35. IVY
35
IVY
Okay, it was desperately official. I needed space from my assassin/bodyguard. Seriously, my mental capacity to make good decisions was deteriorating faster than the roof at that gas station from hell. Between the lack of sleep, the trauma, and the perpetual fight-or-flight mode, my grasp on what love should feel like was polluted.
I needed to breathe clean oxygen to reset my mind, so I could handle the next whatever the hell was about to happen , and to do that, I needed to get away from Grayson.
Now.
Unfortunately for me, the universe was a snarky bitch, because at the exact moment Grayson turned to leave, my stomach exploded with the loudest growl in human history.
His smoldering gaze snapped first to my midsection, then to my face, his granite jaw clenching in disapproval.
“You never ate dinner last night, did you?” he accused.
I’m sorry, who can eat a cheeseburger when the CIA might have sniper rifles trained on your mother’s head? Answer: not me.
“Stay here,” he ordered, stepping to the door. “I’ll be right back.”
For a second, I shut my eyes.
Come back to me, you trusty emotion of loathing him. Hell, I’d settle for dislike if this moral lawsuit settled out of court.
A few seconds later, the door barged open.
“Let’s go.”
I blinked. “What?”
“No vending machines here. Let’s go.”
A pause stilled between us.
“Leave?” I shook my head. “I don’t want to leave. I want to stay and wait for my mom.” And shower off this grime and guilt.
His lips pressed into a hard line.
“What?” I demanded.
“Our little stunt at the gas station put us on a bit more of a detour. We’ll meet up with them tomorrow.”
I froze, the complications cascading through my head like dominoes. First and foremost…
“I don’t want to stay away from her that long. She’s in danger because of me, and I want to be with her to try to keep her safe.”
“Red has that covered.”
“But…” But I couldn’t be alone with Grayson for that long.
“Now, come on. Let’s go find food.”
“I’m fine,” I claimed. Although if I were being honest, I did seriously regret not eating last night’s dinner. Maybe that’s why I got so lightheaded when the rotten-toothed rapist jumped me. I could’ve probably fought back a lot better if my muscles had any nutritional support.
“Starving won’t make time accelerate. You need sustenance. Let’s go.”
Crap.
I wish I had access to my phone right now so I could google , What are some excuses a girl can use to get away from her ordered killer?
“You need to eat. We’ll pop into a grocery store or something and come right back.”
Unable to think of another excuse to avoid him, I said, “I need to change my clothes and clean up first.”
Cleaning up didn’t involve soaking my body in water like I wanted; I had to settle for a washcloth and soap cleansing my exposed skin, but at least I had a change of clothes in my go-bag. Given the new complications, Grayson insisted I bring the bag back to the car after changing—just in case.
He was a wall of tense silence during the drive, his piercing eyes flicking between the road and the mirrors, hyper-alert for any hint of a problem. Given the corpse we’d left in the next town over, that threat felt increasingly imminent. We needed to stay off the radar.
The problem was, there were no grocery stores open at this hour, and going to another gas station with possible security cameras was “asking for it,” Grayson said.
Still, when he pulled into the parking lot of a diner, my eyeballs widened in surprise.
“We’ll place a quick to-go order.” Grayson stepped outside and opened my car door for me. “We’ll be in and out.”
But I froze for a second. And it wasn’t just the worry about taking too long that had me hesitating.
“This…this place looks like if we go inside, we might become the dinner on chicken skewers.”
“They don’t have surveillance.” Grayson pointed at various locations around the parking lot —aka a pile of asphalt that someone forgot to level while others must have blasted TNT throughout it to create the craters.
I reluctantly followed him to the front door.
“We should have bought some food at that gas station,” I mused, and once we stepped inside, I also wished we’d snagged some anti-diarrhea medicine.
I mean, as a nurse educated on parasites, the forecast for food poisoning was much higher than I’d normally subscribe to.
And if that’s how I felt, I couldn’t imagine what was going through Grayson’s mind.
Surely, a place like this wasn’t what a rich guy was used to. It was tiny, and the waitresses could not look more bored if their life depended on it—moving about the space with the enthusiasm of sloths on sedatives. Apparently, their lives didn’t depend on customer satisfaction. Rather than white tablecloths and fine wine, this place sported a line cook with a little bell that some sweaty guy in the back rang when an order came up. Instead of an elegant bar, there was a stained counter with red plastic barstools—some of which had rips repaired with duct tape.
“Excuse me, ma’am.” Grayson flagged down a waitress, who glared at the interruption. “We need a to-go order.”
The waitress shoved a pencil behind her ear and punched a fist against her hip.
“We don’t do to-go orders, hon. You want to eat? You sit down like everyone else.”
Grayson had to take a calming breath.
“How about this?” he said with a dangerous edge to his pleasant tone. “We’ll sit at a booth while we wait for our food to get cooked. We’ll leave you a fancy tip. Surely, you have containers for leftovers; you could place our order in one of those, and then we’ll be out of your hair.”
Grayson pulled a fifty from his back pocket and handed it to the offended woman.
Evidently, gifts were her love language. She snatched it out of his hand, grabbed two plastic menus, and handed them to Grayson.
“I’ll be back to take your order in a minute.”
I had no idea if that was a yes or I’m taking your fifty; now, sit down and shut up .
Either way, we slid into a vinyl booth in the back that had seen better decades.
As we studied the menus, my focus drifted to Grayson. The strong planes of his face, the bulk of his shoulders stretching his hoodie…combined with the rigidity of his posture and the lethal glint in his eyes, he was a magnetic contradiction. Brutal and beautiful, he looked completely out of place here. Too gorgeous to sit among mere mortals. He’d blend into a red-carpet event better. For an action movie, of course, given the gun in his waistband and mad fighting skills. I mean, my gosh, the way he carried himself with this aura of authori?—
“What can I get you?” the waitress interrupted, pencil bouncing on her little pad of paper, her crooked name tag reading Irene .
You’d think someone who got a fifty-dollar tip would be less irritated.
Grayson stared at me, waiting for me to go first, evidently.
“I’ll take a hamburger, plain.” It seemed to be the simplest thing on the menu, one I could most easily digest.
“That it?” she asked.
“And fries.” In case the burger wasn’t cooked thoroughly enough.
“She’ll have a slice of chocolate cake, too,” he said.
I silently questioned him, to which he shrugged and added, “You mentioned chocolate cake is your go-to when you’re stressed.”
He remembered that? I’d mentioned that incredibly small detail in passing a while ago.
“I’ll take the same,” Grayson said. “And two Cokes.”
“Diet Coke for me.”
“We don’t have to-go cups.”
Right.
“No drinks,” Grayson said.
After Irritated Irene snatched the menus and walked off, I twisted my fingers together, scanning the place.
“What’s wrong?” Grayson asked.
I forced my eyes to meet his, silently cursing myself for getting lost in the captivating mosaic of forest hues sparkling within them.
“You mean aside from being assaulted and nearly raped, being kidnapped, and being hunted by the CIA?”
He cocked his head, unamused.
I leaned in, keeping my voice to a rushed whisper. “What if the police find that guy?”
Stony silence.
“Maybe we should turn ourselves in,” I reasoned. “It was self-defense.”
“That ship has sailed, Ivy.”
“It’s not too late.”
“Police don’t look too kindly on people who leave the scene of a homicide.”
“We can tell them that we panicked. Maybe they haven’t even found him yet.”
“Ivy…” I could tell Grayson was trying to keep his tone patient, but the lack of sleep was making that exceedingly difficult. “I told you, the second we land in police custody, Daniel will know. We’ll be sitting ducks.”
“Maybe the police can protect us.”
A muscle ticced in his jaw. “If I believed that, I’d escort you to the station myself. You need to trust me.”
“But what if the cops find that guy and trace it back to us?”
Grayson leaned forward, crossing his forearms over each other, while I tried to pretend his proximity did nothing to my stomach.
When he spoke, his voice was even lower. “ If that were to ever happen,” he said, quiet and resolute, “I’ll confess that I, and I alone, pulled that trigger.”
“You weren’t alone.”
“I have the gun to prove I’m the one that shot him. That’s what will matter.”
“He was attacking me, ” I reasoned. “And we both ran.”
“I forced you to run.”
“Forced is not accurate.”
“I had a gun on you.” He arched a brow.
“You can’t change the narrative like that; it’s a lie. And you can’t take the fall alone; you’d spend the rest of your life in prison.”
He adjusted his cap, his shoulder muscles trying to distract me from his traumatizing words.
“Ivy, it’s unlikely I’d spend my life in prison.”
“Because you can afford a really good attorney?” I hoped.
He studied my face. “Because in prison, I’d be a fish in a barrel. Prime picking for the CIA to take out.”
I recoiled in shock. “Then, that’s all the more reason we have to make sure it never happens!”
“I don’t intend for it to happen, Ivy, but if they do trace it back to us, I’ll be the one to take the fall. Not you.”
Tears threatened to spill over as emotion welled up inside me. “I’ll tell them the truth,” I said. “You saved me.”
“If they’re looking for blood,” Grayson said calmly, “I’ll lie if that’s what it takes to keep you out of prison.”
“I don’t want you to do that,” I replied.
“I don’t intend for it to happen, Ivy. I’m just laying the cards on the table,” he said. “And I’m not asking for your permission.” He paused, letting his words sink in. “I’ll protect you from every threat against your life, freedom, or anything else.”
I struggled to swallow down not only the apology for how I had treated Grayson, but also something else that threatened to take root—forgiveness.
It was a feeling I fought against, strangled by my loyalty to my dad.
But you can’t forgive someone who killed your father. You can’t focus on the fact that Grayson didn’t know—that he thought he was saving people. Or that, by the sounds of it, Dad would’ve been killed by someone else. Maybe even along with me.
I couldn’t let this forgiveness take root. Right?
Yet, with every passing minute in Grayson’s presence, my conviction grew less concrete.
I fidgeted in the booth, my mind still processing the idea that Grayson would sacrifice himself for me. The thought of facing the police, even Detective Mitchell, filled me with a new sense of dread. What if, in his efforts to help me, Detective Mitchell traced our path and discovered our gas station detour? What if?—
An intrusive buzz shattered the silence. Grayson’s hand instinctively reached for his burner cell, and when he scanned the screen, the color drained from his face.