Dignity

  Maybe it was about time I put everything I learned from everyone—my altruistic mother, my overzealous father, my sweet sister, the manipulative, unscrupulous men who made me, the ruthless men who trusted me, the independent woman who needed me, and this good man who believed in me—to good use. Maybe it was time to be the man they thought I was and not the one who was so sure he had nothing and no one to live for.

  Noe

  It became increasingly clear that all Stark’s plans to bring the Mayor down, as precise and intricate as they were, did not include me. He refused to let me go with him when he took the fabricated ID to get the fake insurance policy. He refused to let me tag along when he handed over the list of names that showed all the city officials and beat cops who had been taking payouts to look the other way while Goddard robbed the city blind and committed atrocious crimes against young women. As soon as Stark started poking around Goddard’s computer, it became clear that Nassir couldn’t get a handle on the sex trafficking and the Eastern Europeans because Goddard had a vested interest in keeping them in the Point. As it turned out, he didn’t turn his nose up at doing business with people who didn’t look like him when they were providing something he wanted, and what Goddard wanted was access to girls. Really, really young girls.

  It was horrifying, but instead of talking to me about it or working through how he planned to stop it, Stark had disappeared inside himself, just him and his laptop. It was like I didn’t exist. I was pretty sure I could have paraded around the loft naked and he wouldn’t even blink. I was tempted to try, but the idea that he really might not notice, or that he honestly might be able to resist my limited charms, kept me clothed. I was confident when it came to my appeal to men, but Stark was a different breed. The man was complex and unpredictable. He also wasn’t sleeping. He wasn’t eating. He was in the same room as I was but so far away that it felt like he was on another planet entirely. When I asked him questions or offered up suggestions, all I got in return was a monosyllabic response. If this was what it was like to watch a genius at work, I hated it. I wanted the broken Brainiac back. The one who watched me with heat and curiosity in his eyes. The one who wanted me just as badly as I wanted him.

  On the third day of living in the vacuum where he sucked all the life out of everything, I decided I’d had enough. I appreciated that he was hell bent on destruction, but somewhere along the way he seemed to have forgotten that the reason he was so invested in vengeance was standing right beside him. I didn’t like how easy it was for him to disconnect from me and from how all of this had to make him feel.

  He was well on his way to completing the first step of the plan: taking Goddard’s money. The man had offshore accounts in every island nation from here to the Philippines, but Stark had found them all. He’d also sniffed out the secret account Goddard opened under his stepdaughter’s name that he used for most of his illicit dealing. He was also using an account he set up under the guise of a nonprofit after-school program that claimed to be directed toward supporting at-risk youth. There was money going in the account from investors and donations, but according to Stark, that money wasn’t going back into the program, but being taken out in small chunks of cash. He mumbled that it was a different kind of payout than the huge transfers he traced through the fake account in Julia’s name.

  He didn’t seem overly interested in that little blip. He was more focused on tracking down the list of the Mayor’s top donors. As soon as he had the names, he was firing off email after email letting them know exactly where their hard-earned money was going. They were backing a criminal, and even if they didn’t care about the kind of man they had put in office, the media would. Anonymously, he was already leaking bits and pieces of the information he uncovered. They were going to have a field day when the whole truth came out. Everyone loved a juicy, political scandal and this one was ready to leak all over the place.

  I wanted to know where that money was going. I wanted to know why a man with so much to hide and so little regard for the people of his city had bothered to set up a program that was aimed specifically at the unfortunate youth of the Point. Something about the set up didn’t sit right with me. Not too long ago, I was a teenager sleeping on the streets, trying to make it on my own, worried when it got cold and miserable and I couldn’t scrounge up enough change for something to eat. I knew that desperation brought on the willingness to accept terrible things as the status quo. I would have been tempted to take any shelter that was offered and I may have been willing to look the other way to have a roof over my head and something warm to eat, but now I refused to ignore the fact that someone else might be stuck in that same awful position. If Goddard was exploiting the young and the poor, which I had zero trouble imagining him doing, then it needed to stop. Those without deserved the same justice as those who had everything.

  I told Stark I was going out. I was sick of wearing clothes that didn’t fit. Booker’s pieces covered me up and swallowed me whole. Reeve’s were too tight and too revealing, not that he noticed when I switched from one to the other. He barely lifted his head from his work when I started for the door. It wasn’t until I hit the hallway and was waiting in front of the elevator that he must have realized I meant I was leaving the safety of the apartment. Just as the metal doors swished open, I felt a hand on my elbow and was turned around.

  His eyes were bloodshot behind his glasses and he had dark, deep shadows in all the hollows of his handsome face. His stubble had moved from scruff to the start of a short beard, making him look rougher and tougher than he already did. I wasn’t scared of him, but the look in his eyes and the tension rolling off his big body was scary.

  “It’s not safe out there. Goddard is still looking for you. You can’t go prancing down the street like nothing happened the last couple of weeks. Next time he gets his hands on you, he’s going to kill you to keep you from talking. You’re as much of a liability as the girl is now.” That logic of his was always right on point, but I couldn’t sit by while he dismantled the Mayor’s life anymore. I’d always been the type of person who was hands on, the type of person who made things happen instead of letting them happen to me. The vengeance he was orchestrating was mine, and I refused to let him write the song without me. I was the one who needed to sing it.

  I tugged on my arm until he got the hint and let me go. It was getting old, him only noticing me when I wasn’t around. I slipped my backpack off my shoulder and pulled a wool beanie out of the front pocket. I slipped it over my head, made sure all my hair was tucked underneath it, and scowled at him from under my eyebrows. “I know the danger I’m in. I’m the one who was tied up and knocked around. He won’t be looking for a boy . . . you weren’t when you were looking for me.” He frowned even harder at the reminder I’d already been overlooked under his nose once. “I can’t sit in that loft doing nothing while you dissect every single thing on Goddard’s computer. I need to do something. I’m as much a part of this as you are, even if you can’t see me standing here in front of you.”

  He rocked back on his heels and lifted his hands like he was trying to deflect the truth in my words. “I see you, Noe. I also see everything bad that can happen to you if you’re not careful. When I close my eyes, all I picture is lowering you into the ground right next to my sister.”

  I swore under my breath because he wasn’t playing fair. “I’m sick of living inside someone else’s life and clothes. I can’t be whoever this is forever. I need to get back to being me.” I waved a hand over the gigantic, heavy metal t-shirt that hung to my knees and the baggy sweatpants that were rolled up so I could walk without tripping over the them. The outfit worked for my haphazard disguise, but it was no longer working for me. I wanted to feel like I was back in my own skin and back in control of my life.

  He stared at me silently, those gears turning and grinding furiously behind his stormy gaze. He opened his mouth as if he was going to argue with me, then snapped it shut and looked back toward the open door of the expensive l
oft. “Let me finish pulling Goddard’s tax returns for last year and I’ll go with you, wherever you want to go.”

  I should have known he wasn’t going to risk me getting snatched again. He was a minute too late the last time I needed him and he didn’t want to drop the ball again, but I wasn’t his responsibility. I wasn’t his to take care of or to protect, even though a tiny part of me screamed in protest when I reminded myself of that.

  “I’m going alone. I want to see what’s going on at that nonprofit. Something isn’t right and the kind of kids who would utilize that place aren’t going to talk to you. They won’t trust someone who doesn’t know what it’s like to have nothing. That kind of despair clings to you. It leaves a mark.” He was too big and radiated too much power for skittish street kids to feel safe in his presence. They would clam up and hit the road the second they saw him coming. I would be able to slide through the ranks unnoticed and unquestioned in a way he never would.

  His head jerked back and his chin lifted. “What do you think I have, Noe?” His tone was brittle and raspy reminding me his family was gone and the one thing he’s always had, his mind, was locked away like the dangerous weapon it was. The safety was on and he’d only put his finger back on the trigger when I needed help.

  I sucked a breath through my teeth and pulled my gaze away from his. That gray was as sharp as the edge of a knife. I was talking about his nice house and his designer jeans and boots. I was thinking about the fact that he was covered in obviously expensive artwork. Those diamond studs he wore in his ears were no joke and any kid who was hungry and homeless would resent the hell out of them. I didn’t mean to diminish the fact he’d lost just as much as I had. I only meant it was obvious he was living a pretty cushy and comfortable kind of life, and that wasn’t the case for most of the people where I was going.

  I touched my ear where it was covered by the hat. “You have those shiny rocks in your ears and your glasses say Gucci. Anyone who has to find their dinner in a dumpster or goes without dinner altogether is going to notice those things, Stark.”

  He mirrored my action, his fingers brushing over the bigger set of jewels and the second smaller set. They were an oddly feminine choice for such an overtly masculine man to make, but on him they worked. “One set was my mother’s. The other one belonged to Savina. I never take them off.”

  Well, shit. If that wasn’t a kick right in the gut. I reached out a hand to touch him, to soothe, but he backed away, eyes hard. If my words had wounded him, he’d taken the pain and locked it away, somewhere deep and dark. He had an uncanny ability to go glacial when it suited him. His armor wasn’t on the outside, it was wrapped around his insides, tight and impenetrable.

  “Snowden.” I took a step toward him but halted when he held up a wide hand and shook his head, telling me without words to stay where I was.

  “I’m going to go with you.” It was a statement, one that left no room for argument or negotiation. “Once we get wherever it is you’re determined to go, I’ll wait outside.”

  It wasn’t the best option, but it was the only one he seemed willing to give me. He told me to wait for him while he grabbed something from the apartment and I debated bolting for the stairs and taking off on him anyway. I wasn’t used to having anyone push back when I laid down the law, and I wasn’t sure I appreciated his high-handed attitude, even though it was clear he believed he was acting in my best interest.

  When he headed in my direction, I noticed he’d added a battered, black baseball cap to his outfit and had tossed on a well-worn hoodie that covered up his massive bulk. He still wouldn’t blend in, but he looked more like the typical kind of guy you found walking the streets of the Point and less like an eccentric genius who could make his own rules. When he reached around me to call the elevator, the bottom of the heavy sweatshirt lifted and I caught a glimpse of the nine millimeter he’d forced me to take from Booker’s apartment. The gun had remained untouched and unwanted, but seeing it tucked into Stark’s waistband was a vivid reminder that danger was all around, and maybe I had been foolish in my rush to involve myself in the plans to ruin Goddard. I wasn’t used to being idle. When I stopped moving and stopped doing, all the memories and recollections I swore I left behind had time to catch up to me. Being alone with my thoughts was never fun. Being alone with my thoughts and Stark’s silence was even less fun, so I did what I always did: I ran away from it.

  We shuffled into the elevator and immediately became engulfed in a suffocating quiet. The only sound between either of us was the sound of our breath. Mine were slow and steady as I tried to calm my racing heart and nervous twitches. His were low and furious. He was breathing fire, and again I wondered how one man could have cold inside of him, when he also ran so hot. I could feel his frustration pulsing in the air around us, but he didn’t say a word until I started for the front doors of the complex. He grabbed my elbow again and told me his truck was in the parking garage on the lower level.

  I shook my head so hard I almost lost the beanie that was hiding my hair. “We’re taking the bus.” The kids I wanted to talk to could spot a fake from a mile away so there was no way in hell I was going to blow my shot at information before I even made it to the center by rolling up in an unmissable 4x4.

  When Stark made a face that clearly displayed his opinion on public transportation without saying a word, I calmly pointed out, “The cops won’t pull a bus over. If Goddard still has people looking for me, they won’t be looking on a bus.”

  He snorted in response but followed me out the front door anyway. “Buses have cameras. If Goddard has someone in tech working for him, they can track you using facial recognition software. It won’t matter that you’re dressed like a boy; your face is still the same.”

  Stupid, smart man. Always had to have an argument for everything. I sighed and looked at him out of the corner of my eye. It was time I leveled with him if I wanted him to understand why checking out the fishy nonprofit was so important to me. He might have a difficult time navigating his own emotions, but he had been nothing but reasonable when it came to dealing with mine. “I need the kids who use Goddard’s program to talk to me, Stark. The things he did to Julia,” I shook my head in disgust. “You know she wasn’t his first victim. He didn’t marry her mother until a couple of years ago. Before he had someone in his own home he could violate, he had to find victims elsewhere. I’m willing to bet he started the nonprofit for no other reason than to have an endless pool of desperate, hopeless victims. When you’re in that situation, young, alone, and scared, there is no end to the risks you’re willing to take when someone offers you something that seems too good to be true. I imagine Goddard violated those kids, and the small amounts of money he took from the donations were bribes to keep them quiet. You said part of bringing his house down around him was to uncover all his secrets. This one is one that definitely needs to see the light of day. Julia won’t ever get the opportunity to tell her story, but the other people that man has hurt should be able to. They deserve to have a voice.” Just like I’d deserved to be heard when I tried to tell people what was going on in my house up on the Hill.

  I felt the warmth of his hand on my lower back as the bus rolled to a stop in front of us. The doors whooshed open and the driver gave us a considering look as we trudged up the steps. I dug my transit card out of the front pocket of my backpack and snickered as Stark had to fumble for change to pay for his ride. We made our way to a couple of empty seats. I had to put my backpack on my lap to make room for him, but even still, he took up more than his fair share of space. We were pressed together from shoulder to thigh when I realized we were getting a lot of odd looks. I realized he was the only person on the bus who knew I was a woman, and to everyone else we probably looked like the world’s most mismatched gay couple. The thought turned my snicker into a full-on belly laugh, which earned me a lifted eyebrow from the man seated next to me.

  I dug my elbow into his side and wiggled my eyebrows at him. “They think I
’m your boyfriend.”

  He gave me a quizzical look then lifted his gaze to meet the curious ones watching us. I thought he would move to put some distance between us, that he would shift uncomfortably. Stark was a man who exuded masculinity and he was surrounded by men who were the same. I couldn’t imagine any of them standing for having their sexuality or vitality called into question, especially by a bunch of nosey strangers, but Stark didn’t seem phased by it. In fact, he moved so that his arm was behind me on the seat and lowered his head so that his lips almost touched my ear.

  “I’m sorry that you felt like I was shutting you out. I get focused on a task and lose track of the real world. I didn’t mean to ignore you or make you feel like you aren’t a part of this, but I can’t stand the idea of Goddard getting his hands on you again.” I felt the tip of his tongue touch my ear and it made my entire body shiver under the layers of clothing I was wearing. “He’s never going to be able to put his hands on anyone again when we’re done with him. If you feel like you need to take steps to make that happen, then talk to me, smack me upside the head, stomp on my foot, or maybe pull all your clothes off and stand in front of me so I can’t ignore what’s happening around me. I’m here to walk with you, not force you to go around me.” His fingers squeezed the back of my neck and I had to close my eyes and force myself not to lean into him.

  “I was wondering if you would notice if I got naked.” I meant it as a joke but there was a thread of uncertainty in my tone I couldn’t hide.

  He swore under his breath and leaned over so that his forehead was resting against my temple. “It might take me a minute because my mind is like a spider web, tangled and sticky. It’s a trap, and once something is caught up in there, it’s hard to get it free. I noticed you from the start, Noe. I see you, even when you’re dressed like a boy.”

  His mind was like a spider web, beautiful, complex, and deadly. I couldn’t stop the little thrill that raced through my veins at the thought of being caught up in those silken, delicate threads that made this man impossible to handle and hard to forget. “I appreciate you wanting me to be safe, but that’s not something I’ve ever been.” Living a life on the run was never benign. “I’ve learned a lot of tricks in my years on the streets. The least I can do is make sure kids like me know all my tricks, so they can learn from my mistakes.” There was no Robin Hood in the Point. No one was showing up to steal from the rich and give to the poor, so those of us who were poor and were going to remain poor had to stick together.