Dead Man Walking (The Fallen Men 6)

Bea’s mouth pressed into a thin line, but in her eyes shone a glimmer akin to contentment, and I knew she got me. It was the only reason she agreed to stay at her sister’s.

We both knew I’d be watching.

But only I knew this wouldn’t be the first night I’d stalk Bea Lafayette in the dark.

Bea

I couldn’t sleep.

No surprise there.

I didn’t have Sampson curled up on the pillow beside me because the Garro twins were allergic to cats, and I didn’t have the resonant coo of Delilah echoing softly through my house.

Of course, that didn’t have so much to do with my insomnia as the fact that a serial killer might or might not have chosen to fixate on me.

I stared out the open window passed the fluttering linen drapes of the Garro’s second-story bedroom into the velvet night littered with stars. Another reason I chose Entrance over Vancouver every time. There was next to zero light pollution in our little town nestled at the base of the mountains at the last ocean bay before land took over in sweeping, snow-capped crests. I could see the Andromeda constellation in the clear autumn sky and thought about her story, its parallels to mine. Sacrificed to a sea monster, she hung suspended, a classic damsel in distress waiting for a hero to save her.

My teeth ground together painfully, but the hurt settled me. I didn’t want to be useless, waiting for someone to attack me or someone to save me.

It was the 21st century, I wanted to be a woman in charge of my own fate.

I tossed off the sheets and padded over to the window, shivering in the knife-sharp wind whistling through the cracked open pane.

I knew who I would see when I looked down onto the ocean-glazed rocks of the beach.

A man people thought was a monster who I knew in my bones was really the man ready to save me from any kind of harm.

It was hard to make out his form in the dark, but the moon was a round mirror in the sky refracting silver light onto the glimmering water and Priest’s long, lean form. He was moving, practicing some series of fighting sequences or throwing knives, I couldn’t tell.

But I knew I wanted to be down there on the ground learning to defend myself, not up in the room like some princess in a tower.

So, silently as possible because Zeus slept with one eye open, I descended down the stairs, grabbed one of Lou’s big, white puffer jackets from the hook by the door and a pair of her too-large UGG boots.

“Took ya longer than I thought it would.”

I startled, a little squeak falling from my lips as I stumbled over the boot I was trying to slip on. Looking up through my hair as I steadied myself, I saw Zeus sprawled in one of his leather living room chairs. The moonlight barely reached him, but I could make out the craggy set of his features, the low gleam of muted silver in his gaze.

I sighed heavily. “I feel badly for Monster and Angel. They’re not going to get away with anything in this house.”

Zeus’s smile was bright from the shadows. “Not much I don’t know ’bout in this house and in my club. When you give a shit ’bout somethin’ you pay attention to it. I give a shit ’bout you, Bea. You’re the only bright spot my girl’s got in her family, though Phillipa is learnin’, I’ll give ’er that.”

My lips twisted, sharp and malformed like a broken hanger in my mouth. “Yeah, well, Lou deserves the best.”

Zeus shifted his large frame forward in the chair, hands dangling between his spread thighs. “Fuck yeah, she does. But don’t mistake me, little Bea, the love I got in my heart for you isn’t just ’cause you’re my wife’s sister. It’s got fuckuva lot more to do with you as a woman, you hear me? Don’t think I know a girl so sweet as you.”

Something flipped over in my gut. I felt both sick and heart warmed, embarrassed that I needed independent validation and awed that I somehow elicited respect like that from a man who was larger than life.

“Which is why you’re guarding the door? Is it to keep bad guys out or me in?” I dared, fisting my hands on my hips.

A low, smoky chuckle. “Look just like Lou doin’ that. Nah, I’m not gonna pass judgment on ya. I fell in love with Lou when she was younger than you are now. Okayed my eighteen-year-old son datin’ his teacher. I’m a lotta things, but a fuckin’ hypocrite isn’t one of them.” He paused, then leveraged himself out of the chair way too gracefully for such a big man and came to me. My neck cranked back at an awkward angle to maintain eye contact and he stooped lower to chuff me lightly on the chin with his tattooed knuckles. “I gotta theory about you good girls ’cause I got experience with one’a my own. A good woman sees the good in all kinds. She’ll search the depths of a body until she finds some glimmer of light no matter how dark and broken a soul may be. It’s just in her nature.” He looked down at the thick wedding band on his finger and a smile of remembrance ghosted across his face. “Just as it’s in the nature of a broken man to race toward her light. You ask me, there’s a special kinda yin and yang in that. Two hearts find’a love like that it’s fuckin’ bindin’.”