Dignity

  Stark

  She looked so small and pale lying against the black sheets that covered Noah Booker’s bed. I knew it was irrational and unwarranted to be pissed off at the fact she was unconscious in his bed and not mine, but everything inside of me was struggling against the need to pick her up and carry her off. That’s why I hated emotions and feelings. There was no logic in any of it. None of it made any sense.

  Booker’s place was close to the docks, practically sitting on the water, so it was an obvious choice to bring Noe here when she blacked out on him. It was written on her face and across her skin that the last couple of weeks had not been kind to her. The doctor Nassir blackmailed in order to have him on call had assured both Booker and myself that her wounds were superficial. She had a mild concussion, was extremely dehydrated, and malnourished. Her shoulder was sprained and the cuts at her wrists were infected. She had a couple of bruised ribs and an assortment of injuries that covered her body from head to toe. The physician had asked if we wanted him to do a sexual assault examination, but I couldn’t bear the idea of making that call without asking her permission first. She’d been stripped of so much; I couldn’t be the guy who took even more from her when she had no voice.

  The doctor warned that the longer Noe waited, the worse the consequences could be if she had been assaulted, and it turned my stomach. I wanted to touch her, to smooth her dirty hair back into some semblance of order, and rub my fingers over the purple and blue bruises that covered the entire left side of her face. I wanted to trace the outline of her full but battered and chapped lips. I wanted to crawl up next to her in Booker’s black bed and hold her while I promised her that nothing and no one would ever hurt her again.

  I didn’t do any of it because none of it made any sense. She was safe now and Goddard wasn’t going to get anywhere near her again. The guilt that had been eating me alive should have eased, releasing its hold on me, but I was still caught up in the clutches of emotion. There was no reason for me to feel this way, or feel anything other than relief, but I was. I hated that I couldn’t bury those foreign feelings with all the other ones I’d fought to bury over the years.

  Instead, I paced back and forth at the end of the bed like a caged animal while Booker showed the doctor out and paid him his fee. When he came back to the bedroom, he had changed out of the long-sleeved black thermal he had worn to the docks into a faded band t-shirt that was torn at the collar and had a hole on the side. Booker was usually dressed to the nines like all the guys on Nassir’s payroll. I couldn’t remember a time when I saw him in anything other than Armani or Tom Ford. Dressed down, with exhaustion and irritation pulling at his normally stony face, he looked more human and a lot older than he typically did. Bullets didn’t stop the man, so most of us believed he was invincible. Apparently not.

  He dragged a hand over his frown and absently rubbed his thumb along the raised skin of his scar where it cut into the corner of his upper lip. Booker never mentioned where the mark came from and I wasn’t sure anyone but Karsen Carter had ever asked. It was a mystery as to whether he filled the pretty teenager in, but if anyone was going to pry the big man’s secrets out of him, it was going to be the leggy but too-young blonde. She was the only person, the only thing, that had ever made Noah Booker soft, and again I wondered what had happened to send her running away from him and her home. She’d been persistent and he’d been kind to her and only her. Their dynamic had changed, and I would have liked to know the reason why things happened the way they did.

  “I know you guys said no cops, but I need to call Titus and let him know one of the goons that had her was on the job,” He sounded as tired as he looked, and I wasn’t sure if it was from the activities that transpired tonight or the fact that shit like this was commonplace in his life. He’d been shot twice in the short time I’d known him, and I couldn’t even begin to count on both my hands the number of times he’d shot someone else.

  “How do you know he was a cop? Was he in uniform?” Unable to stand the distance between me and the unconscious girl any longer, I lowered myself to the edge of the bed and lifted her limp hand into my own. Her fingernails were trashed. Her knuckles were split open and crusted over with scabs and dried blood. She had calluses on the pads of her fingers and on her palm. She was a fighter. There was no doubt about it.

  I hated the fact that she had to fight at all.

  Protective and possessive instincts coiled around my gut and rage felt like it was going to choke me. I was so used to being cold and numb, I didn’t know what to do with the fire that was licking at my insides.

  “I saw him take her out of the trunk when they got to the docks. He moved like a cop. Not the kind who is there to actually protect and serve, but the kind who pulls you over for no reason and slaps cuffs on you to prove a point. I was locked up for a lot of years, boy genius. I know what a dirty cop looks like. He had a busted-up nose and stitches on the side of his face. Should be pretty easy for Titus to identify him.”

  Titus King was Bax’s half-brother and the only law enforcement officer in the entire city any of us slightly trusted. He was one of the few men the Point hadn’t tainted. He was a good guy, trying to do right by the people in our city, and he wouldn’t hesitate to throw Goddard’s dirty cop under the bus. But I didn’t want anyone going after the Mayor. His sadistic ass was all mine.

  “Do you think they made it out of the container after you hit it with the truck?” That had been my idea. Nassir was only sending in Booker and Benny to get Noe out, but I didn’t think it was enough fire power. Since he refused to let me go, even siccing Chuck on me as a babysitter until the job was done, I made Benny go over the plan with me no less than a hundred times until I came up with a better one. Knocking the container sideways with one of the big semi-trucks that littered the area would give Benny the time he needed to get Noe out and distract the outside security detail enough that Booker could do his thing. It was a risk because the people inside the container—including Noe and Benny—might have ended up injured when the thing flipped, but the odds of them making it out were much higher than if Benny tried to take on everyone on his own.

  “If Benny made it out, we won’t hear from him again. That was the deal he made with Nassir. He would get your girl and then disappear, so he can go and live happily ever after with his. As for the rest of them,” he shrugged, “I guess we’ll find out soon enough. Your girl said someone had a gun, so if they were shooting at Benny, he would do whatever he could to make sure they stopped. He’s not about to catch a bullet for any of us. I know you want that asshole alive for your own reasons, but honestly, it’s better if Benny popped him.”

  It was better, but it wasn’t what I wanted. A bullet between the eyes was way too easy for a guy like Goddard. People would bemoan how bad the Point had become, how Goddard had been a staunch supporter of crime prevention measures. He would die a martyr and a legend. I couldn’t stand the thought of that. I wanted who Goddard was, who he really was, out in the open. I wanted his mansion doors flung wide open and every skeleton inside the walls exposed and thrown out on the perfectly manicured lawn for the entire world to see. I hated people who hid behind the law. I hated when men in any position of power got off on using their elevated status to jerk the helpless and hopeless around. Death wasn’t the answer. Devastation was.

  I closed my eyes and squeezed the cold, still hand that was clasped in mine. Failure weighed heavy on my shoulders and fury lit up my blood like popping and sizzling firecrackers.

  “When do we ever end up with anything that’s better for us?” That wasn’t how the Point worked. That wasn’t how we worked.

  Booker grunted and I felt him move behind me. “It happens. It doesn’t seem like better should be able to find a foothold in this place, but despite all odds, it does.”

  I lifted my head and looked at him over my shoulder. He was staring at the far wall, his thoughts obviously a million miles away from this room.

  “And sometimes we get
our hands on better and we don’t know what to do with it or how to take care of it, so we ruin it.”

  He shifted his gaze back to me and then let it drift over the still form in his bed. He gave a stiff nod and pushed off the wall. “Sometimes better is better off without this place and the people in it.” In that moment, I wasn’t sure if he was talking about the situation with Noe or something that had nothing to do with Goddard’s proclivities toward his stepdaughter. At the door, he paused and quickly switched the subject to something less soul wrenching and about as normal as anything ever got in the Point, “I’m gonna go order a pizza and pour myself a drink. You want anything?”

  I shook my head, unwilling to leave Noe alone until she opened her eyes. “I’m good.”

  Booker snorted, “No, you’re not, and you aren’t going to do your girl any good if you end up flat on your face, boy genius. If Goddard made it out alive, this is just the beginning. He’s going to come after you and your girl with everything he’s got.”

  I was going to tell him that was exactly what I wanted. It was much better to play offense with guys like Goddard than it was to be forced into a defensive position. I wanted him to come after me. Guys like him thought prestige and money equaled ultimate power, but they had no idea that information was the ultimate weapon in today’s wars. I didn’t get a chance to reply, because a weak and barely audible, “I’m not his girl. Not anyone’s girl,” drifted up from the cocoon of black covers.

  Noe’s fingers twitched in my hold so I forced myself to gently place her hand back on the bed. Booker made his way over and took a spot next to me as we both gazed down at the girl I was willing to rip the world apart for. This was a lot to process for a guy who was used to being numb.

  She blinked up at both of us, licked her lips, and let her eyes rove around the very masculine and darkly decorated loft. “Can I get a glass of water? My mouth feels like it’s full of cotton.”

  Booker growled an agreement and disappeared out the door behind me. I couldn’t pull my gaze away from her midnight-colored one. I was so glad she was awake. So glad she was here right now and not in the ground. Letting out a sigh that felt like it escaped from the very bottom of my soul, I leaned forward and let my head hit the edge of the bed. My hands curled into fists where they rested on top of my thighs and I could feel some of the tension that had been coiled tightly at the base of my neck release. Maybe now that she was awake, I could put a lid back on everything that was threatening to erupt out of me. I needed my control back. I needed my reason and rationale pushed to the forefront so I could help her. I didn’t have the time or luxury to work my way through everything else.

  “You’re awake.” For a guy who usually had no tolerance for asinine observations, it was all I could think of to say. I owed her an apology. I owed her so much more, but I figured it could wait until she had her strength back and could tell me to shove it.

  “Appears so. I don’t remember passing out. Where am I?” The bed moved as she tried to push herself up into a sitting position. I lifted my head just in time to see a wince of pain tug her delicate features into a fierce frown.

  I reached out to help her and bit back a litany of swear words when she flinched away from me and held up a hand in warning not to touch her. I couldn’t blame her. I deserved that, but it still stung. “You’re at Booker’s place. He lives right by the docks. This place is a fortress since Race Hartman lives a few floors up with his woman. It was close when you passed out, and since it’s practically impenetrable, it seemed like the best option at the time.” I pulled my glasses off my face and rubbed my eyes hard enough to cause double vision for a second. “We had a doctor come and check you out, Noe. He said everything that’s wrong with you will heal with time and care.”

  She dipped her chin and looked at her abused wrists and hands. “I figured none of it was bad enough to kill me. The Mayor wanted me alive so I could tell him where Julia and the baby are.”

  I blew out a breath and put my glasses back on so that she was in focus when I quietly asked her, “Do you need the doc to come back and do a sexual assault exam? I couldn’t give him the go ahead when you were knocked out. That felt like something you should consent to.”

  She lifted a dark eyebrow in my direction and grimaced at the motion. She lifted her fingers to her forehead and closed her eyes. “He doesn’t need to come back.”

  I gritted my teeth and pushed to my feet so I could continue my pacing. I put a hand to the back of my neck and rubbed at the stiffness that still lingered there, wanting clarification but dreading the rationale of why she didn’t want the doctor to return. “Do you not need him to come back because nothing happened, or because you don’t want anyone to know what went down while you were being held captive?”

  God, I hoped it was the first, but if it was the second, I was going to respect her wishes and let the subject drop. Noe only gave what she wanted someone else to have. Nothing more, nothing less.

  She sighed and rolled her eyes so that she was looking up at the ceiling, “Nothing happened, Stark. One of the guys, the cop who grabbed me from your neighborhood, had busy hands, but that’s it. I made it clear if any of them forced themselves on me, I would make the girl disappear. They had no idea that I don’t know where she is.”

  I stopped moving long enough to stare at her in a mixture of shock and awe. “You don’t know where she is?”

  She shook her head slightly, her colorful hair falling into her dark eyes. “I never know. It’s safer that way. I use recording software and a dictation program that can pick out keywords and form an intelligent response from a prompt. I was never checking in with Julia, but they didn’t know that.”

  Smart. She was so fucking smart. It made something heavy throb in the center of my chest and the fit of my jeans a little bit tighter. Biting back a hum of appreciation at her brilliance and boldness, I plowed my fingers through my hair and looked at her through the glass that covered my eyes. Lenses were made to bring things into sharp focus when, in reality, her brilliance and overwhelming calm clarified things better than any refractive lens could.

  “I should have offered to help.” The words were wrenched out of me, broken and twisted with remorse. I was so tired of making mistakes. I was supposed to be a genius, brilliant, and above basic human pitfalls, but they kept happening. I kept tripping over the right thing like I couldn’t even see it.

  She made a strangled noise low in her throat and lowered her inky lashes so that her eyes and her secrets were hidden from my prying gaze. “You don’t know me. We aren’t friends. I stole your stuff and don’t feel even slightly bad about it. You were my last resort, Snowden. I was disappointed but not surprised you sent me on my way. People don’t like to get involved.”

  I fought a reaction to her use of my real name and shook my head at her. “No one calls me that.”

  “Snowden? It’s your name, isn’t it?” She lifted both her eyebrows this time then hissed out a breath between her teeth when it obviously caused her some serious discomfort. She rubbed her fingers across the bridge of her nose and continued to watch me.

  “It is, but it’s stupid. Snowden Stark sounds like a character straight out of Game of Thrones. I’ve always been Stark.” It was too flashy, too whimsical for a guy who had nothing human and living on the inside.

  “I like Snowden. Snow and Noe. We rhyme.” Her mouth kicked up in a lopsided grin and I could see that her jet-colored eyes were a little glassy and slightly out of focus.

  “You have a concussion. You won’t think our names sound that cute together once your head is healed up.” I doubted she was going to want any part of her attached to any part of me once she was back in fighting form.

  Booker came back with a big glass of water and a couple of painkillers that she gladly took. She gazed up at the big man with genuine gratitude as she told him softly, “Thank you for getting me out of there and bringing me somewhere safe.”

  Booker shrugged one of his massive shoulders a
nd slapped me on the back. “Thank the boy genius. It was his plan and his insistence that we get you out. I only do the heavy lifting and the point and shoot. Are you hungry? I was gonna order pizza.”

  She put a hand over her stomach as it growled her response. “I guess so. Once I get cleaned up and the room stops spinning, I’ll get out of your hair. You don’t want me here if Goddard made it out of that showdown alive.”

  Booker waved her off and pulled a cell phone out of his back pocket. “Don’t rush it. This is as good a place as any for you to get back on your feet. No one gets in or out without security’s permission, and that includes Goddard. In fact, there’s an empty unit across the hall. You might want to see if Race is up for letting you use it as a hideout until you have a handle on this situation.”

  She muttered, “I can’t afford that,” at the exact same time I agreed, “That’s a great idea.”

  He let out a whistle and slipped out of the room, his phone pressed to his ear.

  Noe and I stared at each other, her eyes searching and mine assessing. She sighed and broke eye contact. “I asked for your help, Stark. Not for you to take care of me. I’ve been on my own for a long time. The only person I ever count on to show up when I need something is me.”

  I inclined my chin at her to silently let her know that was probably a smart move on her part. Nothing and no one in the Point was very reliable.

  “You need to be somewhere safe until we figure out what players remain in the game. No one will look for you here and Race will let me have the apartment for free. He still owes me from when I helped him figure out someone was digitally spying on his girlfriend.”

  “And if Goddard is still out there? He’s not going to let this slide. He still wants the girl and he’s going to want payback for the way things went down tonight.”

  I grunted and turned my back on her so she couldn’t see the rage and uncontrollable hunger for revenge that overtook me. “Goddard isn’t your problem anymore. He never should have been your problem in the first place. You worry about getting better. I’ll take care of the rest.” Like I should have when she showed up on my doorstep.