“Ajax and I set the terms. No pushback. If he says he doesn’t want it, that’s that. If I think you’re not good for him, that’s that. If you can deal with that, I’ll talk to him and see if he’s still interested. If he is, I’ll give you a call. Can you deal with that?”
Marcella was fully aware that if almost any other man were Ajax’s father, she wouldn’t have so much control. Legally, he could push the point and compel visitation.
But Eight Ball was his father, and she was equally aware that a man like him would not go near a court if he could avoid it. His only recourse to compel her would be actual, physical force, and he wouldn’t do that.
Clearly, he wouldn’t. He hadn’t made a threat yet. He understood that she had the power. Probably he hated that truth, but he had no appetite to do the things necessary to change it.
He flipped through more photos, working backward through ten years. He stopped at one, stared at it for a long time, then looked up. She couldn’t read his expression, but it didn’t seemed comfortably shaped to his face. Like he was feeling an emotion he’d never felt before.
“How do I know you won’t pull the plug just to fuck with me? The way you use that name you know I hate, just to get a dig in.”
Typical Eight, thinking her using his name to poke at him was equivalent toanythinghaving to do with Ajax.
“I don’t play games with my kid’s well-being.”
“Ourkid.”
“Not yet.”
His jaw went tight, and his thumbs swiped around on her phone. When he typed something out, alarm flew up Marcella’s spine. “What are you doing?”
Just then, his phone buzzed on the table. He handed hers back to her and swiped his silent without looking at it. Her screen did the explaining: he’d called himself.
“Now you’ve got my number, and I’ve got yours. That’s my personal. It doesn’t change. I’m about to be out of town for about a week and a half. Making a run to California. I’ll call you when I’m back, and we can set something up. That work?”
“Yeah, okay.” She figured there was an even chance he’d change his mind in those ten days, so she’d hold off on saying anything to Ajax until that call actually happened.
“Good.”
With that, he pulled his wallet, took out a fifty-dollar bill, dropped it on the table, stood up, and walked away, limping more than she remembered.
He hadn’t touched his burger.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Maverick slipped the Bulls’ van into a spot on a dark street a bit off 11th Street. It was Hounds’ turf, but Eight had done his diplomat deal, touched Gary Samms, the Hounds’ boss, and got clearance for the job. The assholes JJ had freelanced for were not allied with the Street Hounds, and Samms was more than happy for the Bulls to deal with strangers dealing on Hounds’ turf.
They were, as far as it was possible to be, safe.
This was one of the seediest parts of Tulsa. All cities, Eight figured, had some neighborhood like this, whatever it was called. When people hit bottom, they landed on cracked concrete just like this.
Crawling around in the grime and dark. The Bulls did notdothis nasty kind of business.
Stupid fucking kids. Theyknewbetter than to pull this shit. Eight shook his head and ran a hand over his scalp. He was due for a shave up there.
“You fucking imbeciles,” Maverick growled, looking around. “Stupid fucking assholes.”
“I didn’t know, Dad,” Duncan said for the thousandth time, from the back, sitting on the floor by the rear doors.
“Didyou?” Rad asked Zach. That father and son sat in the rear seats. Dex sat beside them, leaning against the van wall, watching. He wasn’t one to do a lot of talking.
Looking up at the rearview, Eight caught the somber shake of Zach’s head.
Eight had very much not wanted Rad to come on this job. The man was all heart, but that heart had failed him three times, and if Eight had to carry his body back to his widow while their kid was in a fucking coma, he’d have to beat the shit out of half of Tulsa before he’d be anywhere near square again.
All of which he’d yelled at Rad in the clubhouse, when the stubborn old fart had shown up with Zach, loaded for grizzly and ready for battle.
But he was a father who wanted payback for his son, and Eight was starting to get a hint of an inkling that that feeling was bigger than he could imagine, or control.