Page 20 of Man of Honor
“No,” I agreed, sensing there was more behind it.“He’s not.”
She couldn’t seem to meet my eyes, so she looked down and fiddled with the hem of her shirt instead.“He talked to me this morning.I told him…stuff. He promised he wouldn’t tell.”
“He’ll keep it,” I assured her.Gideon was locked tighter than a vault, and it had nothing to do with the seal of confession.Even if it was something muttered to him in passing, he’d take it to the grave unless given explicit permission to share.
“You already know, don’t you?” she asked, sounding angry but keeping her eyes downcast.“What was going on that night?I saw it on your face, right before you threw that first punch.”
I considered my options before answering, and when I finally spoke, I forced an easiness into my tone that I definitely didn’t feel.“Figured it was bad. You don’t have to tell me any more than that if you don’t want.”
She swallowed so hard I could hear it.“It could’ve been worse. A lot worse.If you…if you hadn’t been there.You saved me.”
“Anyone would’ve done the same,” I said uncomfortably.
She gave me a flat look. “You know that’s not true.”
I had to admit the point, but I didn’t want to, so I just gave her a twitch of my eyebrows and looked away.She began ripping thesedge up in rooty clumps and said abruptly, “I left my last foster home.I’m not talking about why.”
I nodded. “You don’t owe me anything.”
“I know.” She glared at me for even suggesting it.“I’m just saying, in case you were wondering.I…I ended up couch surfing with some people I knew.Not friends, exactly, but they let me stay for a while.They were into some things, but I wasn’t, so I crashed at the Dead End after that.”
“You slept at the bar?” I asked, startled.The Dead End had been a fixture in Devil’s Garden since before I was born, back when Pops still ran it, but even then, he’d drawn the line at serving as a flop house.No way the cops let that slide, no matter how crooked Dom claimed they were.
“Silas has a room in the back for people to sleep so they don’t drink and drive.It's like his one rule. He let me stay there for a while.I was gonna look for a job or maybe a bus ticket out of Devil’s Garden, but then I met this guy.He was older, but not creepy old, you know?Kind of sweet, actually. He said he’d help me out.” Her mouth twisted into a thin, bitter little smile that I hated to see.“I guess that’s what he was doing when you found us.Helpingme.”
I’d worked in enough shady Vegas clubs to know exactly what he'd wanted.Girls like Ivy with no one in their corner were the perfect victims.
“What’s the guy’s name?” I asked through my teeth.
She hesitated. “Paulie. Paulie Tibbs.”
“You want me to take care of him?”
She knew exactly what I was offering, and she wanted it.I could see it in her face. Slowly, her gaze lifted to meet mine for the first time.There was fire in her eyes, a smoldering anger that I recognized.
“You’d really do that for me?” she asked in a voice filled with disbelief.Like she couldn’t believe anyone would willingly put themselves in her corner.
“Damn straight,” I said fiercely.“You belong to Eden House now.We take care of our own.”
She let out a shaky breath and nodded, digging her fingers into the grass and dirt.“He thinks he can get away with it because he's buddies with some cops.That’s what he said. That I’m just another stray nobody will miss.”
Cold fury trickled through me, and I clenched my jaw so tight it hurt.I’d been told the same thing when I was little.My old man raised me so deep in the bayou that it made Etienne Thibodeaux look social, so deep that I doubted anyone had known I existed.That’s what he’d always said, anyway:nobody would even know if I killed you right here.
“Well, sweetheart,” I drawled, pitching my voice low to keep the violence out of it, “he’s about to learn that he picked the wrong damn stray.”
A tiny, defiant smile turned up the corners of her mouth.The first smile I’d seen from her.“Good,” she said viciously. “Maybe he’ll know what it’s like to feel scared for once.”
“Count on it.”
She gave a single, resolute nod, and I thought I saw her shoulders unknot just a little.Like a weight had lifted off herback.Maybe not completely, but it was a start.Her face softened, and then she took a deep breath and scanned the sprawling estate, as if taking her first good look at the scenery.“This place…it’s so big. It’s got a whole-ass cemetery.Like, who even lives in a house like this?”
I chuckled and rolled my shoulders in an easy stretch, testing the fading ache in my ribs.“We did. My brothers and me. Kids like JJ, too.You’ll get used to it.”
“Doubt that.” Her lips twitched, and she settled more comfortably beside me, kicking at a loose pebble with the toe of her ragged tennis shoe.“I don’t know how long I can stay in a place like this.Feels too good to be real.”
“Yeah, that’s what I said too.” I tipped my head toward the main house, barely visible through the stand of live oaks.“Then I found out there’s a pool around back.”
“A pool?” Her tone instantly brightened.Such a kid.