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Her jaw drops. “I’m supposed to get you a wedding gift!”
I grin. “I don’t need a thing, Jan. And these aren’t a gift. They’re…” I shrug. “For putting up with my shenanigans year after year.”
She takes the tickets as I place them in her hand.
“Thank you, Mr. Black,” she sighs, smiling at me. “Really, thank you.”
“It’s the least I can do,” I say, turning to step into my office.
“Oh, before I forget…” she nods at the file she just gave me. “That’s the dossier you wanted on Dwayne Halbertson.”
My jaw grits. Jan shakes her head and exhales.
“I know you’re the last person who’d ever want to hear something like this, but I hope God himself comes down to drag that man to the Hell he deserves. I mean after what he did to that poor girl, what a travesty of justice?—”
She stops, looking up at me sheepishly.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Black,” she says quietly.
I shake my head. “Don’t be. It’s natural to feel angry, hurt, and let down when justice is miscarried, and the guilty are allowed to go free. Why would I be the last person who wanted to hear that?”
She smiles sheepishly. “Because you’re just so good, Gabriel.”
Right, good.
Sure.
Alone in my office, I sit back and flip open the dossier I’ve had compiled on Dwayne the rapist, who will be stepping into a courtroom within the hour to hear that his case is being dismissed for lack of admissible evidence.
He won’t be going to jail. But he will be going to Hell. I don’t think I can promise Jan that the Lord Himself will have a hand in that…
But I sure will.
I frown, rubbing my temples as I skim the documents.
You’re so good, Gabriel.
It’s what I’ve spent my entire life projecting to the world. I mean Christ, I was literally a fucking Boy Scout when I was a kid. “Good” is what the world sees when it looks at me, and it’s served me well.
It’s why they all see Atticus Finch when they see me in court. Or a Rockefeller when I’m at a charity event putting the use of my Hamptons beach place for a weekend up for auction.
They see what I want them to see. If that golden mirror wasn’t there to reflect back their hopes and wishes and good thoughts, they’d run screaming at what they saw when they looked at me.
My siblings and Taylor have seen me grumpy, sour, and in some dark places. But not even they have seen how deep that darkness goes, or the depravity lurking at the bottom of the pit. Nor have the few women who’ve gotten deep enough into my world to get a glimpse of my monster. Even they just think they caught me being “a little too kinky”.
My father was the only person to really, truly see me. I was eight when I came home from school one day, my nose and knuckles bloody from a fight I’d gotten into with a bully who’d been terrorizing some smaller kids at recess.
At first, Vaughn Black was impressed. He was proud of me for sticking up for those who couldn’t defend themselves, even if maybe he wasn’t thrilled about the fist-fighting.
Then the school called. And the bully’s parents. Finally, the police.
I didn’t just hit that asshole, I fucking wrecked him. I put him in the hospital.
After dad smoothed things over with the kid’s parents, the school, and the law, he came to see me in my room. Dad wasn’t ever the corporal punishment type—he never once hit any of my siblings or me. But that day, I thought he was going to.
He didn’t. He was furious, sure; more furious than I’d ever seen him. But he just sat down and asked me why I did it. Why I’d kept hitting Tommy Bidderman even after he was on the ground, bloodied and unconscious.
“Knocking him down won the first fight. I wanted to win all the next ones, too.”
