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"Fuck yeah," Pagan agreed, looking eager, cracking his scarred knuckles.
"You must be Eva," Reign said, stopping in front of me, and I was pretty sure there was kindness in his eyes like Colson claimed.
"Yes," I agreed, nodding.
"Jacob's mom."
"Yeah."
"I hope you weren't too hard on him. He's the only reason I managed to get away," he told me, knocking my breath out of my chest.
"What?" I hissed, shaking my head.
"Yeah. He might be a liar and a thief and have some real shitty friends, but he's not all bad. Has a conscience in there still. You can work with that," he told me, shrugging.
"I, ah, this is news to me," I admitted. "I already screamed at him," I added, wincing.
"Well, he deserved that at least," Reign agreed, smiling. "Come on, let's go talk," he said, jerking his chin at Jacob who seemed to shrink smaller and smaller as he made his way across the room to us. "You too," he said to Colson.
"Sit," I demanded as we walked into the kitchen, pulling out a chair for him.
To that, he chuckled, but lowered himself down.
"My wife would be happy to know I have some woman here demanding I take it easy."
"Well, you just got out of surgery. I can't imagine the hospital wanted you to leave. Do you want some coffee? A bottle of whiskey?"
"Coffee would be good," he agreed, tapping the table with three fingers. "Jacob, take a seat," he demanded.
"Go on. You gotta deal with the consequences," Colson said, nudging Jacob forward.
There was a tug inside me, wanting to grab my son, push him behind my back, protect him from even harsh words this man might want to throw at him.
But the bigger part of me understood that wasn't the right move, that my kid had to learn to face up to the consequences of his actions. He wasn't my little five-year-old with teary eyes anymore. He would be a man soon. He had to learn what that meant. And, in a strange way, I felt like these men could help show him that.
Besides, Reign was a hell of a lot calmer than I was about the whole situation, so I figured that whatever was coming wouldn't be that bad.
"First of all, thank you for loosening the chain. I don't think you knew that you were helping me escape doing that, but you wanted to take away some of my pain. That shows you still have some good in you. And I appreciate that. But that said, kid, you fucked up. Associating with people like that, being led instead of thinking for yourself. Seems like you have a good Ma with a good head on her shoulders. So you can't say it was because you weren't raised right. You were just being an idiot."
"My uncle—"
"Don't you dare bring up Miguel again, bud," I demanded, teeth gritting.
"Miguel was your friend with the bat," Reign surmised. "Yeah, thought so," he said, nodding when Jacob's gaze fell to the table. "I get that family means something. But if your choice was between a mother who loves you and a sadistic bastard who wanted to lead you down a bad path, and you chose the latter, you made the wrong choice. That man came in every day to beat the shit out of me while I was strung up. Only a pussy beats up on someone who can't hit back. Sorry," he said, looking over at me.
"Please, he's heard worse. From me, most likely," I told him, smiling a little when he smirked.
"I get that you're young and you think running with a crew like that would be fun or interesting or make you a badass or some shit. But most of the kids your age who get involved in Third Street end up doing the dirty work for the older members, so you take the fall when the cops come around, not them. There's nothing honorable about that. And your uncle is a dick for many reasons, but being willing to have that be your future is top of that list. You want your mom to have to come and visit you in jail?"
"No."
"You want to go to jail?
"No."
"Then you got to shape the fuck up."
"If this was your son, how would you punish him?" I asked, not wanting him to get off with a slap on the wrist.
"Manual labor around here, first. Second, mandatory karate lessons to learn some control and respect. Which we will be arranging for Jacob. Like I said, I don't think he's a bad kid. He's just got some bad influences. But not for long," he said, his tone sending a chill through me.
I wasn't naive.
I understood how this worked.
Miguel didn't get to walk away from this.
Or, if he did, he didn't get to go on unscathed, at least.
