Brad gets up and comes to me, easing the pillow out and punching it a few times. “So when are you back on your feet? Lift your head.” My chin hits my chest and Brad stuffs the pillow beneath. “Better?”

  “Yeah.” I settle. “Tomorrow.” I’ll be up and about by tomorrow.

  He laughs. “Doesn’t look like it.”

  “Doc said I should be on my feet.” I’ve just got to walk off the stiffness. “Beau’s being difficult.” I expect she’s also got an ulterior motive.

  “She’s known exactly where you are for four weeks, pal. That’s a luxury she’s never had. I can’t blame her.”

  I laugh under my breath, fidgeting again, uncomfortable. “It’s been a fucked-up luxury for me too, knowing where she is twenty-four/seven.” But now I have every confidence that she’s never disappearing on me again. “Fuck this,” I snap, lifting my shoulders, making Brad rush to me.

  “Whoa, what are you doing?” He looks between me and the bathroom, obviously terrified of Beau’s reaction. “Stay still. She’ll blame me.”

  “Be a man,” I grunt, holding my breath and gritting my teeth, working my way up to sitting.

  “Be a fucking man?” he mutters, holding my shoulders, therefore stopping me from falling back to the mattress. “What should I do?”

  “Brad!” Beau yells, emerging from the bathroom.

  He releases me, holding his hands up like Beau’s got a gun aimed at him. “It wasn’t me, for fuck’s sake. Why’d you blame everything on me?”

  I land on my back on a yelp. “Fuck!” The pain. It fucking angers me, and in the midst of it, because it couldn’t get any fucking worse, I sit back up, hissing as I do. “Give me some of those painkillers, for fuck’s sake.”

  Brad scrambles for the pot and tips a couple into my palm. I keep my hand out. “More?” he asks, unsure.

  “More,” I demand. Another two land, and I toss them into my mouth and motion for the water. Brad holds the straw at my mouth, and I slurp it down before shuffling back until I find the headboard, slumping against it. Fuck me, I’m sweating.

  The door knocks, and Pearl wanders in with a tray, bringing my daily delivery of tea and toast. She’s all smiles.

  Until she sees Brad.

  He quickly puts himself on the other side of the bed, grunting his hello, and Pearl quickly gathers herself. “Esther sent tea and toast.”

  My eyes jump from Pearl to Brad, happy for the distraction from my ailments. “Thanks,” I murmur as Brad kicks the carpet, his hands sunken into his pockets, his eyes low.

  “Welcome.” She smiles and slips it onto the nightstand. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like I’ve been shot. Twice.”

  She smiles awkwardly. It’s nothing to do with me. It’s Brad. Pearl and Anya have been in and out of my room for four weeks bringing tea, toast, water, whatever Esther’s sending. Both have settled in well. Both are all smiles.

  “Better,” I add. “I feel better.” I eye the toast. Butter. I think I must have lost twenty pounds of muscle. “Pass me a slice,” I say.

  “You’re sitting up,” Pearl says, putting a few slices on a napkin and setting it on my thighs.

  “Yes, and he shouldn’t be.” Beau throws Brad another death glare, not that he notices, his attention still on his dress shoes.

  “I have cake,” Anya declares, breezing in, again all smiles. Unlike Pearl, her smile remains in place regardless of Brad’s presence. “How do you say . . . Limon driz?” She waggles her eyebrows.

  “Drizzle,” I finish for her, pointing to my lap. “Load me up.”

  She takes the biggest wedge and places it next to my toast. “You need fat.”

  “I agree,” I say, opting for the cake first, wrapping my mouth around the big slice and humming my happiness. Sugar. God, that’s good. Beau smiles, delighted to see me eating.

  “You’re sitting up!” Rose shrieks, rushing to the bed and taking my cheeks in her hands, squishing the cake in my mouth. I hear Beau laugh as she continues fussing around the bed, folding blankets, fixing curtains, brushing crumbs from my lap. Rose’s eyes scan my face. “You seriously need a trim.” She tugs on a bit of my beard, and I bat her away, smiling fondly at her ever-growing belly as I chew my way through my cake.

  Danny strolls in, casual, suited, hands in his pockets. I cast a look to Brad. Suit. To Danny. Suit.

  Nolan walks in, all smiles.

  Suit.

  What’s going on? Everyone has been casual whenever they’ve stopped by. Casual and relaxed. In fact, the whole house has a different aura. It’s like the brief, fleeting moments we’ve all shared in St. Lucia, except in Miami. And for considerably longer than before. I can sense it, even half dead from my bed.

  I suck the tips of my fingers as Danny settles on a chair, his smile mild. Relaxed.

  “You need a haircut,” I say, prompting him to run a hand through his dark hair that’s no longer tickling his nape but resting on it.

  “Well, my wife has a new salon so that shouldn’t be a problem going forward.”

  “Oh?” I look at Rose, and she shrugs with a sneaky smile. “I’ve sent the girls to beauty school to finish the courses they started,” she declares, smiling fondly at Anya and Pearl. “And once this baby’s out of me, I’m going to business school.”

  I flick a discreet look at Danny, who’s brushing his cupid’s bow thoughtfully. I can’t imagine he’s loving that idea. “And I thought I would help Brad at the club,” Beau declares out of the blue.

  What?

  I give Brad a dark look. So that’s what’s been going on while I’m laid up, is it? Enticing my fiancée with a job at our laundering hub? “I’m not t—”

  “Unless you want me to continue smuggling your guns, of course,” she adds casually, peeking up at me.

  “I think this is a conversation for us to be having in private.” I grab some more cake and ram it in my gob before I yell a resounding no!

  “Coming through, coming through.” Esther joins us in the room. “You’re sitting up.”

  “I’m sitting up,” I mumble through my cake, holding it up, nodding my approval. The woman can bake.

  “Did someone say cake?” Otto enters, followed by Ringo and Goldie.

  All suits.

  “When are we going to St. Lucia?” Brad asks, breaking his silence but keeping his attention aimed on his side of the room.

  “I thought you hated the lack of action?” Beau replies coyly, nibbling her lip as she fills my water up.

  “Maybe you’ll find a Four Seasons hotel in St. Lucia too.” Pearl smiles sarcastically, everyone falls silent, and Brad’s lip curls.

  “Well, well,” Doc chants, appearing through the growing crowd in my room. “How’s my latest patient doing?”

  “Hungry,” I say, taking a piece of toast and wrapping my mouth around it. I can’t get enough.

  “When did you last have some pain meds?”

  “Just now,” I waffle as he takes my blood pressure.

  “Good, good. We need to start getting you on your feet, James.”

  I slowly turn my eyes to Beau. She’s scowling at Doc. “Yes, Doc,” I say obediently, finishing my toast.

  “Want some more?” Pearl asks, loading me up anyway.

  “Hey, Uncle James.” Daniel darts into the room with a racket in his hand, followed by the Vikings. And Leon and Jerry.

  “Is there a party and no one told me?” I ask my crowded room.

  “It’s Brad’s birthday,” Rose declares.

  “No shit.”

  “Shit.” Brad rolls his eyes as Zinnea bursts through the middle of everyone.

  “Happy birthday!” she sings, seizing Brad and planting a kiss on his cheek.

  “Thirty-five today,” Danny says, looking between him and Pearl, as do I. And Rose. And Beau. Even hauled up in this room, I’m fully aware of the situation. Brad seems hell-bent on ignoring it, though. It’s probably wise. Fuck me, fourteen years? It’s a stretch, but he is actually old enough to be her father. And perhaps that’s part of the problem.

  Danny clears his throat and stands. “We have a meeting with Sandy.”

  What? “You’ve not dealt with that yet?” I ask.

  “We wanted our wingman,” Brad adds. “Up for it?”

  “Yes, I’m up for it.” I need a change of scenery. Something to take my mind off this pain. “Give me five and I’ll be ready.” I look around the room to the endless people, literally every member of this fucked-up family. “I’m naked under these sheets.”

  The girls scatter like ants, all bar Beau, of course, and the men casually leave, heading down to the office. I whip the covers back and shift my legs off the side of the bed.

  “No!” Beau puts herself in front of me, adamant in her stance.

  I lean forward and bury my face in between her shirt-covered boobs, getting a hit of her natural smell, my hands sliding to her arse and holding it.

  “James,” she pleads, holding my head. “It’s too soon.”

  “Doc said I need to get on my feet.” I look up at her. “I’m walking down to the office, Beau, that’s all.”

  “To have a meeting with a man who sent someone into my hospital room while I was unconscious to kill me.”

  “It’s all water under the bridge,” I say, making her laugh out loud. “I’m not joking.” I’ve thought about this endlessly. I’ll never be his best mate, but I have to accept that he has made moves, shared information, that has gotten us to the end. A few bullet holes to boot, but we’re at the end. “It’s over, Beau,” I whisper. “Now we get to enjoy the light.”

  She shakes her head but smiles, smoothing over my face. “You’re about to go downstairs and negotiate a deal on some guns.”

  We both accepted quite a while ago that this is our life. We just need to make it as easy as possible, and that is what we’re doing. Setting the bar. Defending the bar. “We’ve risen,” I whisper. “We cannot fall.”

  Her eyes scan mine, and she lowers her lips, kissing me softly. Delicately. It’s the lightest kiss we’ve ever shared. “Come on,” she says around my lips. “Before something else rises.”

  I jerk with my burst of laughter, hissing, wincing. “Jesus.” Every muscle feels like it could snap, they’re so tight. “It’s too late, anyway.” I take her hand and lead it to my groin, and her eyes widen.

  “That definitely isn’t happening.”

  I won’t argue. The last thing I want to do is have sex like an old man. And that thought alone makes me determined to recover. I stand from the bed.

  “Take it easy,” Beau snaps, staggering back.

  “I need to brush my teeth.” I take one step. Another. “Good God,” I hiss with each move, my muscles protesting, but they’re never going to loosen up if I stay in bed rotting away. Break through the pain. It’s another pain on top of my endless injuries.

  But nothing compared to the agony of Beau’s despair.

  She walks me to the bathroom, insists on brushing my teeth, helps me into some sweats—no suit—and the whole time I watch her, fascinated by how light her dark eyes appear.

  I strain to lift my arms when she helps me into my T-shirt. “You’re too thin,” she muses, pulling the material down my torso. She pauses at the bandages covering two new bullet wounds.

  “I can put on weight,” I point out, forcing her to look up at me. We stare for a long, long time. I don’t know what I’m looking for. Signs that she’s not okay? Because how the fuck could she be after everything that’s happened? Her mum, for fuck’s sake. All this time, her mum. If there’s one thing I’ve given a lot of thought to during my time of forced convalescence, it’s her mum.

  “It was the payday we needed toward our retirements. I really wasn’t expecting backlash of such monumental proportions. No one on the estate was supposed to be left alive. It was easy money.” Slaughtering my family had been for easy money. She played the game well. I’ve always known Jaz Hayley knew who I was. Where I’d come from. What I’ve done. After she ‘died’ in the explosion the night I saved Beau, she as The Bear could never reveal that she knew who The Enigma was. Because only Jaz Hayley knew who The Enigma was. She had to move her pieces with precision and care if she was going to keep her true identity secret. Hence the safety deposit box. She devised a plan to have the box compromised so my identity would be exposed without risking her own being discovered.

  Every time I’ve thought about it, I’ve wanted to scream. I’ve wanted to kill her. Slowly. I hate that Beau mourned her mother’s death for so long. Hate that she will forever have killing her own mother on her conscience. It should have been me. But then I consider what revenge did to my soul, and how black it became. Because of Beau, hatred no longer rules me. She set me free. Allowed me to rise.

  So, really, it had to be Beau to end The Bear.

  Besides, I got to end The Snake and endless other Irish fuckers, so I guess it’s an even playing field.

  Beau feels my chest, her cheeks brightening. I take her hand, bringing it to my mouth, and kiss her ring. “I’m okay,” she whispers, feeling my chest, the color in her cheeks seeming to increase by the minute.

  She’s okay.

  Finally.

  Beau leads me to the bed, sits me down, and puts my trainers on. I get an even more potent hit of the peace radiating through the house once I’m in the corridor.

  Our walk down to the office is slow, but with every step, my muscles give a little more and the effort lessens. “Okay?” she asks, as we take the stairs, looking up at me.

  “Okay,” I reply, loving attentive Beau. Looking after me. It was never something I considered could be. Could accept. It’ll be a while before I’m back in the gym, but I’m prepared to take small steps, take my time and use it wisely with Beau.

  When we make it to Danny’s office, she pushes the door open, and everyone looks my way. I gesture to my casual attire. “It’s as good as it gets right now.”

  Beau helps me to the couch and eases me down. I’m a lot looser. I could have done it myself, but I’m humoring her. Mothering me suits her, and that thought alone makes me smile.

  “Be gentle with him,” she quips, bending over and dropping a kiss on my lips. “Behave.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” It’s also sexy as fuck. She needs to leave before I abandon this meeting and take her back upstairs. Old man be damned. “Go,” I order.

  She smiles and saunters out, and my eyes follow her arse until the wood comes between us. I pout, smiling to myself, planning all of the making-up sex I have to look forward to. More. She’ll beg me for more again.

  “Hello?”

  I blink and look around the room. Everyone’s watching me. “Get me a drink,” I breathe, motioning to the full bottle of vodka on the cabinet. Goldie obliges and swiftly gets a tumbler in my hand. That first sip. Fucking heaven. I shake my head on a grimace when Brad offers me a cigarette. “What’s the plan?” A newspaper lands in front of me, the front-page news quite something. I pick it up and read the article by Natalia Potter detailing the tragic death of Detective Collins at the hands of Russian ex-KGB mobster Marek Zielińska. Another newspaper lands on top of it. Another compelling front-page story. Oliver Burrows. A hero, killed in service by a bent FBI agent who was assumed dead. Beau’s mother’s face is next to Burrows’s. “Has Beau seen this?” I ask, looking up at the date. Two weeks ago.

  “Yes, she’s seen it,” Danny says. “In fact, she met with Natalia Potter and made sure all of the details were accurate.”

  I raise my brows, reading the damning report into her mother. Closure. Okay, so apparently I haven’t known where Beau’s been twenty-four/seven.

  “I’ve managed to stall the second delivery from Chaka,” Danny says, pulling my attention up as he pulls a pack of Marlboros from his pocket and lights up. “The Mexicans aren’t happy with us.”

  I wince, knowing what that means. We might have lost a bear and a zoo, but there’s always another enemy to replace the last. “And Sandy wants guns.”

  “Thank fuck,” Brad says. “The bunker’s bursting at the seams.”

  I smile, relishing another sip of vodka as Danny’s phone rings and he looks down at it. “Let’s see how many he wants.” He answers and gives Bud instructions to bring Sandy to the office before hanging up and taking his seat at his desk, relaxing back. And the office falls silent until there’s a knock at the door.

  I brace myself for the murderous feelings about to descend as it swings open, but when he steps into the office, I feel . . . nothing.

  “Afternoon,” he says, giving everyone a moment of his eyes. “You are all here for me?”

  “We’re famous for our hospitality.” Danny smiles around his cigarette. “Why don’t you take a seat?” He motions to the chair opposite him. “Drink?”

  I smile around the rim of my glass, feeling everyone else’s amusement too. The Brit being all hospitable? It’s a novelty.

  Sandy takes a seat and nods to me. I nod back, a silent acceptance of his olive branch. “My business is out of state,” he says, getting to the point.

  “Are you saying you’re leaving Miami?” Danny follows Sandy’s lead.

  He smiles. “I don’t think this town is big enough for the two of us.” He looks at me. “Or three.”

  “Four,” Brad growls from the couch, making Goldie chuckle.

  “It’s not,” Danny confirms. “So you’ll be taking the guns you buy from us to . . . where?”

  “Many will be sent home. Some will remain with me in New York.”

  “New York?” Danny muses. “The Italians have New York.”

  “I’m favoring the Italians over The Brit.” His eyebrows rise. “Also, the Mexicans owe me. I can ensure they do not trouble you.” Interesting. “Are we talking or not?”

  Danny looks at me.

  I knock back my drink. New York is far enough away from me, which means Miami is ours and ours alone.

  Normality is looking more and more likely. I nod to Danny as the office door opens and Rose wanders in, looking up. She freezes. “Shit, I’m sorry,” she blurts, backing out. “It can wait.”

  “Everything okay, baby?” Danny asks, standing from his chair.