Page 6 of Man of Lies

Silence consumed us. Even the cicadas sounded distant. It hit me then that he'd barely said five words since we parked. Themost important one had been 'yes'—I'd made damn sure of that—but suddenly, I had the sinking feeling I'd missed something crucial.

And that wasn't like me.

"Angel," I said softly. I reached for his hair, but my hand froze midway. This wasn't something a touch could fix. Not with a man like him. "Hey. Look at me."

He didn't. Guess he was done taking orders. Instead, he deliberately swiped his thumb over the corner of his mouth and stood. He brushed the dirt from his palms and shoved them deep into his pockets, like that would hide the shaking. When his eyes finally met mine, they were ice cold.

"I have work in the morning," he said in a voice so hollow I barely recognized it. "I need to go."

"Whoa," I protested, buttoning my jeans and catching him by the bicep when he tried to circle around me. "Hold it, slick. You don't have to?—"

"I said I need to go," he cut me off, slipping free like vapor and swinging a leg over the bike. His back was to me as he grabbed his helmet and jammed it over his head, movements mechanical but not angry. It would've been better if he were angry. Anger was something I understood, something I could diffuse. Not this.

His hands had steadied by the time he adjusted the chin strap. He only looked at me once his face was safely hidden behind the reflective visor.

"Don't worry," he said, voice low and muffled. "I'll drive safe."

He didn't wait for a response. The engine roared to life, shattering the stillness and drowning out whatever I might'vesaid. He twisted the throttle and pulled out so cautiously that I knew it was a show for my benefit. So I wouldn't follow. Then, just as the red glow of his tail light began to fade, the Ducati shrieked. He gunned it, vanishing into the night.

I sighed and dropped onto a half-rotted log by the roadside. I sat there long after the sound of his bike faded, staring at the empty stretch of highway, trying to figure out where the hell I'd gone wrong.

I'd thought—I'd been sure—this was what he wanted when he started sniffing around my bar. An outlet. A way to let go. But the look on his face told me I'd misjudged him.

"Shit." I dug a cigarette from my pocket and lit up. I hated the taste, but the habit was reflex at this point. The nicotine steadied my hands.

For the first time in years, I had no idea what my next move was.

Chapter Four

MASON

The first,crumbling step up the back stairs of Eden House nearly took me down. The second I lifted a foot, my thighs seized up; a deep, biting ache that I'd be paying for all day. I clenched my teeth and hauled myself up anyway, gripping the railing like a safety rope on the side of Everest.

Sweat trickled down my spine, soaking into the waistband of my running shorts. Early summer meant morning was the only time to squeeze in a run without frying like a chicken wing, but the humidity was brutal. I felt soggy, wrung-out, and useless as a limp dishrag.

My lungs still burned from the twelve-mile punishment I'd put myself through, but at least my head was finally quiet. Halfway through the run, my thoughts had burned out, leaving nothing but the whoosh of my breath and the steady thunder of my heartbeat.

The trail had been here long before us, carved through cypress and palmettos by generations of hunters hauling game to the Jesuit priests who once ran an orphanage on this land before it became the Beaufort estate. Now it was mine. No cars.No people. Just me, the crushing humidity, the slap of my feet against packed earth, and the occasional rustle in the underbrush. It skirted the water's edge, then looped back toward the house, uneven enough to feel like penance if you ran hard.

The sky had just lightened to a brilliant, pre-dawn white by the time I dragged my cramping body back to the estate. Somewhere in the fields, a barred owl called, its low, haunting notes carrying over the quiet. The rolling lawns were steeped in blue and gray, and a nearby willow swayed like an antebellum ghost, its long branches trailing eerily in the breeze.

It still hit me sometimes—how crazy life had turned out. For a kid who grew up crammed in a single-wide with a heavy-drinking father and a mother who talked to people who weren't there and spent rent money on tarot readings, my world should have been nothing but missed opportunities and closed doors.

And for a long time, it was.

The day our mother disappeared and our father dumped us at the fire station with a single trash bag stuffed with clothes, my twin brother, Ben, squeezed my hand so hard I thought he'd break it. Neither of us said a word. We didn't have to. We knew what came next—or thought we did.

If someone had told me then that we'd end up here, carrying a name that opened doors instead of slamming them shut, I would've laughed in their face. Or spit in it.

But Boone Beaufort took us in, gave us his name, and ensured we never went without again. He did the same for Gideon, Gage, and even Dominic, though none of us shared a drop of blood. And all he asked in return was everything—our loyalty, ourfutures, our souls—dedicated to making this parish better than the one that made us.

He'd given us a future, but sometimes I wondered if we'd never left the past behind. We'd only dressed it up in finer clothes. Because, for all the doors that opened, Ben had still spent five years rotting in a prison cell for something he never should have been locked up for. And I'd spent every second working myself to the bone to fix it—blasting through law school at double speed, throwing myself into a career that burned me at both ends, chasing every lead, every loophole, and every corrupt bastard who had helped lock him up.

Ben was always the one to take the hits. Even when we were kids, he'd stepped between me and our mother's worst moods, took the blame when our father was drunk, and made sure I ate, even if it meant going hungry himself. He fought when I wanted to run and stood between me and the world when it turned ugly.

And then, when we finally had a shot at something better, he left me behind.

Not out of selfishness—Ben didn't have that in him. Enlisting was just the next way he tried to carry the weight alone. He always said I was the smart one who could take Boone's second chance and make it count. So, he tried to set me free; signed up, shipped off, and let the military chew him up and spit him back out.

---