Leon’s eyes went shiny. “I did not know, but I’m beginning to fathom. They seem to have surrounded themselves with interesting—and eclectic—people.”
Michael nodded. “Yeah. But good folks.”
“The man—men, really—but the lawyer who introduced the family to me seemed to be both kind and clever. I assure you, getting in to see me when I had no idea of the reason was not easy. And aside from a few bruises to my security, nobody was hurt.” He gave a brief chuckle. “They were most complimentary, by the way, when I revealed the reasons the group of intruders had come to see me. They assured me the operation had been slick and smart and, fortunately, mostly violence free. I got the feeling the lawyer was the reason it went so smoothly. Is he not here?”
“Mm, I think most of the guys are out and about,” Michael replied. He was fully aware of the fact that Grace wasn’t there on purpose to force Josh to talk to his family, and Hunter was off with Grace to take advantage of the alone time. Chuck split his time between Chicago and Lucius’s business in Springfield, but that all seemed like too much information. Then the full import of “lawyer” hit him. “Oh! Yeah. Carl is coming back tonight. I’m getting him from the airport.”
Leon smiled, clearly relaxing a smidge. “Where did he go?”
“His day job is in Washington, DC. He does stuff for Felix and Julia because he likes them, mostly. He’s making his home base in Chicago, so he wanted to ship some of his stuff to an apartment in the city.” He smiled prettily and tried to make this sound as platonic as possible. “It’s Danny’s old place. I stay there too.”
“He’s a good man,” Leon said, clearly not suspicious at all. “I would not have given one of the others a chance to speak.” He rolled his eyes. “One of them was police, one was a mercenary, and the other—I don’t know what he was, but he wasn’t someone I’d trust.”
Michael gave half a laugh. “Chuck? He’s munitions and transport. He’s seriously the world’s most trustworthy guy. Wouldn’t leave a friend hanging, not even if it was easier.”
Leon regarded him with some surprise. “And the others?”
“I don’t know the Interpol guy—never met him—but Hunter’s the muscle. Smart muscle, but he’s got his strengths. But you gotta know, if they’re here with Felix, Danny, and Julia, they’re good folks.” Michael paused and remembered that talking thing again. “But tell me about yourself,” he added weakly.
“I’m a man very curious as to how my nephew has such interesting friends,” Leon purred.
And suddenly Michael was on firm ground. “Look at him,” he said, nodding at Josh, who was currently regaling the kids with a story about his best friend. He had no idea if the story was mostly true or mostly bullshit, but he was being charming and funny and obviously working to put his new cousins at ease. “I mean, wouldn’t you want to know him if he wasn’t in your family?”
Leon chuckled. “Yes,” he agreed, before his smile faded. “He… he’s been very guarded with me.”
“He thinks you’re here to replace his fathers,” Michael said baldly, remembering Josh’s painfully revealed insecurities four days ago. “I know it sounds silly, but, you know, he’s been sort of raised on this legend of family. He’s built his identity on it, really. And to find out something about his real father—or his real father’s family—that would hurt the idea he has of who he is. That’s hard, you think?”
“How would you know all this?”
Oh, this was embarrassing. But Michael figured if he was thrown in a room with grenades, he should probably throw himself on one for general good will.
“See, I went to prison for robbing a bank,” he said and tried not to melt into the floor when Leon di Rossi’s eyes got really large. “And I shouldn’t’ve have been anywhere near a bank—or a semiauto for that matter—but my brothers kept stealing from my business, and they figured the bank job was the best way to pay me back. Now my oldest boy, he adored my brothers. They took him bow hunting when he was supposed to be in school, and they taught him bad words. He’s nine, right? Well, back when he was seven, they gave him beer when he was supposed to be home with his mom. We had to take him to the hospital. They were bad people, and hell—it was Texas. We couldn’t find a lawman in the county that would keep those two assholes from my kids. Something about their right to know their kinfolk or something dumb like that. But trying to tell Jakey that his uncles were bad? That was hard. They were adults, and they were paying special attention to him. Who wanted to hear that bad news, right? But then… then things got worse. And I got sent away. And apparently Beth, my ex, she sat down with that kid and told him the truth—that his uncles were bad people. They stole from his dad, and the only way Dad was going to keep his house and feed his kids was to do something desperate, and now he was paying. You want to know what happened next?”
Leon was staring at him, absolutely fascinated, and Michael tugged at his collar. “I do,” Leon said. “I really do.”
“That kid stopped talking to his mama. Because as bad as those assholes made my life—his life too—she’d broken this idea he had, about how they loved him special.”
“Why do you think they paid all that attention to him?”
Michael let out a bitter laugh. “Same reason they stole from my business and put a gun in my hand. I never had a damned thing—chicken leg, piece of licorice, wife, or great kids—that those fuckers didn’t want. They wanted to make him theirs.”
“That’s reprehensible,” Leon said, his accent making the word sound almost like it wasn’t English.
“Well, I may have mentioned they were fuckers.”
“How did you fix things? Or how did your wife fix things? Between your son and his mother?”
“We both did it,” Michael said. “I wrote him, wrote them all, letters from prison. Every day if I could. Beth had the kids—even the littlest, who could only hold crayons—send me something as often as possible. And I never told them that their uncles were horrible people, but boy, you can bet I told them that their mother was the kindest, strongest, best woman they would ever meet. That my brothers, Angus and Scooter, couldn’t get a woman as good as Beth to even talk to them or look at them twice, because no good woman would touch them. And by the time I got home, Jakey and his mama were close again.”
“You said she’s your ex-wife? You don’t live with them anymore?”
Michael shrugged. “That’s a whole other story, and I have bored you enough with my personal life. I just wanted to say—”
“That the way to Josh’s heart is through the people he already loves,” Leon said, nodding wisely. “It’s a very good point. And one you didn’t have to bare your soul to make, and yet you did.” He arched his eyebrows at Michael’s red-faced, sweaty-pitted discomfort. “Anyone can see you weren’t comfortable doing so. Why?”
“’Cause these people?” He nodded at everyone in the sitting room. “And the people that are missing, even? They’d all do the same thing to make you comfortable here. They’ve done the same thing for me, and I’m an ex-convict with no pedigree. When someone’s good to you like that, you do your best to pay it forward.”