doing nothing to calm his mind. He didn’t want this shit any more than Teague seemed to, but at least the other man was taking steps to put it to a stop. He sighed. The time for indecision was over.
They had to find the girl.
The door to the pub opened and a group of men streamed through, Ricky in the center of them. Their voices cut through the relative quiet of the room, their laughter too loud and too sharp. Ricky lifted his hand. “Tommy, we’re celebrating! First round’s on the house.”
What. The. Fuck?
There was nothing to celebrate. He straightened, his fingers tightening around the glass. They were acting suspiciously, like they were coming off a successful hit, but he knew for a fact he hadn’t ordered one. He finished his whiskey and got up, moving slowly to the bar to set the glass down, leaning there while he listened to the men at Ricky’s table.
“Fuck, that guy hit hard.”
Ricky laughed. “Not for long. Did you see the look on that bitch’s face when we dropped him? I think she pissed her tiny little running shorts.” More laughter all around.
James turned, waiting for them to realize he was there. He could rush over and start demanding answers, but one of the few useful things he’d learned from his old man was that how you entered a situation determined whether you’d come out on top or bottom. These were his men and his brother, and as great as it’d be to pretend that this was a perfect world where the men would always respect him, that wasn’t how things worked. Love and fear were the only two emotions that forged loyalty, and he knew better than to aim for the former.
The man facing the bar noticed him first, his left eye swollen nearly shut. James couldn’t place his name—any of their names aside from his brother—but the man knew him. He went silent. The guy next to him turned to see what he was looking at, and paled. It went like that around the table, until Ricky was the only one still laughing and bragging.
His littler brother finally looked over and his grin widened. “Here to celebrate, James?”
Another tumbler of whiskey showed up at his elbow, courtesy of Tommy. He picked it up, fighting to keep relaxed. He knew from dealing with Brendan and their old man that there was nothing scarier than the eerie calm that preceded an explosion of violence. He hoped like hell that he wouldn’t have to go there tonight, but Ricky was oblivious to the men exchanging leery glances around him. “What are we celebrating?”
“We whooped that O’Malley douche’s ass.” Ricky laughed, too loud in the now-silent room. “You should have seen his face. That pussy went down and didn’t get back up again.”
Motherfucker. He watched any chance of peace slide down the drain, along with his ability to walk away from his brother tonight. He had to make an example of him. Goddamn it. James pushed off the bar. “You beat Teague O’Malley.”
Ricky’s smile melted off his face, as if he was just now realizing there was danger. “He insulted our family.”
The idiot never stopped to consider why an O’Malley would be walking away from one of their pubs without a scratch on him. His younger brother didn’t have the vicious streak that had made Brendan a force of nature, but he was shaping up to be just as stupid when it came to thinking things through. James met each of the men’s gazes at the table in turn. “Get the fuck out.” He raised his voice slightly. “Everyone get the fuck out. Now.”
No one questioned the order, and they scattered faster than he would have credited. Then there was only him and Ricky. He wasted no time grabbing the front of his brother’s shirt and hauling him out of his chair. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Get your hands off me.”
Instead, he shook Ricky. “Answer the goddamn question.”
“He was on our turf!”
Disgusted, James shoved him back into the chair hard enough that it almost toppled over backward. “And you never stopped to think that maybe there was a reason for that, did you? He was here to meet with me so we could attempt to resolve this shit peacefully.”
“Peacefully.” Ricky’s lip curled. “Those fuckers spit in our face. They deserve to pay.”
“You sound like our old man.”
“Maybe because he’s got some balls. Brendan did, too.” He made a show of looking James up