Page 48 of A Fine Line

I walk over to where Flora is still lying with the dog and kneel down. “I gotta go get some work done, princess. You name these mutts, and I’ll see you later for supper, okay?”

She smiles up at me and nods, but then she raises her hands up expectantly, and I raise my brows at her and say, “You can get up.” She shakes her head and raises her hands with more emphasis, so I relent and kneel closer to her so she can hug me. A big wet tongue hits me on the side of the face, and I jerk back. “Damn it, dog. Cut it out.”

Flora giggles, and when I look over at the big dog now watching me, I swear she’s smiling at me. I shake my head and scowl, and the dog huffs and flops back down as I turn and head out of the room.

Nettie and Anton follow me, and we walk back down to the main work area where we find Dare and Matt looking over some papers, and Dare looks over at me and asks, “You get that listed sorted?”

“Sure did.”

Dare smiles a bit dreamily. “Did you get to have any extra fun with any of them?”

I shake my head, a bit let down, but knowing I did the right thing by cleaning up quickly. “Wasn’t time for any of that, so most of them got lucky.”

“Pity.” Dare sighs.

Nettie rolls her eyes and huffs, poking him in the side as she says to me, “Never mind him, Tony. He’s been out of the bloodshed too long.”

“Where’s Aggie and Lilith?” I ask, my gaze scanning the room in search of them.

“They went with Erik to scope out the situation for tonight. That information you sent me seems to be legit, but we don’t want to go in completely blind, so they decided to do a little last-minute recon. I said we’d meet them there later this evening for the job,” Dare answers, his eyes still on the table where blueprints are strung out.

“Is this the facility where she’s being held?”

“Yes,” Matt replies, picking up a picture from the bottom of the pile and handing it to me. It looks swanky from the outside, but from what I understand, there are some sub-levels that aren’t too fancy.”

“So, what you’re saying is that we’ve traded warehouses for basement dungeons?”

Matt snorts and nods. “Pretty much.”

Dare sighs and shakes his head. Finally, he says, “Are you ready to go get your girl back?”

“She’s not my fucking girl.”

“Just keep fucking telling yourself that, buddy,” he snarks. “Maybe if you say it loud enough, you’ll believe it yourself.”

“It’s not that simple. You know how I feel about liars,” I mutter.

“Yes, I do. But I also know that sometimes, lies aren’t as simple as that. Especially when you’re put into difficult situations to protect someone else. I see how you are with that little girl. What wouldn’t you do to protect her?”

I think for a moment, and my jaw clenches, my hands tightening into fists, as I consider my answer to his question. Finally, I say, “That’s not a fair question. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do to protect children. Her or any of them. You know that.”

“Exactly,” Darius says evenly. “So, you can only imagine how that feeling intensifies when that child is your own flesh and blood. So sure, she went into a role with the intent to do harm, but then, at the end of the day, she blew her cover to protect us. She didn’t have to do that.”

“She lied to my fucking face, man,” I snarl.

Dare frowns at me and asks, “What are you talking about?”

I go to respond, but snap my mouth shut and inhale deeply through my nose. He’s looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to respond, and I know I’ve already said too much to avoid the conversation. “I went to see her. Way back when you and Aggie duped Nettie into going to that warehouse so you could talk to her. While you were occupied, I went to see Carolina.”

Dare’s eyes widen in surprise. “Why? Why would you do that?”

“Because I knew things didn’t add up. Her trail was too clean. There was something off about the entire situation, so I wanted to ask her some questions.”

He turns to face me, leaning his back against the bench, his arms coming up and crossing over his chest. “And what did you learn?”

“Well, nothing,” I bark. “She lied to my fucking face. Even after I told her I would help her. She still lied. She lied and then kept going up to a point where she got some of our people dead. It’s fucking unforgivable.”

“We all lie, Tony,” Dare says. He pauses for a moment, his eyes falling on Matt and Nettie, who are deep in conversation across the room. Then he turns his gaze back to me and continues, “If you don’t stop drinking the poison, at some point, you’re the one who will suffer. Forgiving people isn’t a weakness. Antoinette lied to me, and if I hadn’t found out, if I hadn’t been able to wrangle the situation and force her confession, who knows what would’ve happened? Maybe even if she had wanted to save me, she wouldn’t have been able to anymore. But that’s not what happened. And I forgave her. Do you think I shouldn’t have?”

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