Got it Bad

by Christi Barth

  Flynn lifted his head. Sniffed at the air. “What smells so good?”

  “Chicago food experiment #137.”

  “Thought you gave up on trying to give us a taste of home. Your experiments slacked off once you started up with the marshal.”

  “Well, that’s no longer occupying my time, is it?” Kellan snapped. “And don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Or I won’t fill yours.”

  Flynn’s brows knitted together into a frown. “Hey, you know we feel bad about your breakup. We should be the ones cheering you up. I mean, not by cooking dinner. That’d just be cruel. But . . . something.”

  “You want to take a road trip?” Rafe offered. “T-Top off in the Camaro, tunes blasting, no women allowed? Maybe go down to San Francisco for the weekend? Blow off some steam, get drunk off our asses?”

  Kellan shook his head. “I appreciate the offer. But if all three of us bug out of town, we’ll have to notify the marshals service. That’s a contact—and an interrogation—I just don’t need.” He did appreciate the offer. They were trying.

  Trying to do an impossible task, because Delaney Evans was not a woman easily forgotten. Kellan headed back into the kitchen and emptied his pot into a blue mixing bowl.

  “How about an abbreviated version?” Rafe offered. “Raise one night of hell at the Gorse?”

  “You mean where I work?” Flynn elbowed Rafe’s side. “Why do you always have to stir up trouble for me at work? Remember that time you brought in a bag with 5K in singles and told me to ‘do something with it’?”

  “Hey, cash money is good any way you get it. I don’t know why you thought the construction crew would complain about getting their pay in ones.”

  “Because the IRS can’t track a foot-high stack of ones. The whole point of the construction company was to be legit. To be able to send out a W-2 every January.” Flynn’s voice grew louder with what was obviously an old and much-repeated frustration.

  It fascinated Kellan. After all these months, it was one of the first stories about their years in the mob that his brothers had let slip in front of him. It showed that they weren’t sheltering him anymore, not treating him like a kid that needed protecting from the big, bad world. That cheered him up more than any night of shots and burgers could.

  Rafe bumped Flynn’s shoulder with his own. “Your solution of using it to pay bribes to the city’s inspectors was brilliant. It impressed the hell out of McGinty.”

  “I impressed myself with that one. Might’ve used one of the stacks to buy beer at Wrigley, too. As a reward for dealing with you.”

  “Here’s another reward. For surviving our move—no, our five moves,” Kellan corrected himself, thinking of the long road they’d traveled. He plunked the bowl on the coffee table. “That popcorn’s a near-perfect replica of Chicago’s famous Garrett Mix—cheddar and caramel.”

  “No way.” Rafe and Flynn both grabbed handfuls and jammed them in their mouths.

  “I realized I’d been shooting for the moon, trying to copy a Malnati’s pie, when I’d never made pizza before in my life. But you know what I have made through a hundred study sessions? Popcorn. Found a hacked recipe online for the flavors and went for it.”

  “You nailed it,” Rafe mumbled around another mouthful. “It tastes like I’m back on Randolph Street, right next to the Oriental Theatre. I can almost smell the taxi fumes and river mold.” Then he closed his eyes and smiled.

  It was a small win—fucking popcorn, for God’s sake—but Kellan needed it this week, and he’d take it. “Thanks.”

  “That makes one thing we can scratch off our required foods list when we go back for the trial. We’re limited to five per week. The marshal wouldn’t agree to any more special requests than that. Something about how her agency wasn’t a delivery service.”

  Kellan sat down opposite them in the big wing chair. Flynn had handed him the perfect segue on a silver platter. “Since you mentioned Delaney, I’ve got to make another pitch to tell her the truth about O’Brien.”

  “Thought you didn’t want to talk to her at all?”

  No kidding. The idea of seeing her and treating her as just their handler instead of the woman he loved? Well, it’d take a life or death circumstance to force him into that situation.

  Unfortunately, that’s exactly what they were in. And his brothers damn well knew it.

  Kellan leaned forward, bracing his arms on his thighs. “We should tell her about O’Brien finding us. She can’t protect us from a threat she doesn’t know exists.”

  “We’re not telling her,” Rafe said flatly. It was in the same voice that he’d ordered Kellan not to break his curfew and go to the Jay-Z concert in ninth grade.

  That voice might’ve worked on mobsters who never bothered to think for themselves, who only took orders. It didn’t work on Kellan. Not when he was fourteen, and not now. “It’s the right thing to do.”

  Flynn pushed off the sofa and was in Kellan’s face in four long, fast strides. “If we tell her, there’s a better than fifty percent chance that we get extracted immediately. Leave Bandon, get dumped who knows where doing who knows what shit job. So if we tell her, that’s conceding that we’re out of options.”

  There you go—Flynn had just made his point for him. “We are out of options. We’re walking around with not just targets on our backs, but with the knowledge that someone’s actively aiming at us!”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. I get that you’re scared—”

  Kellan jabbed his hand in the air, finger pointed accusingly at Rafe. “This isn’t about being scared. This is about being smart.”

  “See, you trust your brains.” Rafe tapped a finger to his head. Then he moved down and thumped his whole fist against his belly. “I trust my gut. And it tells me that O’Brien’s on the up-and-up. There’s nothing for him in Chicago. He doesn’t want some office job. Most of his buddies are in jail or in hiding. Our money’s an easy solution. He wouldn’t screw that up by telling anyone where we are.”

  Just like all the other times Rafe had laid that out, it made sense. As much sense as, oh, say, telling their marshal they’d been found. So Kellan pushed harder, because their lives were at stake. This wasn’t some discussion about going with your gut to place a ten-dollar bet at a racetrack, for fuck’s sake.

  “You pulled Delaney in the other times. When you got that blackmail letter you thought was from the FBI, and when that other mobster showed up in town out of the blue.”

  “Those were different. The danger of extraction wasn’t definite.”

  Oh, he got it now. The real reason was definitely not because of how much they trusted Davey to keep his mouth shut.

  Kellan stood, pacing the length of the room and back as he spoke. “You don’t want to leave. You’ve gotten comfortable. You know Mollie loves it here. And Sierra. You don’t want to risk leaving them behind.”

  Flynn and Rafe shared one of those looks that used to be—in hindsight—a whole secret conversation about what not to tell him about their mob lives. No surprise they’d obviously talked about this behind his back, too.

  On the other hand, Kellan didn’t entirely blame them. Not after falling for Delaney. He would’ve done anything to stay with her.

  If there was anything to be done.

  “Yeah, we want to stay. We’ve put down roots. The Festival’s coming, and we’ve worked hard on it.” Rafe got up, grabbed napkins off the big stack in the middle of the dining table, and brought them back. “You’re right. We won’t leave our women behind. There’s no guarantee that the Marshals Service would let them come with us.”

  Flynn grimaced. “Even if they did, I wouldn’t do that to Sierra. She had such a rough life, growing up in foster care. She’s happy here, probably for the first time. I won’t rip that away from her. I’m sorry, K, but she matters too much.”

  “I just needed to hear you say it. To lay all the truth out for me, not just what you thought I ought to hear.”

  They both had
the good sense to look embarrassed. Flynn swiped his hand like he was erasing what they’d originally said from a blackboard. “Shit. Yeah. You’re right. It’s sixty percent Rafe’s gut, and forty percent true love. Happy now?”

  Not entirely. Uneasy was more like it. Like the mild queasiness of too much coffee on an empty stomach versus the full-blown puke clench of eating bad sushi. “Do we keep up the round-the-clock watch, at least?”

  “Nah.” Rafe dug back in to the popcorn up to his wrist. “Nobody in McGinty’s crew is that patient. Or strategic. Not the ones still roaming free, anyway. Just . . . be normal.”

  Normal would be spending every free minute he could to sneak away with Delaney.

  That normal was never coming back.

  Jittery from the need to do something coupled with the lack of immediate action, Kellan paced another long circle. “Maybe I should skip golf with Lucien on Friday. It spreads us thin, my being all the way out at the resort. Should I stay in town, by you guys?”

  “Nope. Act cool.” Flynn mimed combing his hair back on both sides like a fifties’ movie star leaning on a jukebox. “That’s the whole plan at this point.”

  Hard to be cool when he was freaking out that Delaney broke up with him. But Kellan still had his brothers. In a better way, a better place, than they’d been in a long time. That should be enough.

  It had always been enough.

  But Kellan had the feeling it might not be, anymore.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Four anguished days after walking away from Kellan, Delaney sat on a bench thinking about her mentor from the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. Clint Jackson was hard-nosed, old-school, and didn’t have a second to waste on stupid questions. He did have all the time in the world to help trainees he thought had potential, though.

  He’d believed that marshals should sleep with their guns, never trust anyone, and be able to outdrink any criminal in case they tried to “get one over on you” at a bar.

  She’d never asked what bad experience he had with a protectee slipping past him after a few drinks. Out of respect, of course. But she did know that if Clint were here today, watching her do arts and crafts with the girlfriends of her protectees, he’d probably grab her by the collar and drag her away. Then make her run sprints and practice shooting until her arms and legs were limper than a wet toupee.

  His analogy, of course, and yet another thing she’d never asked about, out of respect.

  Faux floral crowns were soooo not her bailiwick. Which was apparently clear to Mollie and Sierra, since they’d taken the hot glue gun away from her after two minutes. Now they had her cutting lengths of twine for whatever Cranberry Festival Court adornment they’d move on to next.

  Scissors were good. They were a weapon, and Delaney felt comfortable with weapons. And she hadn’t felt anywhere in the vicinity of comfortable since breaking up with Kellan. Desperate, mad, heartbroken, hurt, angry, distraught . . . pretty much any word that was the antonym of comfortable summed up her mindset.

  Mollie let the screen door slam as she came into the backyard. Her hands were full of wineglasses and a bottle of sparkling wine. “We can’t be expected to work this hard on a Wednesday night—on Sierra’s only night off from waitressing—without having some fun, too.”

  “I should volunteer for things with you more often,” Sierra said, giggling.

  “I haven’t even gotten to the best part. I’m forcing my nephew to cook us dinner.”

  Delaney had done a full background check on Mollie’s relatives as soon as Rafe told her they were serious. Which had been about a minute after Rafe went and blabbed to Mollie about being in WITSEC. A move so idiotic and dangerous that it still had Delaney itching to slap him for it. So she knew that Mollie lived with her teenaged somewhat delinquent nephew.

  Nothing about a surly teenager screamed “good cook” to her.

  “Why are we being punished? Is Jesse going to heat frozen pizza and call it a win if the smoke alarms don’t go off?”

  Mollie gave her an odd look. “I taught him to bake cookies earlier in the summer. Turned out he’s pretty great at following directions. Every time he cooks something new—and it works—he gets the car for the night.”

  “I like your bribery method of teaching life skills.” Sierra gave Mollie an equally odd look. Then they both looked at her. Delaney cocked her head. “What?”

  Licking her lips, Sierra said slowly, “Um, how did you know Jesse’s name? I mean, I guess I should pretend I didn’t hear you say it. Or that I told you about Jesse and Norah when I invited you to meet Mollie tonight. But now it’s just out there. A giant conversational elephant sitting in the middle of Mollie’s lawn. Mollie . . . who you didn’t know before tonight?” Her voice rose in a question at the end.

  Crap. Talk about a screwup. Not a cut-and-dried breach of the rules. Because nothing about the Maguire brothers adhered to the rule book.

  Yes, Mollie knew she was their marshal. Yes, Sierra knew she was a marshal. And Delaney would bet a thousand dollars that Flynn had told Sierra all about being in WITSEC, even if she hadn’t been able to force either of them to admit it yet.

  What the hell. Everyone knew everything, and it was pointless to pretend otherwise. And this way, she’d be able to get the girl talk and sympathy she so desperately deserved.

  Delaney beckoned with one hand for a wineglass. “Hand it over. Heck, just give me the bottle and go get another. None of us are bothering with pretense anymore. We all know each other. And you both know what I really do for a living.” She tried to drain the glass in one, dramatic gulp. But . . . bubbles. Even so, three long swigs got the point across that she was fed up with lying. “Geez, your boyfriends keep complicating my life every damned step of the way.”

  Mollie refilled the glass with a wry twinkle in her green eyes. “So that’s it? Cards on the table and we’re just moving on?”

  “You want another nondisclosure form to sign?”

  “My hand’s still cramped from the last thirty things you made me sign.”

  “I am now painfully aware that love sends logic out the window. That it sends it on an all-expense-paid vacation to Bora Bora. And that love loosens lips faster than five glasses of this.” Delaney lifted her bubbly in the air.

  This was smart. She’d spent Saturday night in tears, Sunday in shock, and Monday and Tuesday in a sort of comatose denial. Sparkling wine, with grass under her bare feet and a glorious summer evening overhead, had to be good for her. Restorative. Healing.

  Who was she kidding?

  Her heart would never heal from the loss of Kellan Maguire.

  The door slammed again as Mollie did, indeed, come back with another bottle. “This one’s not cold yet.”

  Sierra snorted. “Believe me when I say I won’t notice.”

  “The only champagne you’ve ever had was the super expensive stuff Lucien served at my birthday party. Believe me when I say this will taste absolutely nothing like that.”

  Delaney set the scissors down on the picnic table. “Can we suspend the crown-making for a few minutes? I have a feeling my hands might start shaking, and I don’t want to be the cause of ruining the Cranberry Festival in even a tiny way.”

  “Omigosh, what’s wrong?”

  Like they didn’t know. Like Kellan hadn’t run straight home to his brothers and told them all the ways their marshal had trampled his heart. Which would’ve led to Rafe and Flynn telling their girlfriends, and probably immediately to rounds of aren’t we lucky we found each other and aren’t miserable like them sex.

  What they didn’t know—probably—was how much it hurt. “I’m assuming I got painted as the villain in the version you heard. But breaking up with Kellan wasn’t easy. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And his emotional betrayal hurts worse than anything I’ve ever experienced. Including the time a three-hundred-pound meth head broke my wrist by slamming it against a light pole.”

  Mollie blinked. Slowly. Then twice more, befo
re finally saying, “That’s . . . a lot of information.”

  Sierra dropped her half-finished crown to the grass. “You’re dating Kellan? Or, you were, and you two broke up?”

  Whoops. And wow. Kellan’s brothers had actually kept their promise not to tell anyone about them.

  That was a surprise. And now, it was a gigantic problem she’d have to manage. Delaney winced, scratching her right temple. “You, ah, didn’t know?”

  “Of course not.” Rapid fire questions burst from Mollie. “How is that even possible? Isn’t there a rule against it? How can you keep what you do a secret and have a normal relationship with him?”

  Delaney let her chin drop to her chest. “I can’t.”

  This reaction was good. Helpful. It pretty much took a grater to the infinitesimal scab over her bleeding heart, and then rubbed sand and salt water in the emotional gash. But that just reinforced the rightness of her decision.

  Daily reinforcement was necessary. It was pretty much the only thing that kept her from jumping in her car and begging Kellan to take her back every minute of every hour. She started each day by staring in the mirror at the dark puffy circles under her eyes and reciting the mantra of exactly why her only option had been to break up with him. That Kellan had shattered her trust in him.

  Sierra pushed the piles of wire, fake flowers, cranberries, and glue to the end of the table. Then she crossed her arms and leaned forward. A curtain of light brown hair shadowed her face. “This is . . . this is messed up. How could Kellan do this? How could he risk his brother’s lives?”

  “He didn’t.” Delaney couldn’t help the intense surge of defensiveness. “Nobody’s in any danger right now from us seeing each other.”

  “But how can you protect all three of them if you’re in love with Kellan?”

  How was it that these women spotted the problem immediately, when Kellan had been poo-pooing it for months?

  Nevertheless, it was still hard to push the truth out. Delaney’s fingers tightened on the stem of her glass. “I can’t. Well, I can’t do it to the fullest extent required.”