The thing is, he doesn’t seem delicate at all. He hardly seems like he’s aged since the day he showed up at my uncle’s place and spirited me away. I clench my hands under the table, feeling wave after wave of adrenalin rattle around my body. Despite being in some pretty serious pain, I’m just waiting for my moment. Waiting for my moment to end this once and for all. And I don’t intend on waiting for Charlie’s buddies to show up.

I know the kind of men he would have asked here. The kind who have lost family members at Charlie’s behest. All it would have taken was a few carefully whispered words in the right ears—Zeth Mayfair, he’s the one that did it—and I’m sure half of Seattle’s underworld is baying for my blood.

Charlie angles his head, but doesn’t look at O’Shannessey—the old man hasn’t forgotten O’Shannessey’s little fuck up just now. I’m betting there will be repercussions at some point. Some point soon. Charlie’s never been one to let retribution sit too long. “Go and get the girls,” he snaps. To Sammy, he says, “Kill the other one.”

Michael is the other one. I’m rising to my feet, ready to start some shit, when I feel the explosion of pain in my chest. My body locks up, and for a moment I can’t figure out why. I have no control over any part of me. My hands, arms, legs, none of it works. I tremble and shake, barely able to breathe. I do manage to roll my eyes down to the source of all the pain—two burning hot points in the center of my chest—and I see the probes there, digging into my skin. A Taser. After narrowly avoiding being shot with one at Pippa’s, I get shot with one now, here. By Charlie. I never even saw it coming. How ironic.

“Steady, son,” he says, smirking.  “My aim ain’t so good anymore. I could get you in the balls next time.”

It feels like the veins underneath my skin are drawing taut, stretching and pulling. The current’s still coursing through me, looping over and over in excruciating waves.  O’Shannessey and Sammy back out of the lobby, watching me grunt in pain, clearly sorry to be missing out on the fucking show. Assholes. As soon as we’re alone, Charlie switches off the Taser, placing the firing mechanism down next to his food. I gasp in a breath of oxygen, really appreciating for the first time how good it feels just to be able to fill your lungs.

“Don’t move again,” Charlie warns. “This thing isn’t exactly police grade, if you get me. I could fry you to death quite easily, and along with my aim, my stomach ain’t what it used to be, either. I think the stench of your cooking meat might just be enough to ruin my lunch.”

“You hurt any of them, and I’ll—”

“You’ll sit still and you’ll fucking behave! Do not test my patience, you fuck,” Charlie roars, slamming his palm down against the table. The silverware on either side of my plate of food jumps so high the fork clatters to the floor. “Now shut the fuck up and wait for Lacey and that severely stuck-up cunt to arrive. Open your mouth just once and I swear I’ll crank this thing up to its highest fucking setting.”

I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do. Sammy is going to kill Michael, and there’s literally nothing I can do to stop it. I’ll be incapacitated as soon as I move a muscle, and then what good am I to anyone? I sit in silence, glaring at Charlie down the length of the table, all the while counting the times Michael’s eluded being killed. There are at least three occasions I can recall off the top of my head. I’m hoping this will make a fourth.

O’Shannessey returns with Lacey and Sloane only a few minutes later. They’re holding on to one another, arms linked, eyes wide. Sloane’s covered in blood, her dress shredded from shoulder to hem. She looks like she’s in fucking pain. The pull to go to her, to leap out of the chair and snatch her up in my arms, is almost too strong to deny. “You okay?” I ask her, raising my eyebrows.

She nods. “Sore. But, yeah. I’m okay. Michael—”

“Will be okay, too.” The confidence in my voice goes against everything I’m feeling right now, but I need her to see everything’s going to be all right. I need my sister to see everything’s going to be all right, too. Lacey gives me a nervous look, her eyes shining the way they do when she’s about to cry.

“I’m sorry, Zeth,” she whispers. “I didn’t want to leave you.  I didn’t mean—”

“It’s okay.” I shake my head. She has to know I’m not mad at her. Confused, sure, but not mad. I should have done a better fucking job of protecting her. “It doesn’t matter now, okay?”

Charlie, fucking asshole that he is, continues to twist pasta around his fork. “Why don’t you sit down, ladies? You should join us. Lacey, it’s customary for the son of the head of a family to sit at his right hand. Since I don’t have a son, you’re going to have to do.”

Neither Sloane nor Lace look inclined to sit with us, but O’Shannessey doesn’t give them much of a choice; he nudges them forward with the butt of his drawn gun. Dragging two extra chairs over for them, he sits Sloane to my right, and Lacey on my left. The whole set-up is like some fucked-up family dinner. Lacey stares down at the table, her eyes unblinking. She’s tapping her fingers to her thumb, over and over—pinkie, ring, middle, index. Index, middle, ring, pinkie. Not a good sign.

“You need to…you need to take the probes out of him,” she says, still staring at the grain of the wood.