“You made me a promise, Eve,” he reminded her. “I thought you understood the stakes.”
“Are you going to disown me, Dawg?” she asked curiously. “You once said we’d get along fine as long as I didn’t betray family, country, or myself. I haven’t betrayed any of the three. But you skirted the line when you manipulated a promise from me that you knew I’d never be able to keep.”
Rowdy and Natches both turned a look of disgust on their cousin.
“Man, you know Christa’s gonna find out,” Natches warned him.
“Not if you keep your fat mouth shut,” he growled.
Natches frowned and turned to Eve. “Is my mouth fat?” He was suddenly fingering his lips as though worried before turning on Dawg. “I’m going to give you a fat lip in a minute.”
Dawg snorted. “Yeah, and go home all bruised to Chaya? I don’t think so.”
Natches grinned. “I won’t get in near as much trouble as you will.”
Eve shook her head. “You three just work that out on your own.” She turned her attention to Natches. “Give me your keys.”
“That’s the last time I play cards with you,” he threatened her, clearly annoyed that the promise he owed her from the poker game months before had resulted in losing his ride for the day.
“You said anytime, anywhere,” she reminded him with a shrug as he tossed her the keys.
“Eve.” Brogan moved in front of her. “We need to discuss this.”
She shook her head, steely determination and offended pride clawing at her emotions. “No, Brogan, we don’t,” she told him softly, distancing herself from the frustration and the edge of desperation she felt emanating from him. “Not now. Not until you decide that controlling me may not be as important as you seem to think it is.” She turned to Dawg then. “You knew he wasn’t a traitor. Hell, your instincts are better than mine. You all but lied to me, Dawg. And I would have sworn that was something you would have never done to me. You knew all along he was an agent, didn’t you?”
Facing him, seeing the brooding guilt in his gaze, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had been aware of what he was doing when he did it.
Her eyes filled with tears.
She couldn’t stop them. She couldn’t stop the sudden, brutal sense of betrayal as it exploded inside her any more than she could have stopped the sun from rising that morning.
“Why did you do it??
?? Her voice cracked with the tears suddenly filling her eyes. “I wouldn’t have done that to you, Dawg. I wouldn’t have lied to you about Christa to keep you away from her.”
“Ah, hell.” It was Natches who emitted the low exclamation as he and Rowdy both turned on Dawg.
“He’s going to hurt you,” Dawg stated, so certain of it, so determined he was right that pure arrogant stubbornness filled his face.
“So what if he does.” A tear slipped free as she suddenly realized just how much she and her sisters, even her mother, had allowed Dawg to shelter them. “Can’t I live, Dawg? Do I have to have your permission?”
He frowned at the question. “No . . .”
“Evidently I do,” she cried. “You made me swear I wouldn’t take him as a lover by telling me he was the only man you couldn’t abide my being with. That you believed he was a traitor.” Her breathing hitched as astonishment filled the cousins’ expressions as they turned to Dawg.
“There’s no proof that says he’s not a traitor,” Dawg accused Brogan, his fingers clenching at his sides as his expression turned wrathful and centered on the other man.
Eve shook her head as a sob escaped her. “Momma once told me that even good men had the power to be bad,” she whispered. “And I didn’t believe that of you, Dawg. I really didn’t. I believed there was nothing bad or deceitful in you. That all I had to do was find a man like you and I’d always be safe and loved.”
He reached up and rubbed the back of his neck in agitation.
“Come on, Eve,” he cajoled gently. “I’m not perfect, honey.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Natches bit out.
“Shut the fuck up, Natches,” Dawg snarled, silencing them all in surprise as he said the hated F-word before turning back to Eve. “Look, I never meant I would disown you or anything else if you broke a promise. I just meant that you know he’s going to hurt you. You know it, if he hasn’t already.” He shot Brogan a look of promised retribution. “That’s all I meant.”
“And you left me feeling like I had betrayed you. Like I was no more than a criminal myself, Dawg, because you couldn’t let me follow my own instincts. You couldn’t let me follow my heart.”