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Unlike Shane, I had no doubts that Michael had a gun on him. And would happily use it to hurt me by hurting him.
"Like hell," he shot back, hands balled into fists. "Do I need to show you the door?" he asked, channeling his father. And it was maybe the first time I had ever really seen his future.
He was going to take over the family business.
I didn't see it much in the others, despite their penchant for beating each other's asses, getting into scuffles with others. Ryan, I figured, would take over the business end of things, seeming to actually like the books. Eli, I guessed his only contribution to the family business would be designing logos or menus for the legit businesses. Hunt and Mark were yet to be seen.
But Shane?
Shane was going to enforce.
As soon as his father would allow him.
The idea filled me with equal parts pride and terror.
Michael's gaze left me, moving toward my son, looking at him as though it was the first time, sizing him up not as a boy, but as the man he would be, the asset he would be to our family.
And me, well, I seized the opportunity.
I threw myself toward the counter, reaching for the knives.
My hand brushed the handle, cold and reassuring, when I suddenly felt my hair snagged, then my body slamming forward, my head cracking off the overhead cabinet.
The pain was a blunt and blinding thing, blanking out my vision for a long moment.
There was a roar and the hand left my hair, the sharp pain easing instantly.
The slam and grunts broke through the fog of pain, making me turn on my heel, looking down toward the ground.
But not seeing Shane.
Oh, no.
Eli was dropped down on Michael, rearranging his facial features with this tunnel vision of bloodthirst you never could have convinced me he was capable had I not seen it with my own eyes.
"Fuck," Charlie's voice broke into the scene, charging forward, grabbing Eli up by under his arms, dragging the still-swinging kid off of Michael, shoving him back against the counter. "Shut it down," he snapped, shoving Eli in the shoulders, hard, hard enough that pain must have shot through his back and head from where he collided with the cabinets and counter.
"Charlie..."
"We got to get him the fuck out of here," Charlie told me, moving toward the unconscious body of my brother, blood a halo around him, soaking his expensive suit thoroughly.
"Pops..." Eli said, voice sounding haunted, hands shaking as he raised them to look at the blood.
"There's no time for that now. Go get cleaned up. Throw those clothes in the wash," Charlie demanded, all business. "Shane, make sure he does it," he added, reaching down to snag the prone body. "Helen," he called, voice steel, making me snap out of the concern for Eli's mental health.
There were bigger things to worry about.
Like him not going to jail for assault.
I dropped down, grabbing Michael's feet, lifting them as Charlie lifted his upper body. "His car," he told me. "Trunk," he specified. "I'm gonna drive him somewhere. Follow me in my car, so I can have a ride back."
"Charlie..."
"I know. We need to think and talk. But now isn't the time. Now is the time to get a bloodied body out of our house."
Seeing the logic there, I helped him throw the body into the trunk, jumped in his still-running car, and followed him as we drove Michael right back into Alberry Park, leaving him even as he started grunting in the trunk.
My heart was frantic as I threw myself into the passenger seat, letting Charlie drive back toward Navesink Bank.
"Eli..." I started.
"Never saw that coming," he agreed, reaching over to grab my knee, giving it a squeeze, leaving a bloody handprint on the light jean material. "Figured if anyone would take him down, it would be Shane."
"It was like he had no control over himself," I told him, my stomach twisting at the memory of the way he was still attacking an unconscious man.
"I'm gonna assume your black eye was from that fuck."
"I was going for a knife. He slammed me into the cabinet."
"So Eli acted. To protect his mother. Can't complain about that."
"I hadn't even heard him come in. He came out of nowhere."
"He was on his way home. Boss let him go early. I had just talked to him before Shane called. Shane feels guilty," he added. "For letting him in. Bet that is amplified now," he said, stopping at a red light, reaching to grab my chin, stroking his thumb across my cheek, the tip just touching under my eye where I imagined it must have been a pretty shade of blue by then.
"He has nothing to be guilty about. He couldn't have known. And had Eli not come like a bat out of hell, I know he would have done something."
