Parker followed and quietly shut the door. “Getting angry won’t solve this, you know.”
“No, but getting even will. That bucket of scum has had my fist coming for a long time.”
“It’s not what she wants, Luke, and you know it.”
He shoved through the suits hanging on the rack, his voice hard. “Which is why I’ve left it alone, Parker, even when that lowlife laid his filthy hands on her again and again. But not now, not here.” He jerked a pair of trousers off a hanger and rammed a hand into the pocket, unearthing a folded scrap of paper. He hurled the slacks aside and tore the paper open. His eyes burned like acid as he stared Parker down, jabbing a thumb against his chest. “This is my territory, and my friend, and I’m going to make sure he never comes near her again.”
“If you won’t listen to Betty, then listen to me. Your temper can’t handle it, Luke, and we all know it. You’re cool and calm most of the time, but for some reason when it comes to Betty, you’ve got this blind spot, this pin in a grenade that makes you blow. I’ve seen you in fights before. For pity’s sake, you almost killed a man over her, and you were barely nineteen at the time. Don’t do this, Luke, I’m begging you. One pass and a slap isn’t worth it. He isn’t worth it – you could injure or kill him in the state of mind you’re in. Why risk your life and your career, not to mention your friendship with Betty?”
Luke stared, fury pumping in his chest. “A pass and a slap? Is that all you think happened?”
“According to Betty – ”
“She’s lying, Parker!”
“You don’t know that.”
Luke leaned in, the piece of paper clenched hot in his fist. A swear word hissed from his lips. “Her blouse was gaping open and there was a button missing. And from the looks of the back of her skirt, he sure wasn’t there for a chat.” He shoved the paper in his pocket and ripped open the bottom drawer of his bureau.
Parker took a step forward. “What are you doing?”
Luke didn’t answer. He tore through the drawer, hurling clothing onto the floor. He finally stood and bobbled four welded steel rings in his palm. His smile was as hard and cold as the metal in his hand. “Just a little souvenir from the streets of New York.”
The whites of Parker’s eyes expanded in shock. “Brass knuckles? You’ll kill the man! For pity’s sake, McGee, you’re not in a gang anymore, running with thugs from the Lower East Side, you’re a respectable lawyer.” Parker moved to the door, the hard line of his jaw matching Luke’s, edge to edge. He folded his arms and stood his ground. “I can’t let you do this.”
Luke pocketed the knuckles and gave Parker a grim look. “And I can’t let you stop me. Once and for all, I’m going to make sure that scum never bothers Betty again.”
“You don’t even know where to find him,” Parker said, his voice almost a plea.
Luke retrieved the paper from his pocket and held it up. “Nope, but I know where to find Roberta. Fourteen A Humphrey Street – where blood will spill and justice will be served.”
Parker butted up against the door, fingers flexed at his sides. “You’re wrong. He’s at Dot’s, not Roberta’s.”
Cool rage twitched beneath his skin as Luke moved toward the door, his gaze pinned to Parker in silent threat. When he spoke, he ground out each word, his tone tight with tension. “Who-lives-in-the-same-building-as-Roberta. Get-out-of-my-way, Riley.”
A nerve flickered in Parker’s jaw. “Sorry, Luke. You’ll have to go through me first.”
Every muscle in Luke’s body tensed. “Have it your way, my friend.” He delivered a solid punch that doubled Parker over at the waist. Luke jerked the door open, and Parker bulldozed it closed with his body, rebounding with a jab of his foot.
Luke’s grin was almost predatory. “You fight like a girl, anybody ever tell you that?”
His chest was heaving as he gave Luke a lidded stare. “Yeah, well, my education was in law school, McGee, not on the streets.” He charged forward, head to chest, toppling Luke on the bed in a squeal of springs.
With a lightning thrust of his arms, Luke vaulted him onto the floor with a hard thud, depositing him against the bureau in a dazed and crumpled heap. He wiped his mouth with the side of his hand and strode toward the door, then turned, his fist white on the knob. “I love you like a brother, Parker, but if you ever get in my way again – or tell Betty about this – you won’t walk for a week.” His hand shook as he eased the door closed, fighting the urge to slam it off the hinges. He glanced down to the end of the hall, where light bled beneath Betty’s door, and fresh rage flooded his veins. So help him, he would kill that bucket of scum or die trying.
Jerking the front door open, he locked and closed it again before flying down the steps of the boardinghouse. A stab of regret tightened his gut, but he never broke stride. Parker would be stiff in the morning, but it couldn’t be helped. He glanced at his watch in the glow of the lamplight, then plunged his hands in his pockets and headed north. It was half past midnight, and Humphrey Street was over thirty minutes away, but Leo would be at the bars for a while, he was sure. Luke’s lips flattened into a hard line. Celebrating his manhood, no doubt, over the fact that he could beat up a woman.
His fingers curled through the steel rings in his pocket, their cool touch causing a once-familiar adrenaline to course through his veins. It had been years since he had been in a real fight, at least since Brady had taken him off the streets with his talk of God and a chance for a new life. More guilt slinked in, and Luke picked up his pace, unwilling to let thoughts of Brady or Parker or Betty diminish his rage.
Parker said he had a blind spot when it came to Betty, a pin in a grenade, and maybe it was true. He stared straight ahead as he walked, barely aware of cozy couples as they passed or laughing groups milling by. He and Betty had so much history together – as friends, as family . . . He swallowed hard to dispel the shame in his throat.
As lovers.
His shoulders slumped as he slowed his pace. That was the brunt of the blind spot, he supposed – a guilt so deep and raw, he couldn’t be rational when it came to her. He had wronged her, used her, the best friend he’d ever had on the streets, and the guilt ate at him like a case of Nehis bubbling in his stomach. And to add insult to injury, she was still in love with him, and he knew it. All the more reason to protect her, defend her, he thought with a firm press of his jaw. And he’d start tonight by making Leo wish he’d never been born.
He rounded the trash-littered corner of Berthold and Humphrey with its flickering streetlamp and shards of broken glass, and had no qualms whatsoever about being in the wrong part of town. Weedy lots and ramshackle flats had been his lot in life, and tonight felt almost like coming home. He glanced down Humphrey, dark and menacing, shadow-garish with broken streetlamps and the flash of neon. He slowed his gait like a cat on the prowl with muscles loose and motion fluid as he scanned each address. A feral smile slid across his lips when he spotted 14 Humphrey, dark and foreboding – the perfect place to extract a pound of flesh. Luke mounted the first step, and his muscles tensed at a movement of shadow in the alley between the flats. He eased off the step and flexed his fingers, every nerve itching for release.
The shadow shifted, moving into the moonlight. “I can’t let you do this, Luke.”
Shock paralyzed Luke’s muscles. “What are you doing here?”
Brady strolled forward, hands in his pockets like a walk in the park, but his jaw was as steeled as if he thrived on the streets. His eyes were calm, and there was the barest of smiles on his serious face. “Parker called. Seems he thinks you plan to kill somebody tonight.”
A swear word hissed from Luke’s lips as naturally as if he still belonged in this part of town. “Go home, Brady. It’s none of Parker’s business, and it’s none of yours.”
With a casual air, Brady perched on the chipped stone top of a brick column that showcased the concrete steps, cracked and littered with weeds. He folded massive arms, bulging with muscles as tight as Luke’s, then squinted up, the faint smile still in place. “You see, that’s where you’re wrong, Luke. Caring about you makes it my business, just like it does Parker’s. Just like you care about Betty, making her welfare your business.”
Luke took a step forward. A tic pulsed in his cheek as he clenched his fists. “Betty
is
my business, and I’m going to do everything in my power to protect her.”
Brady assessed him through veiled eyes, his voice low and unhurried. “And what about God’s power, Luke . . . you doing everything in his power to protect her?”
With a curse and a violent thrust of his foot, Luke kicked a stray bottle into the concrete step. It struck with a sickening shatter, and chards of glass exploded onto the walk. “Don’t peddle your talk of God to me, Brady. He hasn’t done a whole devil of a lot to protect Betty tonight.” His chest heaved with anger as he thought of Katie, and pain seared a hole in his gut at the notion he was in love with a woman who would never love him back. “Or me, for that matter,” he said with a sneer. “Go home and leave me alone. I’m going to handle this my way, with a fist instead of forgiveness. That lowlife raped her, and he’s going to pay.”
“It’s your word against Betty’s, and you don’t know that for sure.”
His eyes bulged with hate. “No, but I know lowlife scum like him – using her body for his own vile release, taking what he wants with no happily ever after.”
Brady’s jaw shifted before he pinned Luke in a probing stare. “You mean like you did?”
Rage exploded in Luke’s brain and he lunged, his deadly fist coiled in fury. It clipped Brady on the jaw, toppling him into a spindly yew bush at the side of the steps.
He rebounded quickly, circling Luke in ready stance. His fingers clenched and unclenched at his sides as if he were just warming up, and the faint smile returned while he stared at Luke with that familiar white-hot calm. “I can’t help but wonder,
Cluny
, where you and Betty would be right now if God had used a fist instead of forgiveness.”
Brady’s words stung his pride, detonating his temper. He rushed again, hurtling a punch at Brady’s face that earned Luke a fierce blow to his own gut, doubling him over and stealing his wind. Before he could catch his breath, an iron fist to his cheek sent Luke staggering back, momentarily stunned.
“Come on, Cluny boy,” Brady said with a twitch of his fingers, “I whipped you as a snot-nosed kid, and I’ll whip you as a man.” The smile eased into a savage grin. “And it sure beats the stuffing out of boxing with Collin.”
Luke studied the man who had saved his life, not to mention his soul, his muscled body crouched and ready and as powerful and menacing at the age of thirty-six as Luke was at twenty-two. Strength shimmered from his face and arms, now glistening with sweat.
“I don’t want to fight you, Brady,” he said, his breathing heavier than it should have been and moisture beading his brow.
White teeth flashed in the moonlight. “Afraid you’ll lose?”
Luke flashed some teeth of his own. “Nope. Afraid I’ll hurt you.”
Brady’s grin curled wide, taunting Luke with a gleam of a dare. “Or get hurt . . .”
Swallowing the bait whole, Luke pounced, landing a powerful thrust that sent Brady reeling back.
The blow seemed to ignite Brady’s temper, launching him forward in a blur of muscled arms and fists. “Better me than Leo,” he said with a grunt, delivering a clip to Luke’s jaw that hurled him into the grass.
Rubbing his chin, Luke jumped to his feet and stormed forward, his good humor fading fast. “Don’t worry, I have enough for you both,” he rasped. He drove his fist straight for Brady’s face.
With a duck of his head, Brady undercut him, blasting an iron jab to his ribs that felled Luke to his knees. “Not when I’m done with you, you overgrown street punk.”
In a final thrust of his foot, Brady discharged a kick that slammed Luke flat on his back with a gargled groan.
Brady dropped to the grass beside him and yanked a handkerchief from his pants, his chest heaving as hard as Luke’s. He wiped the sweat and blood from his face, then tossed it at Luke.
“Here,” he wheezed with sputtering rasps, “you don’t look so pretty anymore.”
Luke sat up and touched the handkerchief to his jaw, wincing at the pain. “Shoot, Brady, what are you trying to do, kill me?”
Brady rolled his neck. The smile on his lips was as peaceful as the black sky above studded with stars. “Nope, bud, just beat a little sense into you, that’s all.” He looked up, moonlight sculpting his features with a quiet reverence that was uniquely Brady. His words, despite being carried forth on short, heaving breaths, were soft and low. “He’s forgiven you, you know, and so has Betty. It’s time you move on to be the man God has in mind for you to be. No more dancing around the edge anymore, Luke, living for God when it’s convenient, living for yourself when it’s not. Accept his forgiveness for what you did to Betty, and then give it back to those who need it. Like Leo. We’re all sinners, bud, some of us more than others. And nobody knows better than me just how hard some sins are to forgive, especially in yourself. But I wasted years beating myself up, robbing myself of peace when forgiveness was as close as the repentance on my tongue.”
Brady clutched an arm around Luke’s shoulders, giving him a firm pat. He rose to his feet and extended an arm. “Don’t make the same mistake I did, Luke. Refusing God’s forgiveness only did damage to me and those I love. Don’t do that to Betty if you love her.” A nerve quivered in the hollow of Brady’s cheek. “Don’t do that to me if you love me.”
Suddenly Luke felt all of fourteen again, his eyes misting at the only love he had ever known from a father. He gripped Brady’s arm and sprung to his feet, eyes averted as he brushed twigs and leaves from his pants. With a hand to his head, he massaged the bridge of his nose, then dabbed at his eyes in a manner he hoped wasn’t obvious. He sucked in a cleansing breath and released it again, the tension and fury finally gone from his body.
He shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at his feet. “Thanks, Brady,” he whispered. Fists clenched tight, he fought the urge to embrace the man who had shown him the face of God.