Page 98 of Hart of Redemption
“Go ahead,” Duke said. “You’re her boss anyway.”
I remembered Jade telling me at Thanksgiving that she worked for a lawyer, but that didn’t matter.
“How do you feel?” I asked Duke when Kelton was out of the room.
Duke pulled me into his arms. “Free. Relieved. Happy. It could’ve been so much worse.” He pecked me on the forehead. “I never thanked you for saving my sister.”
“And I never thanked you for saving me. I’m sorry I shot you, though.”
“Would you do me a favor?” he asked, rubbing the scar on my forehead.
“Anything.”
“I can’t ask you to wait, but could you watch over Grace?”
“Of course. Is there something going on?”
“She’s raw, emotional, has PTSD from her ordeal in sex trafficking, and sometimes she likes to take matters into her own hands when she sees women on the street being abused. But she’s supposedly starting at Boston University after the New Year. That should keep her busy. Just in case.”
“You really would die for those you love,” I said matter-of-factly.
His response was a fierce, desperate kiss, needy and emotional, that left me breathless and dizzy. “Especially you.”
No matter what happened from here, Duke Hart would always have a place in my heart.
36
DUKE
ELEVEN MONTHS LATER
The sun on my face had never felt so good as I walked out of prison. I thought I would’ve been out in six rather than eleven months. I hadn’t gotten into any brawls. I’d kept my head down, minded my own business, and done as I was told by the guards. But the government tape and paperwork had taken longer.
With the exception of my brothers, no one knew I was leaving prison today. We hadn’t wanted to tell Grace and get her hopes up in case something with my parole fell through the cracks. Plus, my brothers wanted to surprise her at a birthday party Denim and Jade were throwing for her in a few days.
I hadn’t seen Grace since Christmas last year. The day my lawyer came to Denim’s penthouse to deliver the news about my sentence, I only had time to call her and my brothers before the cops showed up to take me in. Besides, I couldn’t bear to see anybody in my family in tears, especially Grace.
During my incarceration, I’d decided that I didn’t want any visitors either. However, I had spoken to my family maybe three times when I had phone privileges. I wanted to create as much space from the outside world as possible to give me time alone to think, decompress, and find myself. I’d never had a chance to understand who I really was.
As a kid, I’d been a father to my siblings. They’d come first. As an adult, I did whatever it took to survive, always running, protecting, and doing my best to stay alive.
I wouldn’t say that prison had been cushy, but it gave me time alone when I didn’t have to bark orders, run businesses, or worry that an enemy would try to kill me. Lying in my cot at night with deafening silence rather than the loud music of the nightclub, I’d thought about what my future would look like—the boxing gym I wanted to open, the self-defense classes I wanted to teach to the battered women from Dillon’s shelter, the family I might want to start. The last one scared the fuck out of me, though.
I wanted only one woman to start that family with, but I didn’t know if Fallyn was even available. In fact, if one of my siblings had brought her up when we talked by phone, I would have cut them off. I couldn’t handle hearing about her or if she had a man in her life. That would’ve made me go ballistic, and I might’ve done something stupid to increase the length of my prison sentence.
The cold November wind blew over me as I strode toward Denim. It had been one year almost to the day that the shitstorm started that night of the ambush. One year since I’d met Joy—or rather, Fallyn. She’d been the star of my dreams and the keeper of my heart for the last three hundred days.
I’d wondered constantly what she was up to, if she thought of me, and if she missed me like I missed her. But again, I hadn’t wanted to see her or hear about her.
Now that I could finally breathe in fresh air, she was definitely someone I wanted to track down, but I was scared out of my fucking mind that she had moved on, found a guy, gotten married, and become pregnant.
Denim and Vince stood by my SUV, grinning like kids in a candy store.
“Vince? Holy shit. How are you?” In one of my calls with Denim, he’d told me that the Feds had questioned Vince, but since he hadn’t been at the junkyard or involved in how things had gone down, the Feds had nothing to hold him on. Brian had also been questioned but not about guns. Rather, the Feds had wanted to know about Neal Fitzgerald.
Denim flicked his thumb at Vince. “I brought this guy along.”
I gave them both the hugs of all hugs. “I’ve never been happier to see you.”
