They Made Me Run On a Broken Leg. Don Had My Back novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Thirty Feet

He came home after midnight with dirt on his shoes and his left hand wrapped in a dish towel.

I was waiting at the kitchen table with every light on.

Luca had gone to bed an hour earlier and told me not to ask.

I asked anyway.

"Is your hand all right?"

"It's a wall," Damiano said. "I hit it."

"Your cousin?"

"They've taken him home to his mother."

He said it in his flat, even way, and I saw what it cost him.

I almost left it.

Then I thought of the road, the heat coming up through my sandal and the man's boots slapping behind me in no hurry at all.

"I need to ask you something," I said.

"Not tonight."

"Tonight. You told the detectives nothing and told me nothing about Fulton Street, and I want to know."

He put the towel on the counter.

"Ask."

"You had men chasing me. You were in the car behind them."

"I was."

"How long did you watch me run before you stopped them?"

The kitchen went quiet.

"Moira."

"Thirty feet," I said. "That's how far I got before I fell. You were there after, and you were angry for me, and I let myself feel safe for it. How much of that distance were you still in the car?"

His eyes held mine.

"Most of it," he said.

I had wanted him to lie.

I realized that, sitting there with my hands flat on the table.

I had wanted a gentle lie so I could stand up and kiss him.

"You let them run me down."

"I let them follow you. I thought you were running at them for the Hourigans. I thought you were bait, or a decoy, or someone they'd planted." His voice stayed low and level, and it did not shake. "I didn't see the frame until you went down."

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