The Reckless Oath We Made - Bryn Greenwood Page 0,92
to someone who’d told me this man with no name was a Fury with a secret grudge against his Titan, who was married to the no-name man’s sister.
“Whatever help you can give it’d go a long way toward easing my mind,” I said. After I hung up from the Fury, I laid down to rest, but Dane come stomping through the house and pounding on my door.
“What the fuck are you up to?” he said, and walked into my room without an invitation. I knew he’d been cooking that crap and likely smoking it, as he had the stink of it on him. “Dirk said when he took you into town you bought a burner phone, and all afternoon you been shut up in here making phone calls. Who are you calling?”
“What the hell business is it of yours?”
“It’s my business same as always, if you’re bringing trouble around here. Jimmy T. was real pissed last night, finding out we had company. He don’t like that our guest is somebody the cops might be interested in talking to.”
“Why the hell’d you go and tell Jimmy T. that? It ain’t like he’s watching the news.”
“I agree with him,” Dane said. “The cops could come around anytime, wanting to talk to her. That’s what Jimmy T. don’t like about it.”
Ever since he’d gone into business with that man, it was Jimmy T. wants this and Jimmy T. don’t like this. Worse than listening to a man bellyache about his wife. Made me ashamed I’d raised a son who was so far up some meth head’s ass.
“Seeing as how it’s my home, I reckon I’ll bring trouble here if I like,” I said.
“What I don’t get”—Dane gone to running his hands through his hair like it was on fire—“is why you’re putting your ass on the line for her. You’re acting like you owe her something.”
“I don’t know exactly where I went wrong, son, but apparently I failed to teach you one real important lesson.”
“Oh, goddamn. You and your lessons.” He turned around like he meant to walk out, but he didn’t.
“Family comes first,” I said. “If our family is a problem for your business partner, you need to get you a new business partner. Because I ain’t gonna take Jimmy T.’s feelings into account ahead of my family.”
“That sounds real high and mighty, but what good does it do us to put her first? What’s she ever done for us?”
“Son, that girl—those two girls—sacrificed their daddy for us, that’s what. They grown up with no daddy at all, because Leroy took the blame for all of that.”
“You gonna act like I didn’t grow up without a daddy? You was gone for six fucking years.”
“Yep, I served six years, but you know what I didn’t serve? I didn’t serve no goddamn life sentence, which your uncle Leroy did. Maybe you think I shoulda been here wiping your ass them six years, but I did come back. And I done my best for you and your brother. Them girls never did get their daddy back. That girl never got to see her daddy again except on the other side of a prison visitation room. So that’s what she done for us.”
“That was on him. He was the one who planned that,” Dane said, so flippant-like, I wanted to smack him. But then who’d let him believe those lies, if it wasn’t me?
“You don’t know the first thing about what happened, but mayhap it’s time I set you straight.”
The thought of telling those old secrets put a twist in my guts, but I reckoned the truth was part of what I needed to confront before I died. Maybe I’d die a mite easier, if the weight of them secrets wasn’t pressing down on me no more. I’d carried them for so long, it was like I couldn’t hardly stand up straight.
CHAPTER 36
Zee
Avoiding Dane seemed like the best idea, so I spent the rest of the morning lying in bed next to Gentry, reading while he slept.
Yvain was some trippy shit, but I could see why Gentry liked Yvain. He was a good guy. Not a show-off like Sir Gawain or a conceited jerk like Sir Kay. I wasn’t all that sympathetic when Yvain killed Sir Esclados and then hung around the castle like a stalker and made googly eyes at Laudine, Esclados’ widow. Apparently, though, that was how chivalry worked. You could kill a guy and that was okay, as long as it was a