Page 35 of Mischief

"Not my story to tell," he says. "But Tor missed the first fifteen years of that girl's life, and he didn't miss them because he wanted to. And when she and Meghan came back into his life, this club swore something over them that none of us ever said out loud but every man in there would die to keep." He holds my eyes. "So, when you climbed into her bed, you didn't just break a rule about prospects and daughters. You walked into the one place these men have promised themselves nothing bad would ever reach her again. And you're a man who showed up beaten half to death and won't say by who."

The stone under my sternum turns over.

Because he's right, and he doesn't even know how right he is.

I'm not only the prospect who touched a club princess.

I'm the prospect who touchedtheprincess while carrying the exact kind of darkness this whole family reorganized itself to keep away from her, and if they ever learn that, Geirolf's talk about old ladies who lived through it stops meaning anything at all.

"Why are you telling me this," I say.

Geirolf pushes off the fence.

"Because you took Tor's fists and didn't lift a hand," he says. "A guilty man fights back. A man who's just stupid in love takes it." He claps my good shoulder, softer than Logi did. "Doesn't change the ruling. Doesn't mean you get her. But a couple of us noticed. That's all. Keep your head down, your hands off her, and maybe, someday, you earn a little ground back."

They leave me at the fence with my dead cigarette.

Keep your hands off her.

If they knew what keeping my hands off her leaves her open to, they'd never let me out of their sight again.

* * *

My father calls at nine that night.

I'm sitting on the floor of my room with my back against the bed when the phone lights up, unknown number, and I already know.

I know before I answer, the way you know a storm off the pressure in your ears.

"Rough couple days, son?"

His voice slides into my ear, warm and awful, and the floor tilts under me.

"How—"

"I told you I've got eyes on you. Didn't I tell you that?" A wet, satisfied breath. "My people say it's gone real quiet for you down there. Nobody talking to you. You skulking around like a whipped dog. Looks to me like your little biker family found out you're not the golden boy after all."

I say nothing, because there's nothing to say that doesn't give him more.

"I don't know what you did," He goes on,"and I don't care much. But here's what it tells me. It tells me the ground's gone soft under you. It tells me you don't have as many friends down there as you thought. And a man with no friends, no leverage, and a whole lot of secrets—" the smile comes into his voice— "that's a man who should be a whole lot more reasonable than you've been."

"I'm not giving you anything."

"No?" A pause, built to cut, the way he builds all of them. "Then let me give you something instead. Marit went to a party last weekend. Nice house. Nice people. The kind of people I'vebeen telling you about." I hear him settle back, comfortable, a man holding all the cards. "She looked real pretty. Everyone said so. One of the buyers took a real shine to her."

The room goes white at the edges.

"You son of a bitch?—"

"She's sixteen, Anders. She photographs well. And she's got no big brother up here to do anything about it, on account of he ran off to play biker in Florida and got himself beat stupid over some girl he's not even allowed to have.”

His voice drops, and the warmth drains out of it, and what's left is the man from the staircase.

"The clock's not stopped just because your life fell apart. You bring me into that club or I sell your sister to the first man who bids. You've got days, not weeks. Think hard about who you can still save."

The line goes dead.

I sit on the floor with the phone in my shaking hand and I don't move for a long time.