was Eamon who’d stepped out of the shadows instead of his assassin.
Cathal took her hand in his. “It doesn’t have to go further than just paying your respects.”
“I used to crash here sometimes, when I was fourteen. Me and about five other kids.” Four would go on the list. The fifth had OD’d at sixteen, the same year the captain’s version of scaring her straight had worked.
At the door she knocked. It was opened by a rawboned man in his fifties, light enough skinned that the tattoos on his neck and arms popped.
OG. Original gangster. Her palms buzzed, reminding her he wore a little bit of her ink. Tiny footsteps above his heart along with the word Janelle, the name of one of his kids born in the days she’d hung out with Vontae.
“Long time, Tyrone.”
He glanced at Cathal, but his gaze lingered on Liam before returning to her. “You’ve traded up since last time I saw you.”
“That’s one way to look at it. Okay if we come in?”
He stepped out of the doorway. “Most everyone’s either over at the funeral home or talking to the preacher about services. Mama’s here though.” Vontae’s grandmother.
“You know why it happened?” Etain asked as Tyrone led them down the hallway, toward a kitchen she remembered as being a place of warmth and laughter as well as stern lectures.
“Your daddy send you to ask? Cause we already had cops stopping by. Plenty of cops.”
“I came on my own.”
“If you say so.”
“I was at the hospital last night with Kelvin. He didn’t make it.”
“You going to get out of the life, then you got to stay far away from it.” She heard a warning in that message.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Not going to. What went down is the MC’s business.”
MC. Motorcycle Club. Meaning the Curs.
“You a member now?” He wasn’t when she was a teen.
Tyrone didn’t answer.
They entered the kitchen. “Mama, Etain’s here. You remember her?”
“Of course I remember her.”
The old woman pushed up from her chair, the smoke from a cigarette on the edge of a saucer curling upward. She was rail-thin, the way Etain remembered her, except now, with adult eyes, she saw the way age and the weight of kids and grandkids who’d ended up in gangs, in prison, and on drugs had shrunk her, bending height and hunching her back with it.
Her hands gripped Etain’s upper arms. “Look at you, all grown up.”
“What passes for grown up anyway. Some people might argue it.”
Momma Leeona smiled, as Etain had meant her to. “I appreciate your coming by,” she said, pulling Etain into a hug.
Guilt slid into Etain like a hot knife, coming with the memory of Vontae on the floor of the bar, reaching for a gun. “He was a friend.” Once. Time hadn’t changed that.
“Eat something?” Vontae’s grandmother asked, the counter crowded with food.
“Cathal and I had something a little while ago.”
Etain paused to introduce her companions. Momma Lee said, “We can move into the living room.”
“This room’s fine. I always think of you sitting in here.” She sent a glare at the cigarette, though god knew, she’d done a lot worse when she hung out here.
Momma Lee laughed and reclaimed her chair, sitting heavily despite her slight frame.
Etain sat across from her, Cathal moving into place behind her, his hands on her shoulders as she said, “We can’t stay for long. We’re on our way to the shelter. I need to talk to Justine.”
“She was by here last night.” Momma Lee picked up the cigarette. It trembled as she carried it to her lips. “I can’t even turn the TV on. Seems like every time I do, they show pictures of bodies being brought out in black bags. And I wonder if that one’s got Vontae in it, or that one or that one. Or if maybe it’s Lomas or Roddy or Ahman, or somebody else that used to come around here and sit at this table like you’re sitting.”
Shame crawled into Etain, that she hadn’t called Detective Ordones or any of the Oakland cops she knew and asked for the names of the victims. “The police will find out who did this.”
“Maybe. But not before other people’s babies get killed.”
“Is this the start of a drug war?” she asked, drawing on what Melinda had said at the hospital.
Vontae’s grandmother shrugged. “You ask me, this trouble has to do with Anton.”
“Mama,” Tyrone said at the same time Etain asked, “Anton Charles?”
“Yes. How do you know him?”
“From the shop where I work. Stylin’ Ink.” She hesitated, adding, “I saw him a couple of days ago.” Leaving it there, without mentioning being with him in the bar where Vontae and the others died.
“There’s bad blood between him and some of the other Curs.”
“Mama, you don’t want to be messing with Anton’s business. Or with the club’s either.”
“I’ll say what I’m going to say, Tyrone, and pray to Jesus maybe it’ll make a difference this time. Violence always begets more violence. I’ve been preaching it at the kitchen table since before you were born and I’m not going to stop now.”
She took a draw on her cigarette, using it for fortification. Etain could see the sheen of tears, see her fighting to hold them in. Smoke erupted from Momma Lee’s nostrils, reminding Etain of the Dragon’s exhalation.
“Vontae.” Momma Lee’s voice cracked on the name. “Vontae and a couple of the other Curs, they were close to Anton. I heard them talking in this very room—”
“Mama—”
“They were excited about Anton being back, going on and on about him taking over the club and how he had big plans and they were going to be part of them. Got real quiet whenever they realized I was hearing them. I said my piece, and they said
Etain thought back to how the others had acted around Anton. Respectful, giving up the pool table when the two of them decided to play. One of the guys even hustling to rack the balls.
She glanced at Liam. He’d entered the bar and she’d known by the touch of his magic to hers he was part of the world her mother had been running from. And then all hell had broken loose, thanks to Eamon’s arrival, and she’d learned that not only had Liam been sent to watch her, but that Anton’s brother owned the place.
“You think this was Curs killing Curs?” she asked, pride and shame keeping her from asking if Anton and his brother were among the dead. She’d find out soon enough, with a call, then realized she already knew the answer when it came to Anton, given Tyrone’s interruptions.
Momma Leeona seemed to fold in on herself more. “That’s what I think. Same as I think other families are going to be affected like this one. Violence begets violence.”
Etain let the conversation drift to the past. There’d been good times mixed in with those she regretted. Not enough of them to fill hours of conversation, but enough so the visit didn’t seem rushed, or dishonest.
“We should probably head to the shelter,” she finally said. “Is there anything you need?”
Vontae’s grandmother reached across the table, taking Etain’s hands in hers. Etain jerked with the contact. Sweat broke out with the sharp burn of pain in her wrists where Momma Lee’s fingertips rested, and with the unmistakable sensation of an alien awareness invading her reality.
