The Serpent's Curse by Lisa Maxwell (read an ebook week .TXT) 📕

way between the crates that had been stacked along each side of the truck’s bed and knocked a couple of times on the front wall. A second later, a window opened.

“Are we all set?” the driver, Floyd, asked.

“Let’s get going,” North told him, barely getting the words out before the truck was lurching into gear. “You okay up there, Rett?” North asked the passenger, who turned to look at him with familiar mismatched eyes. Floyd was one of the local guys who was helping out on the run, but Everett was his and Maggie’s oldest boy.

Maggie had about wanted to skin North alive for taking Everett on this particular job. She still saw the boy as the fat, freckled toddler he’d once been, never mind that Everett was taller than North these days. He supposed it was a mother’s prerogative to see the babe she’d once held in her arms, but a father understood when his boy was becoming a man. And he understood that men needed something more than their mother’s apron strings. Everett spent too much time sitting in corners reading until his eyes crossed or tinkering at Maggie’s side, and not enough time out in the world, as far as North was concerned.

Not that Maggie was wrong to have her worries. The jobs they did were always dangerous—always had been—and they usually did come with some complication or another. Right then, Chicago was riskier than usual, what with the Republican Convention in town. But of all the complications he could have worried about or prepared for, North hadn’t expected this one.

Esta was studying the two of them, and North could practically feel her thinking. “He’s yours,” she said softly.

“He is,” North said, beaming at his son with a pride he never bothered to repress. The boy shook his head in response, rolling his eyes a little like he was tired of the attention.

“Then Maggie…” Esta didn’t finish, and North suspected that he understood why. Every time he thought of that night in Denver, his throat got a little tight, and he felt the fear of losing his girl all over again. It didn’t matter that she was as hale and hearty now as she ever had been.

“Maggie came through okay,” he told Esta. “The doctor George took us to saved her life.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Esta told him, and North thought she might have even meant it. “I’ve been thinking about her these last few weeks… wondering.”

Weeks? It was almost impossible to comprehend, considering that it had been years upon years for North.

“Cordelia was such a good shot,” Esta said.

“Thankfully, the doctor was better. But you’re right. Cordelia was good—too good. Maggie uses a chair now to get around.” He couldn’t stop the smile that came when he thought of his wife. “Not that it’s slowed her down one bit.”

“Then you’ve been happy?” Esta asked with a hopeful note.

“As much as anyone can be, I suspect,” he told her. “I take it you never made it back?” He kept his words vague, but from the tightening of her lips, North knew Esta understood. He didn’t miss the way Harte tensed at the question either.

Esta shook her head a little. “No. Not yet.”

“But you will.”

She didn’t immediately respond.

“We have four kids,” North told her. “Everett here’s the oldest, then we got the twins, and little Ruthie is the youngest.” He met her eyes, daring her to look away. Daring her to face what it meant if she carried through with her plan and took those lives from him.

“This lady knows Mama?” Everett asked, unaware of the tension in the back of the truck.

“I met your mother back in St. Louis,” Esta confirmed. “Your father, too. We worked together for a while.”

“That was years ago,” North said. The last thing he needed was Everett getting some idea in his head that Esta was harmless. “Back before Denver.”

From the way Everett’s mouth went tight, North knew the boy understood his meaning.

“I’m glad to see that the two of you made a good life for yourselves,” Esta said.

“We do okay,” North said. “But that’s mostly to do with Maggie. Once she healed up, she was a woman on a mission. News traveled fast about what happened, and it didn’t take all that long for Maggie to wrestle control away from that Professor fellow. Especially since he was trapped behind the Brink.”

“Maggie leads the Antistasi now?” Esta asked, and there was a note of something North couldn’t decipher in her voice.

“No one person leads them anymore,” North corrected. “Maggie saw what happened with Ruth and with the Professor. Even if she could have stepped up, she didn’t think any one person should have that much power. Still doesn’t. The Antistasi have gone back to being what they always were supposed to be—a loosely organized group of like-minded individuals. We still take action when it’s warranted. Like tonight at the Green Mill.”

“Because Torrio is working with the Professor?” Esta asked.

North was suddenly glad for the darkness of the truck. They’d been trying to figure out what Torrio and the rest of the Chicago Outfit had wanted with Mageus in the city for some time, but now that the words were out of Esta’s mouth, the pieces came together. It was another of the Professor’s ploys to wrestle back control.

“Actually, we were there for the Nitewein,” he explained. “The Chicago Outfit tends to use more opium in theirs, which gets people hooked a lot faster. In the last few months, they’ve started using it to blackmail any Mageus who are unlucky enough to get caught up with them. We weren’t aware of Torrio’s connections,” he admitted. “But that makes a helluva lot of sense, especially considering what the Outfit has forced people to do with their affinities.”

“Good people,” Everett added. “And they end up taking the fall when things go sideways, like they always do.”

“What will you do with the Nitewein you’ve taken?” Harte asked.

“Probably we should destroy it,” North admitted. “But I’m