Page 17 of Man of Lies

Neither did I.

Sylvia exhaled beside me, the stream of cigarette smoke loud in the stillness.

"Never mind," she said, wearing a smile that didn't touch her eyes. "I figured it out."

Mason still hadn't moved—but Blondie did.

His gaze followed the invisible thread stretching between us, and one corner of his mouth lifted, just enough to set off the alarm bells ringing at the base of my spine. Then he stepped off the curb and started toward us, casual as sin, like he was certain he'd be welcomed when he arrived.

I was on my feet without thinking, but it wasn't a challenge. It was instinct; the kind I'd developed after years of learning to stay one step ahead of a blow before it lands.

That's when Mason stepped between us.

Chapter Eight

MASON

With one hand,I caught Gideon square in the chest, halting his advance just short of the table. It wasn't easy to drive him back a step. Though we'd wrestled constantly as teenagers, Gideon had always restrained himself, acutely aware of his physical advantage. He outweighed the rest of us by a good thirty pounds of solid muscle; a man devoted to peace but fundamentally engineered for conflict.

Even the devil would think twice before crossing him.

Tonight, he wasn't even in uniform—just a dark T-shirt stretched across his broad chest and a pair of jeans that made him look more like a bouncer than a priest.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" I hissed, pitching my voice low to avoid drawing attention.

He met my gaze with his trademark calm: amused and entirely unrepentant. No man who wore a cleric's collar should take such satisfaction in making people squirm, but Gideon had a talent for it. By fifteen, he'd perfected the look: righteous on the outside, smug as hell underneath. Just a stronger version of thatmaddening Beaufort confidence we'd all inherited in different ways.

"I didn't like how he was looking at you," he said, as if that explanation was enough.

"He wasn't looking at me." The denial was automatic—and ridiculous.

The spark of laughter in Gideon's eyes told me he agreed. That look always meant trouble. I'd seen it too many times not to recognize the signs.

"I just want to meet the man who managed to rattle you," he said, slick as polished glass.

I huffed a quick breath through my nostrils and smoothed my features into something less transparent. "This isn't a meet-and-greet, Gideon."

He tilted his head, feigning confusion. "Sure seemed like one by the way you were both staring."

I didn't bother denying it. Lying to a priest was bad enough; lying toGideonwas downright dangerous.

"You're not helping," I said softly.

"I didn't come here to help," he replied serenely. "I came for the jazz. Everything else is a bonus."

That was the problem with my oldest brother; he was freakishly perceptive. Too attuned to human weakness. He'd cracked me open like an egg and read the messy insides at a glance. Silas hadn't helped matters, glaring at us like we owed him money.

Of course, Gideon would find it hilarious. But Silas wasn't a man to play with like that, and I wasn't in the mood to clean up the fallout.

I turned slightly, enough to put a little space between myself and the table, pretending to adjust my cuff while I focused on keeping my expression locked down. Gideon remained close, hovering in my peripheral vision like a silent rebuke, all composed amusement and quiet judgment. I could still feel his eyes on me, watching for another tell, searching for another crack.

I should've known better than to agree to dinner, but I'd been working so much that I hadn't slept more than three hours in my own bed, and it was impossible to ignore the guilt trip a priest could pull.

"Take an hour, Mason,"he'd said."You're human. You need to eat. It's not a sin to rest when you need it."

Rest felt like a foreign concept. I hadn't slept properly since Ben was arrested. How could I? He might've been the older twin by three minutes, but I'd always been the one looking ahead to keep us both safe. That was our pattern. Always had been. We were a team, even when everything else fell apart. Or at least, we had been. Now, he was out, but not free—and I was burning the candle at both ends, clawing at a system that had swallowed him whole and called it justice.

Every night Ben spent in limbo felt like a failure. Guilt had embedded itself in my bones so profoundly that I didn't know who I'd be without it.

---