Chapter 14: Open Line

Brogan's POV

On Thursday morning I ate eggs at my mother's counter and watched Betsy not eat hers.

Eight of my men were in the booths.

Alec sat at the end with his guard, staring into his coffee.

She wore her denim jacket and her scrubs.

She was cutting a piece of toast into smaller and smaller squares.

"Stop," I said.

"I'm fine."

"You're not. Look at me."

She looked.

There were nine people close enough to hear me, and I kept my voice flat.

"When you walk out of that house today, I'm taking you to the garage," I said.

"I'm putting you on the workbench."

"I'm going to find out how long it takes before you say my name."

The fork stopped halfway to her mouth.

A man in the next booth choked on his coffee.

My mother, behind the pass, said, "Brogan McFadden," in the voice she used when I was nine.

Betsy put down the fork very carefully.

Her face had gone pink to the roots of her hair, and her eyes were on me, and they were not saying no.

"You can't say that in front of your mother," she said.

"I just did."

I left a twenty on the counter and walked out.

Nothing could happen at that counter, and that was the point.

At eleven forty I was parked two houses down from the one on Maple Street.

I sat in the cab of the shop's truck with my phone on my knee.

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