Kane ground his teeth when he read Quinn’s message. “Son of a bitch, I told her to go home. Damn it to hell. He must be going insane over there. I’ve got to go find Sanchez.”
“What’s up?” Riley leaned over and read Quinn’s message. “‘Get to the house ASAP. Mom’s stolen Miki and the dog. Not letting him go until shit going down is done with. Think he’s freaking out.’ Well, big brother, looks like a murderer’s the least of your worries now.”
Chapter 16
I walked onto the Delta, hoping to make myself a man,
Cocky as shit, with my guitar in my hand.
Walked past the Crossroads, paid the Devil no mind.
He didn’t reach for me, saying I was already his kind.
—Delta Spawn Blues
ALL in all, it wasn’t a bad plan, Miki thought as he looked around the room and calculated what he could move around to block the door to prevent the hordes from descending on him. The studio bungalow attached to the back of the Morgans’ two-car garage could be defended fairly easily. He could wedge something into the rails of the sliding glass door leading to the enclosed backyard, and the door connecting the studio to the main house was his only problem. He imagined the Morgans would have a key, so locking the door was out of the question. The armoire possessed great potential. It was heavy and solid wood, a pretty, swirled grain Miki would have admired if he wasn’t plotting to use it to prevent the next Morgan siege. Moving it would be a bitch, but he was willing to give it a try.
As soon as Dude was finished romping around in the backyard, where he was occasionally woofing his fool head off.
He wasn’t even certain what exactly had happened. One moment he was putting away leftovers, and the next thing he knew, Brigid Morgan descended from whatever mountain mad Irishwomen came from and bullied him into a car, plopping Dude on his lap before screeching off into the night. Another Morgan followed her in, his soulful green gaze an odd change from Kane’s brilliant blue eyes. He carried a duffel bag large enough to smuggle a child in, and Brigid shoved most of Miki’s clean clothes into it, zipping it up like a woman possessed.
The cops outside were no help. They greeted her by name and waved good-bye, starting up their patrol car despite Miki’s protests. The smaller Kane clone with the wrong-colored eyes held the door open for him, giving Miki the illusion that he had a say in the matter, but they both glanced at Brigid climbing into the passenger’s seat of the baby monster truck and exchanged a sigh. There was no choice, and Miki got in, grabbing Dude when he gleefully jumped into the backseat.
When they pulled up to the Morgan house, Miki balked at the driveway. The large, rambling Edwardian-style home facing the park was daunting, spreading out from a corner lot with a cheery yellow paint job and window boxes filled with flowers so bright they shone crimson under the soft glow of the street lights lining the walkways. Over the short drive, he’d been introduced to the Kane knock-off, Quinn, who grinned apologetically at Miki when their eyes met in the rearview mirror.
A whirl of people swarmed from the house, and he yelped, actually making a squeaking noise before slamming back into Quinn’s immovable body. Kane’s younger brother merely put his hands on Miki’s upper arms and held him steady as he was shuffled up the drive and into the house, surrounded by a nest of flaming red hair, freckled skin, and the resigned sighs from the men when they saw Miki’s stunned face.
He couldn’t keep track of names. There were too many of them with nicknames Miki had to remember as well. Quinn introduced him to Kiera, a stunning redhead with a serious demeanor, then called her Kiki when he went in to get some iced tea. Braeden, a brawny Morgan who looked a lot like Quinn, waded in and pulled Miki from the fray, separating him from the youngest, a college freshman named Ryan who was enough like her mother that Miki wondered if Brigid hadn’t just cut off a piece of her flesh to grow her in a Petri dish.
More food was shoved at him and enough iced tea to float his kidneys down to his bladder. Dude discovered Brigid’s three cats and fawned over them, much to one of the older felines’ disgust. A warning shot across the dog’s nose left a wide scratch and a spurt of blood on the kitchen floor, but Brigid took it in stride, edging the cat out with her foot while swiping at Dude’s nose with a wet paper towel.
Miki was horrified, but Brae shrugged it off with a grin and said, “That’s probably the smallest amount of blood that’s ever been shed in this house. Don’t worry about it.”