CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Grayson

I finish shaving and pull on the navy-blue suit jacket with a light blue pinstripe which Mia insisted I wear because it’s her favorite. I stare at it in the mirror and only then do I admit just how much I missed the hell out of all the little things, like her choosing my suit, and I’m not sure I let myself admit just how much until now when she’s back. I couldn’t. I’d have lost my fucking mind and I was already hanging on a ledge and bloodied as it was.

The doorbell rings and she rushes out of the closet in a pair of sweats and a T-shirt with no bra, her nipples puckering from underneath. “My hair isn’t dry,” she says. “Damn it, I’m behind.”

“You also aren’t wearing a bra, so stay the hell here. Finish up. I want to talk to Blake anyway.”

She looks down at her nipples and back up at me. “Do you really think I’d go out there like this?”

I cross the room and pull her to me. “I’m feeling a little territorial this morning.”

“Why? You do remember what I just did to you, right?”

“With crystal clear clarity that will distract me frequently,” I assure her. “But right now, I’m deciding if you go back to Ri or not.”

Her eyes go wide. “Back to Ri?” Anger flares in her eyes. “Grayson, damn it—”

I kiss her soundly on the lips. “I’m sorry, baby. I told you. I’m feeling territorial this morning. I know you were never with him. I just need to get past today and get you back home with me.”

Her hand flattens over my heart. “I’ll be back home with you and not soon enough for me.” She pushes to her toes and kisses me. “I’ll wait here until you’re ready for me and if you don’t feel good about today, we’ll figure out what to do.”

I cover her wet hair with my hand and kiss her again, but this time, it’s a deep, drink-her-in kiss. “I love you, baby,” I say, knowing damn well she wants to fight me over today but she knows me enough to know that now isn’t the time to do that. Mia was right when she said she saves our fights for private moments, and as the doorbell rings again, we’re both reminded that this isn’t one of them.

“I’ll come get you,” I say, releasing her and heading for the other room.

By the time I’m at the front door, tension is radiating like a pulse down my spine. I open the door and Eric arches a brow at my slow response but like Mia, he and I have a history and not just with each other, with Ri, too. We all went to school together for a year before Eric changed schools and then went into the military. Now, years after leaving his family fortune behind, Eric is my best friend, confidant, and damn near a billionaire, by his own making.

I back up and allow him to enter. Adam and a brunette female in a skirt and blouse follow with Blake on their heels. Blake stops to talk to me as I shut the door. The rest of the group follows Eric into the apartment. “Who’s the woman?” I ask.

“My wife, Kara, who’s ex-FBI. We arranged to have her sent to Ri’s office as a temp today. She’s reporting to Mia’s floor and I promise you this, she’s lethal. I was undercover when she met me. She thought I was the enemy and she drugged me and left me flat on my ass. Not a moment I’m proud of but the point is, she knows how to get the job done.”

“Or you don’t,” I counter.

He laughs. “Fuck, man, you had to take the shot, right?”

“Had to,” I assure him.

His eyes meet mine. “As an added bonus, you know that the thing I cherish most in this world is with your woman.”

“Keep talking,” I say.

“We can’t know that Ri didn’t have Mia followed. He could know she was with you this weekend. I couldn’t send Mia in there without knowing I had someone who would kill for her within reach. And Kara would.”

“How much risk do you think there is to Mia?”

“I dug up enough on Ri to know that he’s capable of just about anything.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning he didn’t scrub his data as far back as he should have. Five years ago, he was communicating with a mob affiliate named Rosemond, a man whose people will kill, smear, wound, and repeat for the right price, and he was doing it to win a case. You don’t use someone like that guy and not have a really nasty side yourself and you don’t connect yourself to Rosemond and walk away. I don’t trust Ri. I don’t want Mia near him, and yes, I considered telling you to pull her out of this completely.”

“But you aren’t. Why?”

“Pulling her abruptly doesn’t just get Ri’s attention and get him accelerating his efforts to take you down. It places attention on her. I’m going to tell you a story I tell very few and while some might consider it a poorly timed story, I do not, and I’ll explain why after I tell it. Before Kara, I was engaged. I was undercover and so was Whitney, my fiancée. The man, the leader of a drug cartel, not only figured out I was ATF, he figured out that Whitney was everything to me. He killed her and she bled out in my arms.”

His confession punches me in the chest and I turn away from him, pressing my hand on the door, a reaction I wouldn’t normally allow anyone to see, but, “Fuck, Blake,” I murmur, forcing myself back off that wall and to face him. “Tell me you killed him.”

“That’s a long, complicated story, but do you get what I’m telling you?”

“If he believes she’s back with me, he’ll see her as a weapon to use against me. I’m crystal clear on the point you’ve made. You better fucking protect her.”

“I will,” he replies.

I look up to find Kara standing a few feet away. “I’ll protect her,” she says. “I need to talk to her and help her with the wire. I need to come up with a plan of action for every possible scenario and Adam is working as a janitor in the building. He’ll be right there with us.”

I have to let Mia go to Ri today and it’s killing me, but I’ll never be captive like this again. I turn to Blake. “Make this count. Let me repeat what I told Adam, just to be clear. End him. I don’t mean dead. That’s too good for him. I want him to self-destruct. I want him to lose everything.”

“And he will,” Blake promises, “but you need to be removed from the process. It can’t be about you, and my reason is this: If he’s in bed with these gangsters I’ve connected him to and you take him down, you hurt their bank account. You don’t want to cut the head off a snake to watch it grow another. You get the two of them fighting and they forget about you.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “Where are you going with this?”

“We make sure Ri pisses off Rosemond. While Ri is playing defense, we make sure law enforcement raids his office on a matter related to Rosemond and just happen to find proof he set you up.”

“What proof?” I ask.

“That’s the hole,” Blake says. “We need proof.”

“Adam and Kara will place bugs in and around his office,” Blake says. “But the only one who may be able to get close enough to Ri, to get real proof, is Mia. We need to know what role you want her to play.”

“Mia’s going to do her job and keep Ri in his happy zone. You get the damn proof yourself. That’s what I’m paying you for.” I start walking, pissed off that he just suggested Mia put herself on the line at all after he just told me about Whitney being murdered. “You want to meet Mia, Kara, come now.”

I don’t wait on her. I keep tracking forward and when I reach the bedroom she’s on my heels. “Whatever you think Blake just suggested,” Kara says. “He didn’t.”

I turn to face her. “It sounded like he wants Mia to fuck her way to finding that proof for me.”

“No,” Kara says. “He just asked your decision on her involvement. Everyone is not you. Everyone doesn’t put their woman before themselves. That you do only makes me want to help you and protect her all the more. Blake feels the same, I promise you.”

“Protect Mia above all else. I don’t care if I rot in jail for crimes I didn’t commit. Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” Kara says. “I do. I’ll protect Mia. You have my word.” Her eyes lift to my shoulder and I realize then that Mia has opened the door.