Page 70 of Man of Honor
The quiet menace in his voice turned my blood to ice. My eyes snapped open instinctively, and the dim, grayish light that greeted me sent a fresh spike of pain through my skull. I squinted, struggling to focus as blurred shapes gradually sharpened into clarity.
We were in a dark, empty room made of wooden planks. Dominic was standing a few feet away, leaning against the warped frame of a doorway. He was still dressed in the same black clothes, but he looked noticeably less tidy. His hair was mussed, and his designer boots were caked in grime and muck. An oil lantern hung from a rusted nail in the wall, casting long, demonic shadows across his face.
“You don’t look so good.” His tone was almost conversational, but that only made it more menacing.
“Dominic,” I rasped, forcing myself to meet his gaze despite my watering eyes. “What the hell’s going on?”
“Let’s call it an intervention.” His whiskey-colored eyes gleamed like a fox’s in the flickering light. “You like the ambiance? It may be melodramatic, but I considered it fitting. A man like you, meeting his end here, in the place where Gage began.”
Confused, I scanned the room more carefully. The single room cabin reeked of neglect, bowing in at the frame like the bayou was pushing to climb inside. The walls were made of rough-hewn planks that looked ready to shed inch-long splinters atthe slightest touch, and moist night air crept through gaps in the seams. A single, grime-caked window allowed just enough moonlight to cast ghostly shadows over a two-person dining table and a sagging, mouse-infested couch.
I knew Gage had been raised in abject poverty, so deep in the bayou it could only be reached by boat. I’d read about it in his file and listened to state psychologists during his adoption hearing, but I’d never seen it firsthand.
People talked about Eden being haunted, but we were all wrong. It was this place. No one had ever died here, as far as we knew, but the cabin felt utterly devoid of life. It wasn’t just rundown; it was grim and dark and hopeless. Antithetical to life.
I took a deep breath, but the clotted blood filling my nose and throat caught me short, triggering a fit of violent coughing. I must have broken my nose when I was coldcocked from behind.
“Sorry about that. Marcel should’ve caught you before you hit the floor.” Dominic didn’t sound sorry; he sounded viciously gratified. His lips curved into a pale, humorless smile. “It didn’t seem important at the time. After all, pretty soon that broken nose will be the least of your concerns.”
I barely remembered who Marcel was, only that he’d been set up as security at the house while Paulie was on the loose. He did a good job of staying hidden. I’d never even heard him coming.
“I tried, you know,” Dominic continued in the same conversational tone, like we were discussing a ball game. Like he wasn’t completely out of his goddamn mind. “For Gage’s sake, I gave you every chance. I stood back and watched you worm your way into his life like you belonged there. Like you were good for him.”
I cleared my throat and spat a glob of congealed blood onto the floor before I could speak. “I am good for him.”
Dominic’s smile didn’t waver, but his eyes hardened. All I saw was hate. “You’re the worst thing to ever happen to him. Gage has loved you since he was old enough to understand what love is. He grew up obsessing over how to make you proud, feeling unworthy because he knew he’d never meet your expectations. And you? You’ve been lying to him from the start.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” My pulse was hammering, my groggy mind racing to put the pieces together when I didn’t even understand the game.
Dominic pushed off the doorframe with infuriating ease and reached behind his back. My heart kicked against my ribs, and I instinctively strained against the zip ties binding my wrists. The plastic bit deep but refused to give. I was expecting a weapon, but instead, Dominic withdrew a file that had been rolled and tucked into his waistband.
He tossed the file into my lap. It landed across my thighs, flipping open and spilling papers onto the floor. I scanned the bold headers and familiar letterhead of a state lab report. I’d seen thousands of fingerprint analyses like it…but never with my name on it.
“What the fuck is this?” I demanded, glaring at him.
“The truth.” His eyes were burning as he stared down at me. “You’re the one who hid the gun for Vanderhoff that night. Then you cuffed Ben and threw him in jail without losing sleep. The only question is how much was it worth?”
“Someone must’ve planted my prints!” I snapped, jerking against the ties. “I got to the scene so late that night, I never even saw that gun, and you know it!”
Dominic’s eyes hardened. In one swift motion, he grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked my head back painfully. He hissed, inches from my face, “What I know is that Gage spent his entire life chasing after you. Believing in you. And all that time, you were stabbing him in the back.Nobodymesses with my family and gets away with it.”
“You’re crazy,” I protested, trembling with fury.
Dominic’s expression twisted with loathing and disgust. He’d never been what I’d call handsome, but now, he looked downright monstrous. “You want to talk about bullshit? Fine. Let’s talk facts. Your print is on the gun. Your name is on the arrest report. I’ve had a clerk in the DA’s office combing through the sheriff’s department’s access logs, and your name is all over them. Every piece of missing evidence, every falsified report…guess whose badge number has accessed each record?”
The blood was rushing in my ears so loudly I could barely hear. “That’s because I’ve been?—”
Swiftly, he backhanded me across the face. “Don’t,” he said angrily. “Don’t try to spin it. I’ve had people watching you for months. I know who your closest buddies are—the same corrupt worms who’ve been lining their pockets while this parish goes to hell.”
“They’re informants, you stupid sonofabitch!” I spat, blood pressure surging until my head felt like it was going to pop. It felt like he was about to tear my hair out by the roots, but I ignored the pain, leaning forward to hiss right in his face. “I’vebeen working with a state task force since last summer. Every file I accessed, every meeting I took, it was all reported to them.”
Dominic hesitated, searching my face, and then laughed outright. “You’ve got an answer for everything, don’t you? I bet you even have an explanation for those deposits in your bank account a few years ago, the ones you used to build that nice little house. But here’s the thing…if you’re such a fucking boy scout, why doesn’t Mason know a thing about it?”
I opened my mouth, but the protest lodged in my throat. Mason didn’t know for the same reason I’d never told Gage—because Langford had explicitly warned me to keep the operation airtight. Too many people had already died, more than even Dominic could imagine. But those excuses would fall on deaf ears. I had no proof, and Dominic did. It was staring up at me from that lab report.
He seized on my hesitation, and his nostrils flared, like a predator smelling blood. “The truth is, Deputy, even if you could produce some semblance of an argument, it still wouldn’t be enough. In all the years I’ve known him, I’ve only seen Gage cry twice. Once, five years ago…and when I passed him tonight. You’re the reason he’s still broken.”
He stepped back, and my stomach clenched when he pulled a set of brass knuckles from his pocket and slid them over his fingers. The edges were serrated, and the scrapes and gouges on the finish told me this wasn’t the first time they’d been used. His gaze never left mine as he tested the fit against his palm.