“When I told you some of the specifics about what Pantera does for a living. You didn’t know it, but when you heard it, you didn’t freak.”

This was confusing.

“Why would I freak?”

He hesitated for a second before he said, “If you don’t know, not sure I should tell you.”

“No, tell me.” I twisted fully to him. “Why would I freak?”

“The man doesn’t ride a desk, Hattie,” he replied carefully.

“I know,” I told him. “I also know he barely knew Ryn, he heard her scream when your guys took her…”

Brett’s face tightened with remorse in the streetlights.

I carried on.

“…and he raced after her and got in a firefight to save her.”

“My men were under orders, no collateral damage,” he declared.

I shook my head. “That’s not the point I’m making. The point I’m making is, he’s the type of man who, split second, charges in to save a woman from something he doesn’t even know the fullness of what was happening. Just that she screamed. He doesn’t have the job he has because he’s a man who has the skills and experience for that job. He got the skills and experience to get that job because he’s the man he is.”

Brett said nothing, but he didn’t take his eyes from me.

And for some reason, I felt compelled to keep talking.

“You know, I understand I’m messed up about my dad. Maybe a stronger person would cut him out of their life and move on. But part of that being messed up is not that I don’t get what he did to me and the fact that what he did to me wasn’t about me. It was about him. He wasn’t a failed Baryshnikov. But whatever it was, he wasn’t happy in his life, and he took that out on me, because it’s all about him. He’s my father, but if he heard me scream, I don’t think he’d charge after me. He’d probably call the police. But he wouldn’t charge after me. Even being around Axl a bit here and there, and this whole thing lasting what seems like a long time, I don’t know Axl very well. But I know that. And right now, that’s all I really need to know.”

“Agreed,” Brett said softly.