I waved my hand in the air. “Sure, I guess. Can’t hurt, right? Knowing who I was actually engaged to for a spell?”
The second the words fell from my lips, they felt more like the truth than anything else in my life. I wasn’t engaged. Not any longer, at least. Even if I found my way home, even if the guys had mercy on me and took me back home, I’d never be able to go back to the way things were. I’d have to move out. Find my own place again. Block him from everywhere and pass the word around that Gordon and I were no longer together.
At least the guys hadn’t ever tried to be something they weren’t.
While my fiancée pulled the wool over my eyes for fucking years.
“Jesus,” I whispered, “that’s really him, isn’t it?”
As Dutch started scrolling through pictures of Gordon sitting in an alleyway, I watched as picture after picture brought two blacked-out SUVs into the picture. Out came a man whose face I had seen plastered all over the news multiple times throughout my childhood. Tommy Gun Griggs was one of the most feared men on the West Coast. A common-day bogeyman parents told their children about at night to scare them onto the straight and narrow.
And there he was, having a conversation with Gordon.
A man I almost married.
“I can’t look at it any longer,” I said as I turned my head away.
“Fair enough,” Dutch said. “So, does that mean you don’t--.”
“I don’t want any of it,” I said curtly. “Just… do what you need to do with it and leave me out of it.”
I heard him shuffling around before he tapped me on the shoulder.
“What?” I asked as I looked over at him.
He nodded down into his lap, and when I dropped my gaze I found my engagement ring sitting in the palm of his hand.
“Do you want this back?” he asked plainly.
I didn’t even hesitate when answering. “I don’t care what you do with it. Just get it away from me.”
He nodded as he tucked it back into his pocket.
“You know, when I was--.”
I closed my eyes. “I don’t mean to be the rudest bitch on the planet, but if this is your way of trying to tell me that you understand how I feel, then save it. I promise you, you don’t.”
He clicked his tongue. “When I was infoster caregrowing up…”
I groaned. “Jesus, sorry. I’m just--.”
He placed his hand on my shoulder. “You have no reason to be sorry. Okay?”
I peeked over at him. “Yeah, I guess I don’t.”
He reached his fingers up and tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear. “When I was growing up in foster care, I kept to myself a lot. Tried my best to stay out of trouble. My first set of foster parents, they practically beat the statistics into my head. How many of us end up on the street when we age out of the system. How few of us make it to college. How even fewer of us go on to become something. You know, make something of ourselves.”
I swallowed hard. “Did they practically beat it into you? Or literally beat it into you?”
His eye twitched. “The point is, I never knew what a family felt like until I found the crew. Until I pledged myself to doing what was best for these guys that had taken me in. And now, as their Enforcer, it’s my job to make sure everyone under our rooftop is safe.”
“Yeah?”
He slid his knuckles down my cheek, almost as if to stroke it. “Including you, Naomi.”
His words warmed me in a way I simply couldn’t explain. “Thank you, Dutch.”
He pulled his hand away as his back straightened. “So, I’m only going to ask you this question once. Are you listening?”
