Brooke
“You called Miles?” He sets his glass down, his face unreadable.
“Yeah.” I nod, feeling the weight of what I’m about to say pressing against my chest. “I left him a voicemail a long time ago and honestly didn’t expect to hear back, but he called me when I was walking home from the bodega one night.” I let out a breath. “He told me you weren’t part of it at all and that you never knew. He basically said you were a good guy who got caught in the crossfire, and he was the one who let everyone assume you were involved because it took the heat off him.”
Dominic twists his glass on the table, watching the liquid catch the light. He’s quiet for long enough that I start to wonder if he’s going to respond at all. The rain keeps drumming against the windows, and somewhere behind us one of the old guys at the bar lets out a groan at something happening in the soccer match.
“Yeah,” Dominic finally says, and his voice is quieter than before but not angry. Not cold, just resigned in a way that suggests he made peace with this a long time ago. “I mean, Mileshad a horrible home life. So when everything blew up, I kinda figured he just wanted to take the pressure off, and he was so young. I couldn’t bring myself to throw him under the bus when I knew what he was already dealing with.”
“So you just... let everyone think you were guilty?” I stare at him. “You let your entire career burn to protect someone who was lying about you?”
He shrugs. “What was I supposed to do? Go public and destroy what was left of his life? He was already spiraling.”
“So were you, though,” I say. “Young, I mean. You were what, six years older than him? That’s not exactly ancient wisdom territory. You weren’t some grizzled veteran who’d seen it all.”
“No, but I was the oldest of five brothers. All of us adopted, all of us with our own shit to work through.” He pauses, staring into his drink. “I spent the most time with my dad at the gym, and I saw sides of him the others didn’t. The pressure he was under, the way he worried about all of us, the stuff he carried that he never talked about.”
“You were close to him,” I say quietly.
He nods, taking a sip of mezcal. “I think I absorbed some of that without realizing it. This idea that it was my job to protect people, especially people who couldn’t protect themselves. And I just couldn’t bring myself to go after Miles publicly when I knew how much he was already struggling. Even if it would have cleared my name.”
I nod, turning my own glass in my hands. The bar feels smaller now, more intimate, the noise of the TV and the storm fading into background static. It’s just us and this conversation and years of history finally getting untangled.
“I’m so sorry for what I did,” I say, looking up at him and forcing myself to hold his gaze even though part of me wants to look away. “Because you were right. If I’d done a better job investigating, if I’d actually been the journalist I thought I was,I would have caught it. All of it. I really thought I was being unbiased, but I was just seeing what I wanted to see. I had the story I wanted to write before I even started writing it.”
He meets my eyes, and I brace myself for the anger I probably deserve. The coldness. The ‘too little too late’ that would be completely justified.
Instead, he just looks at me. Really looks, like he’s seeing something he hasn’t seen before.
“What even made you decide to call Miles after all these years?” he asks.
I take a deep breath. “Well, back when I was in Dark River, I went to Aberdeen and tracked down Eddie Kovacs. He admitted he lied because he was pissed at you. It was all just a personal vendetta.”
Dominic blinks. “Wow. You really went down memory lane. Aberdeen. That’s commitment.”
“No kidding,” I say. “Eddie was a charmer, as always. Really rolled out the welcome mat.”
“Let me guess.” He leans back in his chair, crossing his arms with something that’s almost a smile. “He made you work for it.”
“He had me get in the ring with one of his fighters and said he’d answer one question for every punch I threw. Every punch I actually landed, he’d tell me something I didn’t already know.” I laugh, shaking my head at the memory of how ridiculous the whole thing was. “Mind you, I was in work heels and a pencil skirt. Very professional attire for boxing.”
He actually laughs at that. “Yeah, that sounds like some shit he would pull. That guy was always an asshole.”
“You know, I think you tried to tell me that once.” I smile and he laughs.
We sit with that for a moment, the acknowledgment of all those years of refusing to hear each other. I pick at the edge of my napkin, not quite sure what to do with my hands nowthat the confession part is over and we’re in whatever this new territory is.
“I guess neither of us trusted each other enough to believe the other was actually telling the truth,” he says, his voice quieter now. “Even when we were.”
I shake my head. “I’m so sorry, Dominic. Really. I don’t even know how to... I ruined your career. I took everything you’d built and burned it to the ground, and I know that no matter what I do, no matter how many apologies I make, you can’t get that time back. It’s gone forever because of what I did.”
He sits quietly for a moment, and I feel like I can barely breathe. Because suddenly there is no opinion that matters more to me than Dominic Midnight’s, and I want so desperately to be forgiven that my chest aches with it.
He looks up at me. “It’s not your fault. Not really.”
I blink. “What? I mean, I’m pretty sure it is. I literally just described in detail exactly how it’s my fault.”
“No.” He sighs, rubbing his hand across his jaw. “I mean, you had a hand in it, I’ll give you that. You definitely lit the match. But it’s always been easier for me to blame you for all of it than to own up to my own shit.”
