Chapter 35 Macy
MACY
My feet ache with every step I take as I limp back to the sedan. The pain has nothing on my frantic pulse. What the hell just happened? I looked at Grayson more than I should have, but not enough to warrant Cameron’s rampage.
Thank God I trusted my intuition. While Grayson showered, I got a ton of micro cameras ready for imminent deployment. Cameron’s house is wired to the hilt with surveillance, and I have a laptop in the back seat of the sedan.
I hiss as I slip into the passenger seat. The cuts on my feet are my fault. I was trained to view every situation through the eyes of an agent, to keep my emotions in check and only display them when aiming to fool a target.
But watching Grayson kiss Cameron contradicted all the teachings I received.
The glass slipped from my hand and shattered on the tiled floor as brutally as my heart cracked into a million pieces. I couldn’t feel the shards digging into my feet. The pain in my chest was too high for a little cut to discount.
The way Grayson took care of me and protected me has me desperate for him to know the truth about Cameron. He needs all the facts laid out in front of him before he slips back into a version of his past I’m not sure ever truly existed.
Your memory plays tricks on you when you’ve suffered a loss. You remember the good and hide the bad because you don’t want anything to hinder the investigation into your loved one.
I’m not lying because I want Grayson for myself. If you can tell me the name of one agent who has admitted to searching the ends of the earth for the vigilante who took down a mass murderer instead of waiting for the authorities to do their job, I will forfeit my bid for his heart immediately.
That’s how confident I am that you won’t find one.
We only pursue those cases because we have to, not because we want to.
After dumping my shoes next to my aching feet, I reach into the back seat for my laptop. I would rather be with Grayson in Cameron’s apartment, but protecting him remotely is a suitable alternative.
I boot up my laptop, and when it fires up, my fingers move at the speed of light. The surveillance feeds flicker to life only seconds later, and I catch the tail end of Grayson and Cameron’s argument.
The audio is patchy, but the video is clear. Cameron’s face is contorted with anger, and her voice is ugly as she spits out a string of insults. She calls me a bitch, a homewrecker, and a fraud, her words shooting from her mouth like daggers.
Grayson stands his ground. He doesn’t raise his voice or let her bait him into a verbal altercation. He defends me with a silence that maims Cameron’s heart more than words ever could.
She wants him to fight, to bring himself down to her level.
He refuses, which only grows Cameron’s rage.
Her hands fly in all directions as she paces the living room.
“You’ve always liked strays, haven’t you, Gray?
They’re like a project for you. You think you can patch them up and then send them on their way.
” Unexpectedly, she throws a vase across the room, narrowly missing him.
It shatters against the wall next to his head before it sprays the flooring beneath his bare feet.
“We’re not broken toys, Grayson! You can’t save us all. ”
He finally speaks. “I’m not trying to save you, Cameron.”
“Don’t make this about me. This isn’t about me. This is about her.” The accuracy of her hand thrust has me worried that she knows she is under surveillance. “It’s the baby, isn’t it? You think because she’s going it alone, she’s an easy target.”
Ouch. Her words don’t hurt me. It’s my own insecurities eating me alive. Furthermore, if she had said them about any other man, I might have believed them.
“But what you don’t realize is that she’s using her vulnerability against you, and you’re eating right out of her palm.” Grayson shakes his head, but she doesn’t see it. “You believe her, don’t you? You believe the lies she told you.”
The temptation becomes too great for Grayson. He nibbles at the bait. “She hasn’t lied to me.”
“How are you so blind?” Cameron steps closer to him, doubling the heaviness of the gun strapped to my thigh.
“What did she tell you? That I stayed away because I was scared your dad would follow through with his threat? That I couldn’t look at you without fearing what might happen next?
What lies did she tell you, Grayson?” She doesn’t wait for him to answer her.
“Whatever she told you is a lie. I didn’t stay away to protect my family.
I stayed away because she threatened me.
What do you think tonight’s show was about?
My goal was to scare you away for good. She told me she’d put me away for life if I didn’t push you away…
and she said my baby sister would occupy the cell next to mine. ”
She could have had him if she’d left off her last sentence. I don’t care if it could net me the biggest fish in the baby-making pond, I would never use someone’s sister as bait to catch them.
Mercifully, Grayson knows that.
“You’re sick, Cameron. You need help.”
As she pulls away from him, she curls her arms around herself. “I can’t believe you believe her over me! I’m your girlfriend. I am meant to come before anyone.” Her following words are more scripted than heartfelt. “Did you ever care about me? Did you ever love me?”
“Yes,” Grayson shouts back. “I loved you. But this isn’t it, Cam.” He waves his hand around the mess, which can’t conceal how many items she has ruined. “This is”—he stumbles before he goes with straight-up honesty—“wrong.”
As all psychopaths do, she only hears what she wants to hear. “Loved? Not love. You loved me.” She rolls her eyes, lowering her maturity even further. “Yeah, right. You’ve never cared.”
Her accusation escalates their fight to the point where frayed edges are visible.
“I spent seventeen years looking for you. Seventeen fucking years, yet you feel you have the right to tell me I don’t care.
I never stopped looking for you, Cameron.
I scoured the entire fucking planet looking for you. I’ve proven my loyalty.”
“Then why are you throwing it away for her?”
Now that the edges are worn, Grayson can’t hold back. “Because she deserves closure as much as I do. She deserves to know what happened to her baby sister—”
“So I was right. She’s just another charity case.”
“No.” Grayson shakes his head so fiercely I imagine my favorite hair products overtaking the tomatoey paste that coated our pasta.
“It is the thought of anyone else giving her the happiness that will come with that closure that tears me apart. I want to be the reason she smiles, not a prick who only works a case with her because he wants to get into her panties.”
The effect of his words is immediate. Cameron freezes as the hard lines scouring her face with wrinkles soften. “Case?” She looks sick, like being a law-abiding citizen is the lowest of the low. “You followed in your father’s footsteps? You joined the bureau!”
Grayson shakes his head, but it is too late. Cameron knows the truth.
“After all he did, you still followed his life plan!” She pulls away from him, huffing. Considering what arsenal she has to toss out, I’m shocked when she goes for the weakest ammunition. “He threatened to press charges against me when we borrowed his car to spend the day at the beach.”
For every truth told, more follow. “You stole his car, Cameron. You didn’t borrow it.”
She laughs in his face as she digs her phone out from beneath the mess on her entryway table. “Because you wouldn’t. You give off bad-boy vibes, but you’re as soft and pathetic as the other fools I left behind.”
“The other fools you left behind?” The accusation in Grayson’s voice is as high as his brows. “Exactly how many fools are we talking about, Cam?”
Cameron’s laugh is bitter and full of hate. “Oh, please. You can’t preach morality when you brought your side piece to your girlfriend’s house for dinner.”
“Macy and I are friends.”
The whoosh of a message being sent sounds down the line before Cameron’s shouted words.
“Stop lying, Grayson!” There’s no doubting her stability when she throws her hands in the air and screams. She’s manic.
“Walking through glass isn’t a friend taking care of a friend.
” She steps up to him, chest to chest, stomach to stomach.
“You were never like that when we were together. You never looked at me the way you look at her. Even when someone pulled a hessian bag over my head, you didn’t show one tenth of the worry you displayed when she cut her foot.
” She rolls her eyes during her last four words.
“That’s not true.”
“It is!” she screams in his face. “Because you love her more than you ever loved me. It’s obvious from your expression.”
I caution Grayson not to fall into her trap, that she’s only throwing out bait to keep their fight alight, but I still tear up when he fails to deny her accusation this time around.
Does that mean what I think it does? Does he love me? Surely not. He’s heeding my silent caution and following the rules that will keep this exchange safe.
There’s no way Grayson Rogers could love me. He’s Grayson, and I’m… me.
After a pfft cracks out of the speakers, Cameron sneers, “Your silence is extremely telling.”
“Then tell me what you want me to say, Cameron. Tell me what you need to hear, and I’ll say it. That’s how it always worked for us, right? You say jump, and I ask how high.”
She doesn’t deny his assumption. She doesn’t even flinch at the callousness in his tone. Her body language announces that everything he spoke is true. They were never equal partners. She led. He followed.
“I want you to tell the truth. Admit that you love her.”
“And what will that give you, Cameron?”
She hits him where it hurts. “Closure. It will give me the closure I need to fully move on.”