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“You waltzed right across a fucking boundary I never realized I had to verbalize. You made me think I had an intruder.” I lift my gun until the cold steel almost brushes his temple. “I almost shot you, you stupid asshole.”
“And yet,” he nods toward the scar on my shoulder. “Malones tend to survive those.” Leaning to the right, he looks past me and grins. “Doctor Mayet. It’s a pleasure seeing you again.”
“Don’t talk to he—”
“Felix,” she answers for herself. “Still skulking around a city you’re not wanted in, I see. No one’s shoved a knife through your heart yet?”
He barks out a playful laugh. “They try. They fail. Also, you should know…” He tilts his chin toward the front door, “She was all for me. It wouldn’t be fair for Archer to get in trouble for having her in his bed.”
“I’m aware of who’s at fault for the majority of my stressors,” she glowers. “Can I pour you a to-go cup offuck offfor your trip back to New York?”
He finds her amusing. Cute, even, and though I step in his way as he wanders closer, he still stops to look down into her eyes.
“If we met any other way, in any other time, I’m quite certain you’d like me.” He flashes a wicked grin to show off a perfect smile. “I’d wager you’d have fucked me, too.”
“Mmm… except we met with you holding a gun to a three-year-old’s head. Not exactly the best introduction, right? Not something I’ll ever get past.”
“She was safe.” He rolls his eyes and turns to cross to the fridge. “She knew I was with Archer. She was never gonna get hurt.”
“You wereneverwith Archer.” Minka follows him—because that’s what she does. She’s a bulldog, unable to step away from a fight, even when we both know she can’t survive a bullet the way he and I have. “You need to go home, Felix. No one wants you here.”
“I can’t go home!” With a burst of rage, he throws a bottle of water into my fridge so glass shatters and the shelves groan. Then slamming the door, he stares straight over her head to me. “I can’t go home. Cato’s holding the fort, Arch. But they already came for Micah.”
My heart stumbles in my chest. “What?”
“I told you!” He charges around Minka, bumping her shoulder with his, and comes to a stop in front of me. “I told you what the Pastores would do when they found out about Dad. I fucking warned you three isn’t enough. We are five brothers, Archer, and two pretend we don’t exist!”
“So return the favor and pretend me and Tim ain’t shit to you! We’re literally asking you to forget we exist.”
“You’re still so fucking naïve. The world knows who we are, Archer. They know how many there are. They know our fucking dynamics, our strengths, our weaknesses. They know I rarely take more than a knife to a gunfight, and you, never less than a gun to a knife fight. I warned you weeks ago what was coming if we didn’t show them unity.”
“We don’t want to be a part of that world anymore!” I push him back, only to grab him again when he stumbles too close to Minka.
If he crashes into her, if he knocks her down and she lands wrong, none of this matters anyway.
I hold his shirt in my fist and stare deep into his green eyes as I sneer, “We don’t want anything to do with New York. So even if we come back and put on a show to let Pastorethinkwe’re strong, I’ll leave again a few days later, and you’ll circle around to exactly where you are now.”
“They took Micah,” he grits out. He broadens his chest and slams his palm to my still healing wound. “They took Micah!”
“Took him where? And what the hell do you expect me to do about it?”
Felix steps back, wounded expression in his eyes as they flicker across my face. Of everything I’ve said since he’s been in Copeland, none has landed the way my last sentence did.
“What do I expect?” he mouths. “What do Iexpect?”
“Fel—”
He swings around so fast, I’m reminded why he never needs more than a knife in any fight he enters. He wraps his arm across Minka’s chest and drags her close until they stand as one, her back to his chest, her eyes wheeling around wildly.
He hisses right by her ear and stares deep into my soul when I bring my gun up and point it between his eyes. “I want you to care about your brother at least half as much as you care about her.”
Unwinding his grip from across her chest, he shoves Minka my way and forces me to lower the gun and catch her in my arms.
“I want you to have your family’s back as much as you have your wife’s.”
“You mean how my family has my back?” I bring Minka close and stuff her behind my shoulder for safekeeping. “Like that time I was sixteen and didn’t approve of people killing an innocent girl whose only crime was loving me? I stood up and demanded better, and in repayment, I was beaten until I pissed blood, and then dumped off the interstate to die.That’show you want me to have your back?”
“I never hurt you,” he growls. “And I never hurt her.”
