9. Gage

Chapter Nine

GAGE

Silence.

I closed my eyes and let it drift around me.A mockingbird called in the distance, cycling through a jumble of trills and chirps that mimicked half the creatures in the bayou, as if it couldn’t decide which to use.Eventually, the softest crunch of gravel filtered through the sounds of nature.

I cracked one eye and watched as Ivy emerged from her hiding place.She slipped out from behind a moss-covered statue of a saint whose name I could never remember, but she didn’t look happy about it.Her arms were crossed tightly around her stomach, and her eyes were narrowed to hostile slits.

“How did you know I was here?” she asked suspiciously.

“I’ve got good ears.” I bit back a smile and held perfectly still as she crept closer.I was pretty sure if I so much as twitched, she’d bolt.The closer she came, the more she reminded me of one of those gray squirrels that used to steal acorns from my windowsill.Not exactly afraid. Just cautious after a lifetime of close calls.

“Ivy, right?” I said, keeping my tone deliberately casual.“No need to hide. I’m guessing that’s not the first fight you’ve ever seen.”

She looked so vulnerable, small and pale, with gauze taped over her swollen temple and wisps of cotton candy hair escaping from the floppy bun on top of her head.A mottled bruise was still spreading across her cheekbone, a fusion of colors in various stages of healing.

She was watching me with the same look I’d probably worn the first night I came to Eden House, banged up and clinging to Wyatt’s arm like he was my only lifeline.I didn’t remember much of that night, only bits and pieces that came to me in flashes when I least expected.But I remembered how big the house felt after being raised in a one-room fishing shack my whole life.Boone’s comforting smile and the curiosity of the other boys wasn't reassuring, just alien and overwhelming.All I’d wanted was to get back in the car with Wyatt and drive and drive and drive—and never stop.Just him and me, alone forever.The half-baked fantasy of a frightened child, and yet somehow, it still sounded pretty good even as a grown man.

“I thought you were going to kill him,” Ivy said, setting her face into a wary scowl.

I barked out a short, humorless laugh and then winced at the twinge in my ribs.“Thought about it,” I admitted, shifting uncomfortably.“But I couldn’t even if I wanted.He’s tougher than he looks.”

Her eyebrows pulled together doubtfully.“Why did he barely fight back?"

“That’s his game,” I said with a grimace, poking at the lifting corner of my medical tape.My ribs hurt like the devil, but the damage didn’t seem any worse than when I woke up.Gideon had been careful, just like always, inflicting pain without doing any lasting harm.“He lets you burn yourself out, and then he hits you where it hurts the most.”

“He’s a priest,” she protested, sounding scandalized.

I chuckled. “Yeah, well, he’s still a Beaufort.Runs in the family.”

“What family? JJ said you’re all adopted.” As she spoke, she continued edging closer, step by careful step.The distrust in her voice was almost charming.Reminded me of myself. Too much about this girl did.Treating her with kid gloves was the worst thing I could do, so I gave it to her straight, stretching my legs out and crossing them at the ankles like I had all the time in the world.

“Blood ain’t the only thing that makes a family, kid,” I said, patting the spot beside me.

She hesitated a moment, then slowly lowered herself to the grass.I knew the drill, so I didn’t push her to speak.She’d talk when she was ready, or maybe never, and nothing I did would speed up the process.But I could feel her looking at me.When I shifted my eyes to meet hers, she was looking at my shirtless chest.Once she caught me watching, she quickly glanced away, and her cheeks turned pink.

Wyatt’s words from earlier came back, loud and clear: she thinks you hung the moon.

Hell. Things were complicated enough.The last thing I needed was to fend off a crush by some confused kid with a bad case of hero-worship.I was uncomfortably aware that Wyatt must have felt the same way about me once I was old enough to start hitting on him for real, but I didn’t have time to focus on that right now.I needed a shirt, and maybe some garlic and a cross for repellent.

“Gideon’s not like you,” Ivy said haltingly.

“No,” I agreed, sensing there was more behind it.“He’s not.”

She couldn’t seem to meet my eyes, so she looked down and fiddled with the hem of her shirt instead.“He talked to me this morning.I told him…stuff. He promised he wouldn’t tell.”

“He’ll keep it,” I assured her.Gideon was locked tighter than a vault, and it had nothing to do with the seal of confession.Even if it was something muttered to him in passing, he’d take it to the grave unless given explicit permission to share.

“You already know, don’t you?” she asked, sounding angry but keeping her eyes downcast.“What was going on that night?I saw it on your face, right before you threw that first punch.”

I considered my options before answering, and when I finally spoke, I forced an easiness into my tone that I definitely didn’t feel.“Figured it was bad. You don’t have to tell me any more than that if you don’t want.”

She swallowed so hard I could hear it.“It could’ve been worse. A lot worse.If you…if you hadn’t been there.You saved me.”

“Anyone would’ve done the same,” I said uncomfortably.

She gave me a flat look. “You know that’s not true.”

I had to admit the point, but I didn’t want to, so I just gave her a twitch of my eyebrows and looked away.She began ripping the sedge up in rooty clumps and said abruptly, “I left my last foster home.I’m not talking about why.”

I nodded. “You don’t owe me anything.”

“I know.” She glared at me for even suggesting it.“I’m just saying, in case you were wondering.I…I ended up couch surfing with some people I knew.Not friends, exactly, but they let me stay for a while.They were into some things, but I wasn’t, so I crashed at the Dead End after that.”

“You slept at the bar?” I asked, startled.The Dead End had been a fixture in Devil’s Garden since before I was born, back when Pops still ran it, but even then, he’d drawn the line at serving as a flop house.No way the cops let that slide, no matter how crooked Dom claimed they were.

“Silas has a room in the back for people to sleep so they don’t drink and drive.It's like his one rule. He let me stay there for a while.I was gonna look for a job or maybe a bus ticket out of Devil’s Garden, but then I met this guy.He was older, but not creepy old, you know?Kind of sweet, actually. He said he’d help me out.” Her mouth twisted into a thin, bitter little smile that I hated to see.“I guess that’s what he was doing when you found us. Helping me.”

I’d worked in enough shady Vegas clubs to know exactly what he'd wanted.Girls like Ivy with no one in their corner were the perfect victims.

“What’s the guy’s name?” I asked through my teeth.

She hesitated. “Paulie. Paulie Tibbs.”

“You want me to take care of him?”

She knew exactly what I was offering, and she wanted it.I could see it in her face. Slowly, her gaze lifted to meet mine for the first time.There was fire in her eyes, a smoldering anger that I recognized.

“You’d really do that for me?” she asked in a voice filled with disbelief.Like she couldn’t believe anyone would willingly put themselves in her corner.

“Damn straight,” I said fiercely.“You belong to Eden House now.We take care of our own.”

She let out a shaky breath and nodded, digging her fingers into the grass and dirt.“He thinks he can get away with it because he's buddies with some cops.That’s what he said. That I’m just another stray nobody will miss.”

Cold fury trickled through me, and I clenched my jaw so tight it hurt.I’d been told the same thing when I was little.My old man raised me so deep in the bayou that it made Etienne Thibodeaux look social, so deep that I doubted anyone had known I existed.That’s what he’d always said, anyway: nobody would even know if I killed you right here.

“Well, sweetheart,” I drawled, pitching my voice low to keep the violence out of it, “he’s about to learn that he picked the wrong damn stray.”

A tiny, defiant smile turned up the corners of her mouth.The first smile I’d seen from her.“Good,” she said viciously. “Maybe he’ll know what it’s like to feel scared for once.”

“Count on it.”

She gave a single, resolute nod, and I thought I saw her shoulders unknot just a little.Like a weight had lifted off her back.Maybe not completely, but it was a start.Her face softened, and then she took a deep breath and scanned the sprawling estate, as if taking her first good look at the scenery.“This place…it’s so big. It’s got a whole-ass cemetery.Like, who even lives in a house like this?”

I chuckled and rolled my shoulders in an easy stretch, testing the fading ache in my ribs.“We did. My brothers and me. Kids like JJ, too.You’ll get used to it.”

“Doubt that.” Her lips twitched, and she settled more comfortably beside me, kicking at a loose pebble with the toe of her ragged tennis shoe.“I don’t know how long I can stay in a place like this.Feels too good to be real.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said too.” I tipped my head toward the main house, barely visible through the stand of live oaks.“Then I found out there’s a pool around back.”

“A pool?” Her tone instantly brightened.Such a kid.

I grinned and raised an eyebrow.“And that’s only the start. Wait ‘til the boys show you all the hidden passages.Maybe worth sticking around to find out what else we’ve got, huh?”

“Maybe.” Ivy rolled her eyes, but the hint of a smile stuck around.

Then she scooted closer to me and sat with her back to Boone’s headstone just like Iwas.Our shoulders bumped, but I didn’tmind.I was just happy she was starting to feelsafe.We sat together like that for a while, relaxing in thesilence.

I breathed in the scent of magnolia and the salty tang of the nearby marsh, and for the first time, I felt a flicker of what men like Boone and Wyatt must have felt back when they’d rescuedme.A responsibility that went beyond food and shelter and putting a roof over a kid’shead.People like Boone, Loretta, and Wyatt hadn’t just kept us alive; they’d shown us a way forward when we were stuck lookingback.I’d never appreciated the weight of thatresponsibility.It was heavy. The kind that didn’t let you rest easy atnight.

I’d shoved all that weight back in Wyatt’sface.I might have been legal when I kissed him, and I might have known exactly what I wanted, but tohim,it must have felt like betraying the responsibility he’d taken on the moment he carried that half-dead kid out of thebayou.It hurt like hell, but Wyatt had never been theproblem.

Maybe it was time I stopped blaming him forit.