CHAPTER 13 (4)

“How about thanking your lucky stars that we’re not asking you to pay back the commissions you stole?” Russ blinked, swallowed, looked at the floor. Then, as if he saw it written down there how much worse things could get, he looked up and said two very simple words, “Thank you.” It was only after the door closed behind the now shrunken and sweaty man that Darius thought again of Nathalie. Finally, his fists relaxed. He hadn’t pounded on the guy. He hadn’t even humiliated him. He’d simply pointed out the facts. It was a far cry from the boy he’d once been. Perseus slapped him on the back as he rose to pour himself a cup of coffee from the pot no one had touched yet. “Something tells me that’s the last we’ll ever hear from Russ. He won’t want to have to slink back around any of us with his tail between his legs. Good job, guys. We were brilliant.” “Right,” Ares said. “Brilliant like all the crap we used to pull when we were teenagers.” 





“Speak for yourself,” Perseus shot back. But Ares was right; they’d all had their less than stellar moments back then. Though Darius' were worse than the rest. “And you—” Perseus nodded at Darius. “—didn’t even tear him to pieces with your bare hands.” It was meant as a joke, but Darius felt the truth of it. That was how he used to do things. Talked with his fists. Back when he was a kid, he’d thought that was how he’d always be. But he’d held it together today—kept things above board rather than dragging his ex-employee into the back alley and teaching him a lesson street-style. “No Black Knight justice today, I guess.” Even from the video screen, Argus' smile was wide, as he put into words what Darius had just been thinking. 





“Come to think of it,” Hector said, as the one who knew best what Darius was capable of, “I can’t actually remember you knocking anyone’s block off in twenty years.” For all his fears, Darius was surprised to realize Hector was right. Even though fighting had once been all Darius knew, he hadn’t resorted to violence in two decades. He’d actually kept his cool with Russ today. And while that had felt pretty damn good—if something ever happened to Nathalie or Zion, Darius couldn’t imagine how he’d be able to keep from tearing apart the people who had hurt them… The guys all razzed him about the Black Knight, but they’d each had their own way of dealing with the old neighborhood. Ares hid out with the library computers, sucked into his circle of numbers and equations. Hector loved his universe of books and gadgets. 





Perseus got by on the power of persuasion and charm. And Argus used his hands, not to fight, but to build things. Darius was the only one who’d chosen a gang. Even after Sally and George had taken him in, he had still straddled those two worlds for years. The Baddricks versus the Black Knight. He’d thought the gang was his family—at least, as long as he stole cars, won drag races, used his fists—and kept his mouth shut when they did stuff he hated. Don’t step into the middle of someone else’s business. He’d understood their rules and he knew where he fit in—the kid with the good eye who wasn’t afraid to go really fast. But with the Montefalco and his new non Black Knight friends... 





He hadn’t been able to believe a good family could actually want him. So he’d kept screwing up, and screwing up, and screwing up. Until one screw up had been bad enough to finally set him straight. Or at least as straight as it could, when fighting his way out of problems was still fundamentally in his bones. “You were different today.” Ares caught the mug of coffee Argus slid across the table to him. “It’s Nathalie, isn’t it?” It was the very thought of Nathalie that had helped him keep himself in check. “You’ve been holding out on us,” Argus added from the other side of the country. “Ares tells us there’s a new lady in your life.” 





Darius had never had a lady in his life. He’d had women he dated, women he slept with. But there’d never been anyone like Nathalie. The Baddricks knew everything about him, from the day they’d met when he was in the sixth grade to the time he moved in with Sally and George at thirteen, to the night the Black Knight imploded. They’d been there for everything in between and all the changes that had come in the two years after that. The truth was that they’d become his family in a way the Black Knight had never been. 





Which was why, even though Darius hadn’t yet gotten used to the idea of not only wanting Nathalie, but needing her, too, in a way he’d never needed anyone else, he found himself telling his closest friends the same thing he’d told Sally. “She’s special.” So special that even if he didn’t deserve her...he still couldn’t make himself walk away. Nathalie’s nerves were at an all-time high the following Saturday as she drove up Darius' driveway with Zion grinning like crazy in the passenger seat. “I’ve been waiting all week to come back here,” he said. And the problem was, so had she. Because Darius had gotten under her skin. Big time.