Page 37 of Duke

“Listen up, Fancy. Not everyone was born with a silver spoon, okay?” I stopped and faced her. “I didn’t have a famous mom and dad to put everything in my hands. I never knew my dad, and my mom was literally a crack-whore. Meaning I was born addicted to crack and shouldn’t have survived, but I did. You know who didn’t survive? My mom. I found her OD’d when I was six. Came home from school one day and there she was, passed out on the couch like usual. Only, she wasn’t just passed out, she was fuckin’ dead. That’s howmylife started. So yeah, I was a drug dealer by the time I was ten, pimping by fourteen, and pushing kilos by the time I was seventeen. Acriminal.I was dirty, and violent, and mean. I was a piece of shit, is what I was. Is that what you wanted to hear, Fancy?”

I was in her face, fuming, teeth gritted. And she was cowering away, frightened.

“No,” she whispered. “I didn’t—I mean…I didn’t mean—”

I pivoted away, scrubbing the side of my jaw. “I know you didn’t.”

I grabbed her arm and hauled her back into a fast walk. And she let me, for all of a hundred steps, and then she yanked her arm free, and then it was her turn to stop facing me.

“You what? Fuck you.” She stabbed her finger into my chest. “I didn’t ask to be born to rich parents. I didn’t ask for the life I have. It’s all I know—all I’veeverknown. And what, I’m supposed to apologize for my easy life because yours has been shitty?Fuckyou.”

“No, you don’t choose the life you’re born into, and no, you don’t have to apologize for yours. But you don’t get to give me that look, the one that’s all pitying anddisapprovingbecause I spent the first half of my life surviving the only way I knew how.”

“It wasn’t pity!” Temple shot back. “Or disapproval.”

“The fuck it wasn’t. I know what that shit looks and sounds like, okay? Someone finds out how I grew up, they give me that same look.”

“Compassion and pity aren’t the same thing, Duke,” Temple said.

“Yeah, well…I don’t need either.” I pushed past her, stomping back into an angry walk. “Not from you, not from anyone.”

Stupid shit was, I didn’t even really know why I was so pissed. I hated talking about my life pre-Army, hated telling anyone about it because I always got the same sappy bullshit pity. But this, the blind, unreasoning anger I was feeling, it was more than that—I just wasn’t sure what it was. I didn’t like it, though. I didn’t like emotions I didn’t understand, which is why I avoided situations that might involve emotions, because I didn’t understand most emotions.

Emotions were hard. Fucking, fighting, drinking, breaking down doors and clearing rooms and rescuing people, I understood that. It was easy.

This…wasn’t. Temple wasn’t easy, and I didn’t mean easy as in loose, easy to get into bed, but rather…she was just…difficult. She was hard to understand, and worse, she made me feel like shit and I wasn’t sure how or why she did it, but she did and it pissed me off.

But even all that wasn’t why I was so pissed off.

I kept walking, stopping to glance back at Temple now and again, making sure she was still behind me. She was staying a few paces, power walking to keep up with my long legs, and looking equal parts pissed off, confused, and hurt.

Which didn’t help.

I was trying to push all this emotional horseshit away so I could focus on the real problem at hand: getting away from Cain’s dickheads, and getting in touch with Harris and Thresh and the boys. I’d been out of communication for a while, which was unusual for me, especially when it came to Thresh. He and I were always in contact, so I knew if he didn’t hear from me soon, he’d start to worry.

Then, being mentally preoccupied, I nearly got us both killed.

A big black Tahoe zipped past us, which wasn’t a big deal; they were a common kind of truck. When the SUV hit the brakes and swung a smoking-tire U-turn, that was a big deal. Problem came when I was too caught up in my own mental bullshit to register that maybe they were making a U-turn because of me. I missed that little signal.

The Tahoe burned rubber, bolted back the way they’d come, and then cut in toward the sidewalk.

Toward Temple.

And that was when my head cleared enough for me to jump into action.

“Temple! Duck!” I shouted.

I hauled at the Beretta, palm slapping over my trigger hand to brace myself. I cracked off two shots, one round fragmenting the rear driver’s side window and the other plugging into the door beneath it. The truck kept going, hitting the brakes and sliding to a halt a dozen feet away from Temple, who had, as I’d instructed, hit the sidewalk and was hunkering with her hands over her head. I probably should have told her to run, but I’d been more worried about accidentally shooting her if she moved the wrong direction.

And now the driver’s door was opening, as were the doors on the passenger side. The rear driver’s side door stayed closed, which meant I’d probably taken out at least one. Still, I had a feeling I was about to be outnumbered and outgunned, and Temple was in the middle, a good fifteen feet away.

I popped off a shot at the body emerging from the driver’s door; I hit him I wasn’t sure where, but I knew I’d hit him because blood spattered and his feet slipped and he slumped to the ground. Not dead, but out of the fight. I was running, obviously, and ten feet hadn’t ever felt so far. It felt like I was running in place, not quite able to cross the distance between me and Temple, not quite able to put myself between her and the bad guys.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I let my pistol do the talking, cracking off another two shots at the partially broken rear window, shattering it completely and breaking the window on the other side, making way for the second round, which—through sheer luck, found a target. The dumbass was just standing there, as if the window was going to stop a bullet. My round caught him in the shoulder, sent him spinning and clutching the wound, and I sent another bullet his way, which hit him in the face and dropped him. Two down.

I reached Temple, crouched in front of her, waiting. “Stay down,” I hissed, and she nodded under her hands.