Page 72 of Man of Honor

“Don’t worry about me, baby. Just remember what I told you.” My throat tightened, but I forced the words out. “You don’t need me, Gage. You never have. But I’ll always need you.”

“Wyatt—”

With a vicious curse, Dominic ended the call. The screen went dark, and he slipped the phone into his pocket with a trembling hand. “I didn’t give you enough credit for stubbornness,” he said, coldly furious. “You’re a better liar than I ever expected.”

I sagged in the chair. Any strength I’d had left was drained. My aching heart hurt worse than my body. “Go to hell, Dominic,” I rasped.

He smiled faintly, but his eyes were dead. “You first.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

GAGE

I pacedthe kitchen like a caged animal, nearly crawling out of my skin in panic. Rain pattered against the roof, building into a hell of a storm so early in hurricane season. Gideon leaned against the counter, watching me with the detachment of a man waiting for paint to dry.

When I’d started spinning out, I’d sought him, because of all my brothers, he was the one I trusted to give it to me straight, no chaser. Mason and Dominic were too cynical, and Ben was too kind.

He was eating a cold drumstick with all the grace of a lion devouring a carcass when I’d stalked in, and he’d only raised an eyebrow at me. He didn’t push. He just waited, patient as ever, until I started talking. And once I started, I couldn’t stop.

I told him everything: the fight, the sick pleasure I’d felt beating Paulie to a pulpy mess, and the terror afterward, knowing what that reaction said about me. Then I told him about the guilt I felt, bone-deep and heavy as hell, that Wyatt had been forced out of his job because of me.

Gideon listened without interrupting, chewing methodically as if the mess of my life was just background noise. When I finally ran out of steam, he licked grease from his thumb, wiped his hands on a napkin, and leveled me with a gaze so piercing I had to look away.

“That guilt you’re carrying is self-indulgence at its worst, Gage,” he said bluntly. “Wyatt made the choice to give up his badge. You’re not his keeper.”

“I still feel like shit about it,” I muttered, staring at my boots.

“That’s because you’re making it about you,” Gideon had said bluntly. “If you want to be with Wyatt, then you need to treat him as your equal, not some idol on a pedestal. That means letting him make his own choices and take the consequences. You don’t get to decide what’s right for him.”

I hadn’t wanted to hear it, but he wasn’t wrong. Still, it hadn’t eased the ache in my chest. I could feel the guilt lodged there, just behind my sternum, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to pry it out until I settled things with Wyatt. But then he’d called, and all my insecurities had taken a backseat to the gut-wrenching dread that something was wrong.

Now, pacing the kitchen while Gideon watched me like I’d lost my mind, that dread had bloomed into something ugly and afraid. It plucked at my stomach, twisting it into knots until I felt ready to puke.

I’d known something was wrong the moment I heard Wyatt’s voice rasping in my ear. In all the years I’d known him, he’d never sounded like that, wrecked and desperate andwrong.Everything about that call had been wrong, from the static on the patchy connection to the call itself. Wyatt hated phones. Heneeded to look people in the eye when he spoke. He’d never have an important discussion any other way. When I tried to call him back, it went straight to voicemail, over and over again.

“You’re sure Wyatt didn’t leave right after he dropped me off?” I demanded, rounding on Gideon.

“Loretta said he stopped to talk with Ivy,” Gideon replied coolly. “She mentioned it when I ran into her downstairs.”

“And you didn’t see him leave?”

Gideon raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t stand at the window to wave goodbye, if that’s what you’re asking. I figured he took off when the house got quiet.”

“But you didn’t hear him pull out?” I pressed, struggling to lock down the worry surging through me. My palms were starting to sweat, and I wiped them on my jeans.

“I didn’t hear anything, but I was keeping to my room until Dom left,” Gideon said with a sigh. “Didn’t hear him or Marcel leave either. I came down about twenty minutes after you stormed upstairs, and the house was empty.”

I planted my hands on the kitchen table, gripping the edge so hard the wood bit into my palms. The kitchen was warm and cozy, thick with the lingering smells of fried chicken and coffee, but it felt stifling.

“He didn’t go home,” I mumbled, staring at the scarred tabletop until it blurred beneath my fingers.

“How do you know that?”

“I know what it sounds like when he calls from his house. It’s always quiet there, but tonight, I could barely hear him through the static. It sounded like the call was about to drop any second.”

“There’s only one place in this parish where the signal is that shitty,” Gideon said, brow furrowing.

I swallowed thickly. “Yeah.”

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