"Lenny?" he asked.
Will Trent stood outside the Ponce de Leon Avenue apartment, the familiar smell of damp concrete and cheap air freshener hitting him like a poorly landed punch. He didn't need to knock. The door was slightly ajar, a sliver of low, golden light spilling into the hallway.
Will closed the door behind him. The deadbolt clicked with a sound of finality. He didn't sit. He learned long ago that sitting next to Angie on a bad night was like sitting in a fire. You’d get burned, and you’d thank her for the warmth. will trent angie
Will pulled out his handkerchief—crisp, white, absurdly neat—and gently began to clean the blood from her hands. He didn't say he loved her. That word was too small and too large all at once. Instead, he said the only thing that mattered in that room, at that hour.
For a while, there was only the sound of the old building settling and the distant wail of a siren on Ponce. Angie reached out and touched the scar on his cheek—the one shaped like a question mark, the one he never talked about. Her fingertip was cold and trembling. "Lenny
Angie’s hand dropped. For a second, the mask slipped—not the tough-girl mask, but the one underneath. The one that was just a scared, broken kid from the Home who never learned how to be loved without being hurt first.
He pushed it open. Angie Polaski was on the floor, her back against the wall, a half-empty bottle of Johnnie Walker Black between her thighs. She wasn't crying. Angie never cried where anyone could see. But her left eye was swollen shut, a split lip had dried to a mosaic of purple and black, and her knuckles were raw, skinned clean. The door was slightly ajar, a sliver of
He didn't move. He reached over, took the bottle from her, and set it aside. Then he took her raw, bloody knuckles in his hands—his large, careful hands that could pick a lock or cradle a newborn—and held them.