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“Oh, Ajax! It’s beautiful Thank you, love!” Mo lifted the gift from its box, and Ajax beamed.
As it was every Christmas, the Delaney living room was packed solid with Bulls, old ladies, and kids. Most of the kids were grown or getting there, but they still loved opening presents at Grandpa D and Grammo’s house.
The adults exchanged gifts, too, but those were mostly of the gag-gift variety. For the Bulls with families of their own, the serious gift-giving got done at home, first thing on Christmas morning.
This year, for the first time in his life, Eight had woken to a Christmas morning like that, and a tree with presents for and from his woman and his son. His own little family.
Funny how good it felt to have something he’d thought he never wanted.
“It plays music,” Ajax said, working his way through the crowd and clutter to Mo. “There’s a turner on the bottom, and then you lift the lid.”
Mo turned the small, inexpensive music box over, saw the key and wound it up.
Eight and Ajax had found it at the mall, in a cluttered, crowded gift shop. It had only cost ten bucks and was probably made by a seven-year-old in Taiwan or something, but it was a pretty little wooden box, lined in cheap velvet, with a glass insert in the lid, etched with a shamrock.
Mo opened the lid, and a tune began to play. Eight wouldn’t have recognized it, but there was a description on the box, so he knew it was ‘My Wild Irish Rose.’
While they’d shopped, Ajax had asked for a list of things to know about Mo. That she’d been born in Northern Ireland was one of the things Eight had listed.
Now, Mo held out her arm, and Ajax came close for her hug. She glanced at Eight, and he saw an extra gleam in her eyes as she gave him a subtle nod.
At Eight’s side, Marcella rocked her hip against his leg. “You did good, babe.”
He shook his head. “Nah, that’s not me. Ajax did it on his own. All I did was say she’s Irish.” Putting his arm around her and kissing her temple, he added, “You’re the one who did good—you raised him to be that kind of kid.”
“And now he’s got us both.”
Yes, he sure the fuck did.
~oOo~
“It’s fifteen fucking degrees.” Cooper complained. “I know they’re Russian and shit, but why they gotta expandnow? They already waited more’n a year. What’s a couple months more?”
Simon shrugged. “My guess? The cold is part of why they want to move this now. Everything slows down after Christmas. And cops are a lot slower looking for trouble when they’ll freeze their dicks off if they find it.”
“Meanwhile, we’re gonna freeze our dicks off for sure.”
“Don’t be a pussy, Coop,” Gunner said and tossed Cooper a hand-warmer pack. “You’re so worried about your dick, shove that in your drawers.”
The guys laughed, and Maverick snatched the pack out of Coop’s hands. “Don’t shove this in your drawers, unless you want to be out of commission for a while. Those things get fucking hot.”
The week between Christmas and New Year’s was traditionally downtime for the Bulls, like just about everybody else, and Eight had been looking forward to hanging out with his kid, who was on winter break from school.
Instead, he’d gotten a call from New York a couple days before Christmas. The Volkovs had decided that federal interest had cooled, more than a year after the Perro fight, the immigration mess at the borders had at least settled into predictability, and the coast was again clear to pick up where they’d left off in expanding their business.
Nikolai Volkov, who’d taken the reins from his formidable grandmother, Irina, had also decided that he wanted a Russian presence on this first new run. So now they were all sitting on their asses, waiting for the Russian prince to arrive.
It had been decades since the Russians had made a habit of trips to the heartland from what was probably a castle in New York, and it was too soon to consider this trip the beginning of a habit. But Eight was pretty sure the reason for this trip was him. He was trying not to let that thought get too big in his head.
Irina had had a great relationship with Delaney, and also with Becker. She’d trusted them both. Niko had had a solid relationship with Becker, too, but he was cooler than his grandmother—which was saying something; Irina Volkov was carved from solid ice.
Niko, though, he seemed … rougher, somehow. He was a lot more American than his grandma and appreciated his wealth and power in a more modern and American way, but neither Eight nor Becker had been able to get a good read on him.
It had always been patently obvious that Niko didn’t like Eight, however. That hadn’t mattered too much when Becker was president, but now Eight had the gavel, and at the first change in business, during a holiday, Niko was hauling his ass halfway across the country to babysit the first new run. That had to be a vote of no-confidence in Eight, right?
He was trying hard not to focus there. But the longer they sat here, waiting for the prince—who’d arrived in Tulsa the night before—to drag his Russian ass to the clubhouse, the more Eight saw contempt and manipulation in every minute of delay.
~oOo~
