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"What did he want?" Charlie asked, turning down our street.

"I don't even know really. Everything about him felt like a threat, but he never laid any out there."

"I'm gonna bet we will hear one now after this."

It wasn't comforting.

It wasn't meant to be.

Charlie knew better than to sugarcoat things with me. Not important things. Dangerous things. It was stupid. For both our parts. And the boys.

Oh, God.

The boys.

What the hell were we supposed to tell them? The truth?

Even after all this, the thought of that made my spit taste bitter when I tried to swallow.

"He's an enemy. Case closed. Michael. Michael the drug dealer. Has a bone to pick with me from the old days. That can be the story."

And so it was.

Though Ryan had watched me with disbelieving eyes, Shane had openly called us out on it, and the others seemed more confused than anything.

But they went along with it, sticking to a strict - and absurd given their ages - buddy-system when they went to work or even when they went out anywhere. Charlie handed them off pocket knives thinking I wouldn't see.

And unless at least two of the boys were home with me, I was at Chaz's.

We were on bated breath for a week, expecting an ambush, a move, a threat, something.

But nothing came.

Nothing came for a week.

Then another.

Then a third.

We had been walking into Chaz's before opening to wash some of the money from Charlie's other business through the money from the cash register before the drop to the bank when business officially opened, me tagging along because Charlie still refused to have me out of sight, as ridiculous as that was.

I had just flicked on the light to illuminate the dark space.

It took everything in me to hold back a yelp, though there was nothing I could do about the way my body started.

Charlie, however, just stiffened.

Because there was Michael.

Sitting at our first table, hand holding one of our rocks tumblers, amber liquid half-filling it. Whiskey from one of our bottles. He was leaned back casually in his charcoal suit, reminding me so much of our father that it was chilling. Goosebumps actually rose up over my skin as Charlie's hand reached for mine, gave it a reassuring squeeze.

"Been waiting for you," Charlie spoke first, cutting through the bullshit.

"I noticed. Did you think the buddy-system idea would protect your boys?"

My stomach dropped at the idea that he had gotten to them before I reminded myself that they were all home together with Colt and three other kids whose names I barely knew from the area, but all tall, wide, strong teenaged guys capable of ganging up and taking down a threat if one popped up.

So long as that threat wasn't a drive-by with an automatic weapon, peppering holes into our home and our children. The boys who were not related to us mere collateral damage in some bigger war they didn't even know about.

I said a silent prayer, reminding myself that if Michael wanted to talk to us, there was no way I was getting out of here to go call my kids.

"We figured you were low enough to come at us through our children," I spoke when Charlie didn't.

"Well, Pudge, you aren't wrong about that," he agreed, eyes smiling even as his lips stayed pressed into a straight line, somehow knowing that such a stupid nickname still did manage to get my hackles to rise. But if he was looking for some kind of outward reaction, he clearly did not know me anymore.

"Aren't wrong about what? Cut the fucking movie villain routine, and get on with the threat, Eames," Charlie demanded, tone deceptively impatient.

"What do you want with us?"

"What you tried to give me," he told us, shrugging a shoulder, but I still knew him well enough to know there was nothing calm or unaffected about him like he wanted to portray to us. No, he was seething, scheming.

"And what did I try to give to you?" I asked, impatient.

"A life sentence," he shot back just as quickly.

"What, exactly, are you trying to do? Frame us for something?"

"Nah. Don't think a cage would steal as much from you as it did from me."

I felt my eyes rolling at his arrogance, at his attempt to drag this out, make it as suspenseful as possible.

But I was no longer little Pudge who didn't speak her mind.

"Spit it out, Michael. I have better things to do than stand here listening to your spiel."

"What? A cake in the oven?" he asked, thinking throwing my chosen path of wife and mother in my face would somehow injure me.

The idiot.

"A cake in the oven would definitely take precedence over you."

"I'm not giving you a life sentence. It's not good enough. Won't hurt you enough. I'm giving one to your sons."

He'd done it.

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