. But luckily all I have to do is arrest everybody, charge them with something, and let the district attorney figure it out.”
“That office has its own problems.” The Morgan patriarch moved his arm, meaning to make room for his wife to sit down, but Brigid had other plans, perching herself on the edge of the couch with one leg flung over her husband’s thigh. “Internal Affairs is meeting with the DA this week. It seems like one of their people had some connection to Wong, and that’s who was muddying up your investigation. Between him and Hall’s connections in the police department, they were able to throw up obstacles to slow you down.”
“Having Chang and the DEA was a godsend,” Kane said. “We just couldn’t get any traction, and Wong-Lee covering for her brother and Zhou being right under our noses just pissed me off. If Wong-Lee hadn’t had an attack of conscience, who the hell
knows what would’ve happened.”
“Sinjun would’ve kept pulling the trigger until the damned thing fired and took care of Zhou himself.” Damien snorted. “And if that didn’t work, you probably would have sensed something was wrong and headed home. The two of you are too destined to be together. And if anyone deserves a happy ending, it’s Sinjun.”
“No more getting shot at,” his cop declared, squeezing Miki’s thigh. “And no more hospital trips until after we get married, so I don’t have to fight with the nurse to let me in the doors.”
“Hey, I’m the one who proposed, so that means the wedding arrangements are on you,” Miki shot back. “Isn’t that how it works? One of us asks the question and the other one has to decide what color flowers there’s going to be? You’re the one that said yes, so I’m off the hook for everything else.”
“Wait.” Brigid’s voice was remarkably low but stretched tight with emotion. “You two are engaged? When did this happen? Why wasn’t I told?”
Most of the time Miki knew he didn’t understand how families worked, especially when the siblings began to argue what they thought of as good-naturedly and he took as all-out acts of war. There were a few snickers from around the room and a few smug looks as the family braced themselves for what was probably going to be a storm of epic proportions. Miki caught Donal’s flinch, and then the older man squared his shoulders, more than likely ready to wade into the tide of Gaelic about to come out of his wife. Kane opened his mouth, leaning forward to head off his mother’s questions when Miki stepped in.
“Hey, we’re just engaged. At least you’ll be able to see us get hitched.” Forest made eye contact with him, and for a brief second, Miki almost considered giving in to the silent plea his drummer gave him, but if he’d learned one thing from the Morgan clan, it was how to deflect an incoming barrage. Turning back to Brigid, he pointed toward the love seat where a very silent Forest and Connor sat. “Those two got married in Vegas a while back, and they were just waiting for the right moment to tell you. So, here’s the right moment.”
