"Toby, I think those words suit you a lot better than they suit me."
"Or have the good times lasted so long that you've forgotten what it was like, crawling through garbage heaps looking for scraps?"
Toby had grown up in the slums.
He was thirteen when I found him.
Dressed in rags, hunched over a pile of trash, picking through it for something to eat.
I handed him the rest of my bread.
He snatched it and crammed it into his mouth in two bites, barely chewing.
I turned to leave.
But Toby dropped to his knees and grabbed the leg of my pants, clinging to it with both hands.
I felt sorry for him. So I took him home.
I paid for everything, all the way through college.
After he graduated, I got him a position at the company as Fay's personal assistant.
I never imagined that one moment of compassion would be the very thing that dragged me into hell.
A wolf is a wolf. No amount of kindness will tame it.
The person I'd given everything to was the same person who buried the knife deepest in my back.
Like so many people who forget where they came from once they make it.
Those years in the slums.
For Toby.
They were forbidden territory.
A past he never wanted anyone to mention.
His face twisted in an instant. He looked like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, fur standing on end. He jabbed a finger at me and screamed.
"You piece of trash! You want to die?!"
"A broke nobody like you doesn't get to bring up my past!"
"Keep talking and I'll cut your tongue out and feed it to the dogs!"
I watched him lose control, and that cold smile stayed right where it was.
"Cut my tongue out?"
"You really think you have what it takes?"
"Try not to go running back to hide in your woman's arms and cry about it."
"You..."
Toby choked on his own rage, finger still pointed at me, unable to get a single word out.
His face cycled between white and red.
It was the shame and fury of a man whose truth had been ripped wide open.
"Duke Gilbert, you're a dead man today."
Toby locked his eyes on me, and the look in them was pure venom.
The atmosphere in the restaurant shifted in an instant.
The noisy private dining room went dead silent, quiet enough to hear a pin drop.
The way everyone looked at me changed too.
Like they were watching a fool who'd just signed his own death warrant.
Everyone knew Toby Weiss was Fay Galloway's favorite, her most treasured pet.