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He motioned toward Derek and then reached to take the younger man’s arm. Tyler ran up with the first aid kit. Dad accepted it and started walking Derek to the still-open front door.
“I think I’d better get you to the hospital to have you checked out, just to be safe,” he said. “Or to the nearest medic, if she’s around.” A witch medic, he meant, but he couldn’t say that in front of Tyler. Tyler, who was unsparked too. Tyler who was looking at the scene with total bewilderment.He’dnever have hurt a fly.
Dad shot one last glance back at me. “Don’t leave the estate. I’ll tell the staff not to let anyone unfamiliar in. These miscreants might not be finished yet.”
“But…” I didn’t know how to finish that thought. None of this made any sense to me. Some gang going out of their way to rough up Derek just for the sake of doing it? Why would anyone even care that much…
A chill washed over me as the door clicked shut. Leather jackets. A gang. Hadn’t Seth or Kyler said something about Damon being mixed up with criminals, doing work for them on the side? He’d hinted at it himself.
That look he’d gotten when I’d talked about how Derek was getting pushy with me. He’d even texted me last night asking if I knew the next time Derek would be out of the house. I’d thought he’d been hoping to make a surprise visit or something, but no. He’d been asking because of this, hadn’t he?
My hands balled at my sides. I waited until I heard the car engine rumble away outside. Then I hurried out back and into the forest, making for a spot on the wall I could slip over without anyone being able to tell Dad I’d ignored his direct order.
I was almost twenty-five. I didn’t need to follow orders. But I sure as hell could give them.
* * *
Damon didn’t answer my knock. I scowled at the scarred green door to his basement apartment and rapped my fist against it again. He might not even be home. I couldn’t text him on my regular phone. Was there a payphone somewhere I could—
“Hey, angel.” The man himself came sauntering down the narrow walkway beside the house. “I saw you hurrying by back there, didn’t think you’d want me shouting after you. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
He paused, taking in my expression, and the satisfaction that had warmed his own faded. His voice sharpened in an instant. “What’s the matter? Did that asshole—”
“You’re the asshole,” I snapped. “What the hell were you thinking?”
Damon blinked, but I saw understanding light in those dark blue eyes. He could put together the pieces. Because he was the one who’d laid them out. His stance tensed. “Not the reaction I was expecting.”
“Because clearly you weren’t thinking at all,” I said.
His eyebrows arched. “Why don’t you come in and tell me all about how stupid I am downstairs? This doesn’t seem like a public kind of conversation.”
I made a face at him, but I held my tongue while he unlocked the door and let me in. I tramped down the steps into the dim, earth-smelling apartment and immediately spun around. Damon stopped at the bottom of the steps, his arms already folded over his chest defensively.
“Those guys you work for, hang out with, whatever,” I said. “You sent them to beat up Derek?”
“He was a problem,” Damon said. “I figured a move like that was an easy way to convince him maybe he doesn’t want to stick around here harassing you after all. You can’t say he didn’t deserve it, after what he was ready to do to you.”
“I don’t care whether he deserved it or not,” I said. “I don’t want you attacking people for me. He’ll get what’s coming to him the official way when I show the Assembly what he was planning. It didn’t have to get… bloody.”
“So you’re squeamish,” Damon said with a shrug. “That’s okay. That’s why I handled it for you. Now it’s done. You don’t have to feel guilty. You didn’t know.”
“It’s not okay,” I said, slashing my hand through the air in frustration. “You didn’t make anything better. You made itworse. I was getting ready to expose him to my dad as a villain, and now he looks like a victim. My dad’s thinking we can’t trust any of the unsparked—how am I supposed to tell him I’m consorted to four of them now? That one of my consorts arranged to have his friends kick the crap out of one of us? It was already going to be a hard enough sell without that detail.”
“So don’t tell him about it,” Damon said, his voice more heated now. “What do you need your dad for anyway? He’s probably in on the whole thing. You don’t need any of them. You’ve got us—you’ve got me.”
“Damon—”
“This is how I operate,” he said, taking a step toward me. “This is how I know how to handle things. You knew I didn’t color inside the lines the very first time you came to me. So don’t act like it’s a big surprise.”
I stepped right up to meet him, setting my hand on his chest to hold him in place and glaring back at him. “I’m not surprised you’d think of doing something like this. I’m surprised that after everything we’ve been through, everything you’ve heard about howmypeople operate, you still thought it was a good idea to go ahead with this, without even talking to me.DoI ‘have’ you, if you’re going to run off doing shit that makes you feel better without caring how I’d feel about it?”
Damon’s face darkened. His mouth opened. But as he held my gaze, whatever he’d been going to say faltered. “Rose,” he said, low and rough. “Of course I did it for you.”
My voice softened. “Are you sure?” I said. “What were you thinking about more—how good it’d feel to know you made Derek suffer, or how I’d react when I found out? Did you really think I’d be celebrating?”
His jaw worked. “He was coming after you. Trying to force himself on you. I couldn’t just let him—”
“You wouldn’t have been letting him,” I broke in. “You would’ve been letting me take care of the situation. Which I did.” I touched Jin’s pendant through my shirt. “But now even more people are mixed up in this mess than were before. What did you even tell those guys to set them on Derek?” I paused, a worse thought hitting me. “What do you owe them now?”
