Natches could feel the fury burning, building.
“She didn’t tell me about these.” Natches handed them to Dawg and Rowdy, knowing what was coming once they read them. “She would have told me.”
Fear was balling in Natches’s gut now. This was what Janey had been keeping from him for months?
Was this why she had moved from the marina to that apartment in town, so he wouldn’t find out?
God, she didn’t even trust him, her brother, to help her? But why should she? He hadn’t been able to help her in all the years Dayle had controlled her. What would make her think he could help her now?
“She made Zeke swear not to tell you about them. It was the only way she agreed to turn them over. I’m still officially on the investigation from last year. He turned them over to me instead.”
Natches turned away and reached for his boots. He and Janey were going to have a talk. Now. This
wasn’t happening. Damn whoever had written those letters to hell. He wasn’t letting anything else destroy his sister.
“Where are you going, son?” Ray rose from the table.
“To get Janey.”
It was the only solution. Get her back in the middle of the Mackay clan where she could be watched, protected. There was no other choice.
Alex watched him. He understood Natches’s determination, but he’d also seen Janey’s last night in that apartment. She would fight her brother, draw further away from her family. That wasn’t the answer. He had the answer; he just had to let everyone see it in their own way.
“And do what? Lock her in a box?” Alex asked him. “Show her she’s still a child with no control over her own life?”
Natches paused, one boot on, one off, his expression twisting in disbelief. “You think I’m going to let some f**king crackpot threaten her?” His voice rose. “Did you read that trash, Alex? What if it were Crista?”
Alex ran his hand over his hair. “I thought of that.” He nodded. “I’d go after her. And we’d fight. And she’d push me as far away from her as she could if she thought she could handle it. I talked to Zeke again before I came in this morning. Janey thinks it’s pranks. She’s not going to budge.”
Natches’s expression twisted in fury.
“That’s not pranks,” Natches yelled. “Dammit, Alex. You know that. That’s not pranks.”
“You’re not going to convince her of that,” Alex warned him.
“Are the three of you going with me?” Natches turned to his cousins, his uncle.
They were already getting ready to go. Their expressions were hard, murderous. And Alex couldn’t blame them. Janey was still a kid to these men, unprotected, terrorized her entire life, and she was still standing. They wanted her to have peace, not more fear.
“Thanks for the tip,” Natches snarled. “You can go home now.”
Alex arched his brow. “Get f**ked, Natches. This is my business, too. Or did you forget who you tagged years ago to help keep an eye on her?”
This was going to get dicey as hell, because he knew damned good and well Janey wasn’t going to let Natches lock her up.
“Every one of you has lost his mind.”
They swung around as Chaya moved from the back bedroom, the mound of her stomach barely poking against the T-shirt she wore over her pajama bottoms.
“How the hell did I know you wouldn’t sleep through this?” Natches grimaced at his wife as she moved into his arms. “Go back to bed.”
“Not on your life.” She shook her head. “And you better think before you go to Janey screaming your little heart out. She’s just like you, Natches. She’s going to go her own way, no matter what you want.”
And that was pretty much Alex’s opinion of the entire situation.
“She’s smaller than me,” Natches informed her. “She’s coming back here. Period.”
“Bet me.”
Alex could see the ragged rage and pain in Natches’s face, and he understood it more than the other man knew. Alex had nearly lost his own sister to this bullshit. When Johnny Grace, Nadine Grace’s son, had impersonated Crista and stolen government missiles. Johnny had realized no one believed it was Crista, and his lover had kidnapped her and Johnny had nearly killed her.
It was Natches who had saved her. He’d killed his own cousin with a sniper rifle as Johnny had tried to kill Crista. Yeah, Alex knew exactly how he felt, but now Natches was going to see what Alex had known even then. Sisters didn’t always do what you wanted them to do. No matter how dangerous their way turned out to be.
“I have to try, Chaya.” Natches moved away from her, grabbed his leather jacket from the hook on the wall, and turned back to the rest of them. “Ready?”
“Ready!” Dawg, Ray, and Rowdy already had their coats on and were heading for the door.
“Natches,” Chaya called out as he opened the door to the houseboat. “Don’t push her too hard. You’ll
regret it.”
He stared back at her, his eyes alive with the anger burning inside him.
“I’ll do what I have to do to protect her, Chaya.”
She smiled at that. “You’ll do what you can do, Natches. What she lets you do. Remember that.”
Alex watched the other man’s jaw tense, a sure sign he was grinding his teeth, and if the situation hadn’t been as serious as it was, Alex would have grinned.
Instead, he followed the other men out and up the docks to the vehicles. He got in his truck as the others got in theirs, and damned if he didn’t feel sorry for Janey this morning.
This was too dangerous, though, to let it go. Too dangerous not to let her family know about it. Losing Janey wasn’t an option. And if he didn’t let the Mackays know, and something happened to her, then he would never be able to look his own sister in the eye again.
They drove, four pickups in a row, into town and then along the town square. Mackay’s was in a converted office building at the end of the block, near the town square. Parking was on the street, a large lot at the side, and in the back. Lately, there hadn’t been enough parking.
It was closed now, the windows dark. Alex pulled his truck in beside Natches’s on the private side of the building. Rowdy, Ray, and Dawg parked on the street. Alex saw the curtains in the apartment over the restaurant flutter, and felt Janey staring down at the street. Shit was going to hit the fan now, and Alex had a feeling he was right in the line of fire.