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Damn.
Sometimes it felt like that boy could have been his own son instead of that damned Garrett Brock’s. He was so damned much like a fucking Mackay that Dawg had, at one point, even had the DNA report the DHS had on Graham pulled to compare to Mackay DNA. A man could never be too careful when it came to the depravity his and Natches’s fathers had been capable of.
Graham wasn’t related to them, but it hadn’t changed the similarity Dawg often saw in him. A similarity Rowdy and Natches had laughed over a time or two themselves.
Moving into the garage, he stepped into the waiting SUV and closed the door behind him. The other vehicle had already left, and the one waiting for him was filled with Rowdy, Natches, Chaya, Timothy, and Brogan Campbell.
“What the hell took you so long?” Natches grumped from the backseat where he slouched with deliberate laziness. “Did you do Lyrie a favor and kill the son of a bitch?”
Natches was always their ace in the hole. He could play the bad cop while pulling out the best of a man, or woman, without even seeming to try. Although he could be a calculating, manipulating bastard, he always did it with dedication and all those warm, fuzzy feelings he swore he didn’t have for anyone. Well, except his wife, his daughter, his cousins, his best friends . . . Dawg almost laughed at the thought.
He grinned instead. “Why would I do that, cuz? I’d never forgive myself for having to bury the man who loves her enough he’s determined to take a bullet for her if need be.”
r /> Natches snorted at that. “Lust ain’t love, man. I thought you figured that out when you met Christa.”
“Exactly,” Dawg stated softly as Timothy pulled from the garage. “Just like Graham began realizing the day he met Lyrica. It took me eight years to get it right, though. I think this boy might have me beat. He’s already figuring it out.”
Dawg glanced back in time to meet the triumph in the emerald depths of Natches’s gaze and, behind him, in the forest green of their cousin Rowdy’s.
“Plan’s working, then?” Timothy was all but chuckling as he drove from the Brock property.
“Plan’s working.” Dawg breathed out in satisfaction as he turned back in his seat and stared at the road ahead of them. “Ahead of schedule, due, I imagine, to this interference in Lyrica’s life. But it’s working damned good.”
Silence filled the van-size SUV for a few long moments before a voice could be heard from the back of the van.
“Guess I was left out of the plan,” Brogan muttered in resigned acceptance. “Damned good thing I’m not just smart but observant. I told Eve last year that the three of you had this in mind, and she told me I was crazy.”
Rowdy chuckled at that as Dawg felt a grin curve his lips.
“So, Brogan,” Natches drawled, “did you figure it out when we chose you for Eve?”
All of them turned to stare back at Brogan, except Timothy. No doubt he was watching through the rearview mirror.
“You’re lying.” But the suspicion, the fear was there.
“Think Jed figured it out?” Rowdy asked with quiet humor.
That was the moment Brogan knew just how effectively the Mackays had maneuvered him.
“Fuckers!” He tried to snarl, but there was no true heat there. The poor son of a bitch was just too damned happy with his little Mackay honey. Just as Jed was. “You three are fucking dangerous.”
“Three?” Timothy said. “You got that all wrong, Campbell—try seven. Me, Alex, Zeke, and John Junior, too. Every now and then, John Senior likes to put his two cents in as well.”
“All I can say is that it’s a damned shame that the seven of you are that fucking bored in your old age,” Brogan said.
“Bored?” Natches questioned the supposed rationale for the maneuvering. “Hell no—it’s not boredom, it’s exhaustion. We’re getting old, man. It’s time to start enjoying ourselves more. The future is yours, Brogan. Yours, Jed’s, Graham’s, and whoever we give Zoey and Kye to for safekeeping. We’ve kept this little piece of Kentucky clean for a lot of years. It’s time to hand it over to the next generation and just pray we chose wisely.”
“I have one question,” Brogan stated then, the sudden dangerous softness in his voice showing that he’d suddenly thought of something that perhaps didn’t please him so well. “The threat against her, by god, I hope you didn’t instigate that.”
Dawg turned back to him, along with Natches and Chaya, while Rowdy turned his head slowly to his side. Timothy made damned sure Brogan glimpsed his look in the rearview mirror.
Five of the most dangerous people Brogan was sure he had ever met, and they were staring at him with such icy, certain death in their eyes that he didn’t think before nodding.
“I was just making sure,” he drawled as though those looks hadn’t given him a moment’s worry.
“And trust me, once we find the bastard that did, he won’t live to see a jail, a trial, or a sentence,” Dawg said. “He won’t get a second chance, Brogan. All he’ll get is a very quiet, very brief burial.”
No one fucked with his family, especially his sisters, and got away with it if he could help it. And should he become too weak or too old or, god forbid, should he be taken out before he could stop it, then he and his cousins had done their best to make damned sure they had backup.
