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I can’t stand to even think about it, but after seeing what just went down, I know for sure that I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure that never happens.
Maddoc leads us all into the living room, and a tall, skinny guy covered in ink and wearing a pair of small, round glasses approaches him. Maddoc’s eyes flick down to the large black bag the man’s holding.
“We don’t need it anymore, Shane.”
The man nods, his face solemn. “I heard. I’m sorry.” He holds up the bag. “Does anyone else…?”
“You can find out in a minute,” Maddoc says tightly, then looks around and beckons to a dark-haired man. “Luis.”
Luis comes over, his face wrecked. “I can’t believe—”
“Report,” Maddoc says, cutting him off harshly. “I need details. What the fuck happened? Why the hell were you and Payton over near Cliffton in the first place?”
Luis breaks out in a cold sweat, but to his credit, he doesn’t cower. “Payton got in touch this morning. She said she had a lead, something to help after what happened with Troy.”
“So you’re saying this was all Payton’s idea?” Maddoc demands.
Luis’s naturally olive-toned skin goes pale. “I didn’t mean, I’m not trying to, I mean, it was hers, but, uh…”
The man’s clearly uncomfortable blaming a dead woman, but Maddoc just waits out his stuttering, his face devoid of all emotion now. Finally, once Luis stutters into silence, Maddoc speaks.
“You both chose to disobey my orders today. I’m going to ask you why, but first I need the details about what went down. What did Payton tell you that convinced you it was a good idea to ignore my explicit directive not to engage with West Point at this time?”
It takes Luis a second, but he finally manages to answer. “Payton said that we’d be able to retaliate for what they did to Troy. Find out why they went after him and what they got. She said if we could be the ones to bring you that information, it would, uh, it would be worth the—” He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and finishes the final part in a strained whisper, “—the slap on the wrist.”
A wave of pure fury crosses Maddoc’s face, there and gone in the blink of an eye. “The slap on the wrist?” he repeats in a deadly calm voice. “Is that what you call today?”
Luis looks down. “Yeah. Fuck. I mean, no. I’m sorry. It wasn’t supposed to go down this way.”
Maddoc’s face stays blank, his hands loose at his sides, but I’d bet money that there’s not a person in the room who can’t see his bottled rage just under the surface. He doesn’t just value loyalty, he lives and breathes it, and with Payton literally dying in his arms, I can only imagine that the weight of responsibility he feels about her death must be crushing.
He sets it aside to get the facts he needs from Luis, and it’s not my business at all, but I’m suddenly beyond grateful that Maddoc has Logan and Dante in his corner to bear some of that weight.
Any Reaper in his organization would gladly lay down their life for Maddoc the way Payton just did, but Maddoc needs more than that. He can’t keep everything bottled inside forever, but I also get why he can’t let the people who look to him as their leader see how he really feels. Not when they count on him the way they do.
Maddoc lets his brothers in though, in a way that I can’t imagine he allows with anyone else. He lets them see all the shit that’s stuffed out of sight, kept locked away under the mantle of leadership he wears so damn well.
And maybe, for just a moment out in the car, he let me see it too.
“How exactly did you two expect today to go?” he asks Luis in a tight voice.
Luis swallows. “Well, uh, Payton knew you wanted to know what Troy told West Point before they, before he, you know. While they had him. And when she found out there was someone from higher up in McKenna’s crew out and about without any protection this morning, she figured we could extract that info for you if we got him on his own.”
“And how did you plan to get him to talk?”
“The same way those fuckers did to Troy.”
“That’s not what I tasked you with last night,” Maddoc says evenly. “If I remember correctly, you were assigned to watch the warehouses near Broadway and Fifth, and Payton should have been taking care of some business for me over at Hillside.”
Luis grimaces. “Yeah, boss. But she, uh, Payton thought this would be better.”
“Better?” Maddoc repeats in a dangerously calm tone. “Is she part of my inner circle? Does she know all the irons I’ve got in the fire? Can—” He pauses, then goes on, correcting himself to the past tense. “Could she see the big picture? Was that Payton’s call to make?”
Luis shakes his head, finally cowering. As he should, in my opinion. He fucked up by following her lead, and everyone in this room knows it.
“Tell me how it went down,” Maddoc says, staring down at Luis with an intensity of focus that makes me think he’s committing every word to memory as Luis nods eagerly and starts rattling off details about who Payton was tipped off by, how she planned everything, and what happened once they captured the guy.
And, of course, how it all went to shit, because he hadn’t been on his own after all.
