Page 77 of The Contract

“I have to dosomething.”

“What are your other options?”

Fucking Noah. He always does this, makes me sort it out myself. If he told me what to do, I’d refuse on instinct. He makes me think instead.

“If I tell Fiero about Capelli killing Evan, Fiero will go after Capelli.”

Noah is careful not to leap on that. It’s what he’s wanted for years: for me to stop fucking around with Capelli. For Capelli to be put down. For me to stand apart from it.

It’s not what I want. It’s not how I want to do it. But things have changed.

Noah thinks it through. “You’re afraid Tristan will go after Capelli.”

“Yes.” Tristan might not do it right away, but in time? Yeah. I think he would. He’s fucking fearless. So I have to take care of Capelli first.

“What about Fiero?” Noah asks.

“I’ll deal with him another time.”

“Then I’ll meet with Fiero.”

“No—”

“Yes. Because you need to go find Tristan.”

My heart sinks. “But he said the safe word.”

“You’re compromised, Dante. He’s a liability. You need to figure out what to do about that.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” I’m on my feet so fast that Noah is forced to take a step back from me.

Noah won’t yield any further. He’s not afraid of me. Someone like him, with nothing to lose, isn’t afraid of anyone.

“How much are you willing to risk for him, Dante?”

“Everything.”

Noah takes that in—and so do I. For the first time, I admit it to myself: I love Tristan.

I know I’m too fucked up for love. I know Tristan didn’t mean it when he said it to me. We were fucking. He was out of his head. Even if he did mean it on some level, he doesn’t now. I saw his face when he mentioned the pictures of the boys. He thinks I’m a child abuser. He doesn’t know that one of the pictures is of me.

I don’t want him to know that. I don’t want him see me that way. But I also don’t want him to look at me like I’m the most disgusting thing he’s ever seen.

Maybe he will anyway. Not just because of what happened to me, but also because of what I do. He may have misunderstood the pictures, but he didn’t misunderstand this warehouse. That cell. What I do here.

I torture and kill people. Only certain types. Only for certain reasons and with certain goals.

But that wouldn’t make any difference to most people. It wouldn’t make the fact that I love Tristan mean any more to him. But that fact means something to Noah.

He nods, like I’m confirming what he already knew. And that’s when I realize that he wasn’t busting my ass that night at Rafael’s. He was trying to get me to acknowledge this very fact—and to deal with what it means.

But I wasn’t ready then. And now it’s too late.

But Noah acts like it’s not when he says, “Then I think you’d better go talk to him.”

“You’re telling me to break the rules.”

“The rules exist to protect you and other people. This one time,one time, Dante, you need to break them in order to do that. Now give me what I need in order to sic Fiero on Capelli, and go find Tristan.”

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