Chapter 2 The Disgraced
Golden Boy
Bishop
I know the SUV before it clears the gate.
Black. Tinted. Moving too slow for someone looking for parking and too deliberate for a lost tourist.
I step back from the window. Old habit. The kind that kept me breathing when breathing wasn't guaranteed.
Delilah is still dripping on my floor.
I keep one eye on the lot and hold out my hand. "Give me the veil."
She blinks. Looks down at the crumpled fabric still clutched in her fist like she forgot it was there. Passes it over without arguing which tells me she's smarter than she looks, or scared enough to skip the performance.
I drop it behind the counter, out of sight.
The SUV rolls past the entrance. Doesn't stop. Doesn't turn in. Just move slow and deliberate down the lake road like it's making sure I see it.
I do.
They're not here for tonight. This is a reminder. We know where you are. The club has been sending those for four months a drive-by, a blocked number, a black envelope in my mailbox with nothing inside. Nothing that would hold up in front of a cop. Everything that keeps me awake at 3 a.m.
"I bought the house eight months ago. Cash. Nothing in my name that traces back to the city. A beat-up two-bedroom on the water that needed more work than it was worth, which was exactly why I wanted it."
I watch until the taillights disappear around the bend.
Then I turn to face her.
Delilah is standing in the middle of the office in a soaked wedding dress, mascara faint under her eyes, jaw set like she's waiting to be told what to do and already planning to argue with it. The cut on her foot is cleaned and wrapped with first aid tape she held still for it without complaining, which surprised me.
She's been in Cole's life for years, which means she's crossed mine twice. Both times I made sure it didn't go further than a name and a nod. Enough to know her face. Enough to know her laugh. Enough to know I had no business knowing either.
Twice was apparently enough for her to decide I was safe. I'm not sure if that makes her brave or reckless.
She looks exactly like I remembered and nothing like I let myself think about.
I pull the spare chair out from the desk. "Sit."
Delilah sits.
I stay standing. Easier to think that way. Easier to keep the right kind of distance between what she looks like under these lights and what I'm supposed to be doing. "Talk."
"I already told you"
"You told me you ran." I cross my arms. "Tell me why."
Delilah looks at her hands. The ring catches the overhead light white gold, princess cut, the kind a man buys to prove something. She twists it once, twice.
Then pulls it off.
Sets it on the desk between us like its evidence.
The bare spot on her finger shouldn't make me feel anything.
It does.
I kill it fast.
This isn't new. That's the problem.
"His name is Graham Weller." Her voice is steadier than I expect. "His family knows my family. Our parents have been friends since before I can remember. He's a good man on paper." A pause. "On paper is the part that matters to everyone."
"But not to you."
"I've spent six years being someone's idea of what I should want." Delilah looks up. "Tonight, I was standing at the back of that chapel with my mother squeezing my hand and everyone smiling like I was supposed to feel lucky, and I just," She stops. Breathes. "I grabbed my veil and walked out the side door."
I know that feeling. Not the wedding, not the veil. But the slow suffocation of a life built around everyone else's plan. The way you can be surrounded by people who love you and still feel like you're disappearing.
I don't say that.
"Where's he now?" I ask instead.
"Probably still at the venue. Or calling everyone he knows." Delilah rubs her thumb over the bare spot where the ring was. "He'll be furious. Graham doesn't handle embarrassment well."
"He dangerous?"
She hesitates. That half-second says more than a yes would. "Not the way you mean. He's just very" Searching for the word. "Certain. That he's right. That I'll come back."
I pick up the ring and drop it in my desk drawer. Out of sight. "You're not going back tonight."
"You don't know that."
"You showed up here." I pull my stool over and sit, elbows on my knees, dropping to her eye level. "You ran three blocks through a holiday crowd barefoot. You're not going back tonight."
Something in her face shifts. Not relief exactly. More like she put something heavy down and doesn't know what her hands feel like without it.
"You can stay," I tell her. "Spare room. Just for tonight. Tomorrow, you figure out what you actually want to do."
"I live on the property. House is out back, past the dock."
Delilah studies me for a long moment. Sharp eyes under all that softness the kind that notice things and file them away.
I've been on the wrong end of that look before. Never minded it less than I do right now, which is a problem I'm not examining tonight.
"Okay." A single nod, like she's convincing herself. "Just tonight."
I grab a towel from the cabinet and toss it to her. Delilah catches it one-handed without looking clean, easy, automatic.
I turn away before I can think about that too long.
I'm moving toward the back hallway when my phone lights up on the desk.
We both see the name at the same time.
Cole.
My brother. The one I haven't spoken to in three weeks. The one who calls twice a week and gets voicemail every time. The one I keep meaning to call back when I figure out what to say.
Calling now. On the 4th of July.
Delilah goes very still.
Not a normal kind of still. The practiced kind the kind that comes from learning how to make yourself small when a room gets tense. I recognize it because I've done it myself.
The call rolls to voicemail.
Starts again immediately.
The screen pulses in the dim office. Cole. Cole. Cole.
I leave it on the desk.
Whatever my brother needs can wait sixty seconds. Because Delilah just lost every bit of color in her face at the sight of his name, and I've been around enough people with secrets to know when to leave a room quiet.
The screen goes dark.
It starts ringing again immediately.
And something in the way Delilah is watching it like she's bracing for impact makes me leave it alone.