I agreed. “Go on home.”
He hesitated. “I was trying to tell him, you know, the same things I told you.”
“Fuck,” Davy whispered.
“Go home, Anthony,” I said a little stronger. “While you can do it walking. This isn’t going to get solved in one night.”
He hitched one shoulder and gave me the angry gaze. Didn’t like me much. Yeah, well, I already had friends.
“Good night,” I said.
“Screw this.” He strode across the room and out the door without once looking back. When it was clear he had taken the elevator down, I opened the file on my desk for real.
“You staying here much longer?” I asked Davy.
He finally shifted away from the wall and walked over to me. I kept my eyes on the paper but out of my peripheral vision paid attention to how he moved. He wasn’t limping anymore, which was good, but still looked a little stiff, as if something inside hurt every time he took too deep of a breath.
He sat in the chair on the other side of my desk, leather, comfortable—hey, I had some money. “I was just headed out when Bell showed up. You could have warned me.”
“Sorry. I didn’t know he was coming up here. He was down at Get Mugged. Wanted to apologize. Wanted to join.”
“And you’re gonna let him?”
“He screwed up, Davy. We all know that. I can’t forgive him for what he did to Pike. But I won’t throw him under a train. If he can pull his life together, I’m not going to get in his way.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I do. I understand what Pike would have done for him.”
Davy scowled, his eyes narrowing, his teeth showing.
“Pike saw something in Anthony,” I said. “He stuck with him even when the kid was being an ass.”
“And it got him killed.” Davy stood. “I’m not that stupid. I didn’t think you were either.”
“Lon Trager killed Pike,” I said. “Not Anthony. You know that.”
“I know Pike wouldn’t have gone down to Trager alone if Anthony hadn’t used his blood to frame Pike.”
“Pike went there alone because he was a stubborn old man. I told him the police would go with him, with us. He wouldn’t listen. Sometimes Hounds make stupid, stupid choices, Davy. Just like Pike did, just like Anthony did, and just like Tomi did. She almost killed you. And if she came walking in here, telling me she was clean and had pulled her life together, I’d give her the chance to prove it to me too.”
Davy’s face flushed red. The thin scar that still hadn’t healed over his left eyebrow and down his temple turned white.
“Leave Tomi out of this.”
“Listen—” I stopped. Took the volume out of my voice. “What I’m saying is, Hounds make bad decisions. It comes with the territory. I think you have to be willing to do stupid things if you’re going to Hound. We’re hardwired that way. Pike understood that. I think if he were still alive, he’d probably give Anthony the ass-kicking of his life, and then take him in, and teach him so he never made that kind of mistake again. It’s up to Anthony to pull his life together. There’s a good chance he’ll find something better than Hounding, safer than Hounding, before I let him in the pack.”
“You think that’s how Pike would want you to run this place?”
“I think that’s how I’m going to run it. When someone wants to take over, they can run it their way. Until then, I make the rules. If you don’t want to follow those rules, no one’s saying you have to stay.”
I leaned back. “I hope you won’t leave. Not over Anthony. He’s not worth it.”
Davy gritted his teeth again and looked out the window. Not much to see out there, just the roofline of Get Mugged and a few lights shining through the rain.
I waited. Gave him some space to think, some time to breathe.
Zayvion, who had been silent this whole time, stayed where he was, sitting in one of the couches behind Davy, in my line of vision, watching Davy, me, and the door, without looking like he was doing any of those things.
The rain pounded harder, wind kicking it across the window. It felt suddenly much colder in here, as if night had crept unnoticed through the seams of the walls and sunk down into all the shadows of the room.
“Things aren’t . . . aren’t what I want,” Davy said quietly.
“Hounding?”
“Everything.”
“You want some time off?”
He shook his head. “More