Chapter 52
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Rue
I’ve never seen a man’s malicious glee curdle in real time more thoroughly than I do as the leer on Timms’s face freezes into a Joker grin that quickly slides into outrage.
“The fuck do you mean by that?” He storms up to Hugo and grabs him by the collar, his hand scrabbling over the zipper-pull mic and threatening to deafen those of us with receivers deep in our ears.
“Jesus,” Fi mutters over the amplified scrape and rustle of Hugo being manhandled.
“These females, they’ve got you!” Hugo’s Joe voice drips with frustration as Timms pulls him away from me. I miss the press of his body immediately. “They’ve got you by the throat, dude!”
“We can stop this. We can do… something,” Timms insists, his voice rising. He’s lost even more weight since the last time I saw him, his cheekbones sharp under his red-rimmed eyes.
“What’s there to do?” Hugo asks. “This ends with you disgraced, no matter what.”
Timms releases Hugo abruptly, but my man is strong and doesn’t budge.
“How do you figure?” Timms glowers and crosses his arms. He’s covered in the kinds of tattoos I’ve seen on too many guys like him: a Punisher logo on his calf, a Crusader cross on his triceps, a Spartan helmet on his thigh, all interspersed with a mess of Roman numerals and Latin letters I never want translated.
“You know they’ve got the courts on their side and too many of our brothers on the police force.
” Hugo’s arms hang limply at his sides, the very picture of manhood under assault.
“They’ve got a whole network of people out to keep us down.
Us men who only want what’s best for our families and our communities.
We’re up against it. You’ve always known that. ”
“No.” Timms shakes his head. “If I kill this one tonight”—he grabs me by the arm, hauling me to my feet and forcing too much weight on my bad ankle—“then she can’t…”
His voice trails off because we’ve worked hard to convince him I can.
“If she’s telling the truth,” Hugo says somberly, “her version of events goes out whether she lives or dies.”
They both look at me as I project bravery through my fear.
“You know what I do for work, Officer Timms. My evidence is convincing.” I pull my lips into a smug smile.
“The whole world’s going to see that you didn’t outsmart anyone.
You had an itty-bitty temper tantrum, and you accidentally killed somebody, and then you did a shitty cover-up job.
Bye-bye, reputation as some big tough man. ”
Timms thrusts me at Hugo, snarling, “Shut this bitch up.”
“Be good,” Hugo says, a dark warning in his voice and a possessive hand at my throat.
I… don’t hate it. But that’s something to explore later.
The important thing is that Timms has assigned me to Hugo, which couldn’t fit more seamlessly into our plan.
My role is to stay quiet unless Timms needs a little more goading.
The rest of the job now belongs to Hugo.
“Maybe nobody will believe her,” Hugo says.
“An unreliable female running her mouth. But…” He lifts his free arm helplessly.
“You’ve seen what those guys on the forum are saying.
They’re questioning you, brother, and it’s getting louder every day.
I hate to see it. But with her telling stories, and then that lawyer talking about you… ”
“Fucking hell!” Timms screams, pivoting sharply and driving his fist into the wall. “Fuck!” he screams again, shaking out his hand.
I peek around Hugo and see an indent in the drywall, but no hole. Oh, did the poor baby hit a stud? It’s really not his night.
“What do I do, man?” Timms turns to Hugo, almost pleading. “Haven’t I lived the virtues? Wisdom. Courage. Temperance. Justice.”
Justice. I’d laugh if this delusional man hadn’t already killed someone.
“Of course you have.” Hugo shifts his hold to my wrist so he can move closer to Timms, towing me behind him.
“I just don’t want to see it end like this for you.
Disgraced. Being laughed at by people you used to call brother.
They’re going to remember you as the guy who got bitch-slapped by his wife and then by the courts. ”
Timms is breathing hard, his chest heaving.
“We can’t stop this from happening,” Hugo says mournfully. “Unless you want to run right now?”
The older man looks at him in disgust. “Of course I don’t.”
“I knew you wouldn’t,” Hugo says in his fawning Joe persona. His gaze moves to the framed art hung next to Timms’s whiteboard with his daily schedule, which hasn’t been updated since we were here on Halloween. Guess Lester’s had other things on his mind.
“If they would just hear me out,” Timms mutters. “Nobody in this clown world is willing to listen to a good man.”
“Too fucking right.” Hugo tilts his head toward The Death of Socrates. “This guy? He knew how it was done. Hounded by a mob. Sentenced to death. And what did he do? He turned it into the most famous argument in history, like a fucking legend. He went out on top.”
That’s it. The mousetrap with the fat wedge of cheese glistening in its jaws.
Now Hugo and I wait.
“Like Socrates,” Timms says slowly. He studies the framed print, unaware he’s looking at a replacement for the one we ruined when we killed his stepbrother. Pell does good work.
“You know, Socrates had a bitch for a wife too,” Timms says distantly.
Hugo snorts. “He didn’t face a fraction of the challenges you did. Mrs. Socrates ain’t got shit on Mrs. Timms.”
I blink at hearing Hugo say “ain’t.” This whole fucked-up night, and that’s what gets me.
Timms goes quiet for a beat, then sags against the wall next to the indent from his fist.
“My buddy’s a bailiff at the courthouse.
He said it’ll be any day now. They’re coming for me.
” His shoulders drop. “I defended my home and hearth—my queen—from some hustle-bro Chad who thought he could sleep in my bed and fuck my wife. And I’m the one who’s going to lose everything? My life, my legacy?”
His self-pitying whine carries fear along with it, and Hugo lets it hang in the air for a moment.
“Maybe you don’t have to.”
“How?” Timms lifts his head, fixing his desperate eyes on his last remaining friend.
“You can do the apology,” Hugo says. “Do it like Socrates, before they take your freedom. That’s how you get them to listen. That’s how you protect your legacy.”
Timms looks blank, as we feared he might. But Hugo’s prepared to talk him through it.
“They called it an apology, but you and I both know it was a righteous defense,” he says. “It was fire. Socrates laid the truth bare, man, and everybody fucking listened.”
I scoff, playing my part. “Yeah, like apologizing’s going to save him.”
“Like you could ever comprehend the Apology of Socrates.” Hugo sneers down at me before focusing on Timms. “He and I know, though. When Socrates was on trial, he used his speech to offer a defense, and he gave a farewell.”
“Right, yeah.” Timms starts to nod. “I can lay out my truth, and then I’m the one who decides. They can’t take my freedom, not if I go out like Socrates.”
“Fuck, man,” Hugo-as-Joe breathes admiringly. “That’s how you win. Your wife, that lawyer, females like this”—he gestures at me—“they want to castrate you, lock you up. Silence you. But you’re choosing your destiny. You’re choosing to die with your dick.”
Timms straightens, the despair on his face falling away as he glimpses something new: an exit.
“Choose my destiny,” he says almost rapturously. “And die with my motherfucking dick.”
Everything in me recoils at the fire in his eyes, but Hugo’s here, rock solid, holding my wrist. We’re going to walk out of here together.
“My apology.” Timms rubs his hands together, practically bouncing on his heels. “I’ll record it here, for the forum.”
He turns and makes capital L’s with his thumbs and index fingers, framing the room like an old-timey film director framing his shots.
Hugo really led this misogynist horse to water, didn’t he?
Then again, Timms has been losing sleep over the possibility of prison.
He was probably halfway to a plan like this already.
In some ways, this might be the kinder way out for him.
I hate that for us.
“How will you do it in the end? Like that?” Hugo gestures to The Death of Socrates, which shows the man himself reaching for the cup of poison that killed him.
Energized like he hasn’t been all night, Timms pulls out the gun and holds it out to Hugo, then pulls it back like he’s playing keep-away. “Uh-uh. Look, but don’t touch.”
He runs a finger reverently over the barrel. It’s engraved with Greek letters I don’t recognize.
“Molon labe,” Timms says. “Come and take them.” Then he glances down at himself and grimaces. “Not looking like this, though.”
“You’re so right, brother.” Hugo nods solemnly. “Your disciples should see you at the height of your powers.”
“I’ll clean up.” Timms starts to walk out of the room but spins around in the doorway. “You can handle the bitch for fifteen minutes, right?”
He makes his meaning clear when he tucks his thumbs into the waistband of his shorts, the gun resting next to his dick as his eyes lock on the exposed tops of my breasts.
Hugo answers by stroking a thumb down my neck and gently pressing on one of the faded bruises from Overton’s fingers.
“Only fifteen minutes?” he asks silkily. “No. You want to take your time with a woman like this.” He wraps his other arm around my waist, caging me against him. “A woman like this, you keep for as long as you can.”
My breathing hitches, and I’m sure Timms reads it as fear over being restrained by an apex predator. But to me and to Hugo, it’s a promise. It’s forever.
Timms, though, doesn’t see two people in love.
“You’re talking like she’s not some disposable thot. But whatever, have fun.” His face hardens as he points the gun at my midsection. “Don’t let her out of your sight.”
The slap of his slides disappears down the short hallway to his bedroom, and Hugo drops to his knees in front of me, pressing his face into my stomach.