Page 5 of Dane

“You want to do this now?” I asked softly, careful to keep my voice as even as I could. “Or wait until you’ve had a minute?”

Dane stepped past the door, putting more space between us. “How long did you have it?” he asked. “The evidence. Enough to clear me.”

I didn’t flinch. “I had some of it five years ago. Eighteen months ago, I found the biggest part of the damming stuff.”

“Eighteen months.” He spoke it like a verdict. “And you waited until last night to use it.”

“I’m not making excuses,” I said, “but yes. That’s exactly what I did.”

He snorted, disgust plain. “A year and a half, Brielle. What was the plan? Just let me twist a little longer? Or did you not trust your own numbers?”

My fingers dug into my forearms. “It wasn’t about the numbers. I --” I cut myself off, searching for the right version of the truth. “I kept thinking there had to be a more… responsible way to fix it. A way that wouldn’t blow back on everyone I knew. That maybe I could take it to the regulators, or an outside attorney, or even the bank board. But everywhere I ran it, the thread went right back to Sutton. There wasn’t a route that didn’t put a target on my back.”

He shook his head, the motion slow and heavy. “You were the Goddamn star witness. You were the only one they needed.”

“I know.” I met his eyes, held them. “He told me that over and over. I was the nobody who could be an asset or a liability. Assets got nice jobs, liabilities didn’t last long.”

Dane let out a short, bitter laugh. “I think you just wanted to keep your own little comfortable life. You wanted your career. Your little corner office.”

I didn’t answer. Because, though he made it sound way better than it felt for me, he gave me a fair assessment. I suppose if extenuating circumstances were taken into account, Dane wouldn’t have gone to prison. So, did I really deserve to claim them myself?

“Don’t you dare look away.” He took a step closer, voice low but more dangerous for how steady it stayed. I couldn’t help but flinch as I obeyed him. “Twelve years. You get that? All because you wanted to be so Goddamn useful to Sutton that you let him keep you on a string. All because you were scared. For twelve fuckin’ years.”

I nodded slightly, ashamed of my cowardice but tired of making excuses for myself. “Yes.”

He stared at me and it took every ounce of courage I had to hold his gaze and not look away. He deserved to look me in the eyes if that’s what he wanted. I didn’t know what he waited for, but I really had nothing left to give him. My reasons didn’t matter any more now than they had then. My actions cost Dane more than I’d ever be able to repay him. When I just stood there, he gave me a pissed off look all over again.

“You know what’s funny,” he said, and now his voice did something I hadn’t heard from him before. It wasn’t loud, but it shook. “The first three years I figured you must have gotten something out of it. A bonus, a job, a new life. I pictured you out there living a merry life while I was in a fuckin’ cell trying to keep from pissing off the wrong shot caller or taking anything to a gang member to avoid having to pay for shit my body couldn’t cash. I wanted to hate you for everything I went through.”

“Did you?” The words came out before I could think.

His mouth twisted in some kind of angry humor. Probably at the irony. “No. Because I couldn’t stop thinking about that night and how you were so scared you couldn’t even talk.” He stopped, jaw clenched so tight it trembled. “You weren’t a liar, Brielle. Not then. And maybe not now. I’d like to think that, in your position, I wouldn’t let an innocent man go to prison, but I’m also not so big a monster I don’t understand how extreme situations make normal people do extreme things just to survive.” When I opened my mouth to say something, he cut me off. “I don’t care what those situations were. What I do care about is that you waited so long to do anything once you had all the information. Why wait a year and a Goddamned half?”

I held his gaze and felt a tear spill down my cheek but ignored it. “Because I’m a coward.” He jerked like I’d hit him but didn’t respond. Even as the panic crawled in my chest, all the fear and anxiety I’d carried with me, unable to run, unable to trust anyone around me, I owed him the stark truth as I saw it. And take whatever condemnation he dished out to me. “I’m not asking you to understand or forgive, or anything else you want to call it. You wanted to know how long I had the last piece of the information. Now you know.”

He came a step closer. I braced for yelling, but he just let his hands hang at his sides. “Bullshit. You’re here because you want something.”

I forced myself to not look away, past the tightness in my throat and the threatened tears. “What could I possibly want from you?”

He didn’t answer right away. “I’m not sure. But I’ll figure it out. When I do, it will be my greatest pleasure to deny you for at least, oh, maybe a year and a half?”

I didn’t flinch. “I wouldn’t blame you.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face and paced the hall a few steps like a caged animal. I imagined that exact motion while he was behind bars.

When he finally spoke, it was through clenched teeth, his anger visible in every line of his body. “You know what my mother told me once when she finally decided I was a lost cause? She said I should stop blaming everyone else for the fact that I fucked up. She said as a kid, I was always looking for someone to blame for my mistakes. Said it was the only trait I took after my father and the very reason she left the bastard before I was born.”

He took a step back, still holding my gaze, but not looking so threatening now. Through it all, I stood there. Sure, I flinched, and I knew another tear escaped, but I would stand there and take what he dished out without complaint.

“The point is, I made every decision that landed me in that cell. No one forced me to do anything. I took the job. I got in with that bunch knowing it was a stupid idea. But I also wasn’t in the Goddamned bank during that robbery, and I didn’t participate in any of the planning. I was in my van outside as their getaway. It was my fault for not trying harder to find out the risks or even what exactly would go down, but I also didn’t do anything other than drive the van. If I’d known they were going to take down a fucking bank, I’d have gotten the fuck outta Dodge and never looked back.”

Again, he paused. I got the feeling he was venting and just needed to say his piece. I’d stand there and take everything he wanted to give me. For a long moment, he said nothing. Then his shoulders dropped a little. “If you’re looking for peace, you’re not going to find it here.”

I shook my head. “I don’t deserve peace from this. I made my own mess and there’s no fixing it.”

He studied me for a long while, not seeming to like what he saw. “What about revenge?”

“On who? I’m the one in the wrong.”