Chapter 3
Chapter Three
GRAYSON
Stepping into Nadine’s apartment, I stop.
My spine straightens at the sight of a figure standing in front of me.
It’s her, but it takes my brain a moment to register that it’s Nadine and not a threat.
Not that she looks bad, but I wasn’t expecting her.
She lets out a whoosh of air, then smiles.
“I’m glad it’s you,” she states.
“If it weren’t, an alarm would be sounding,” I say.
Her eyes widen before her lips part.
“Really?” she asks.
“You wired my place for an actual alarm, not just cameras?”
I snort and shake my head once as I step inside, closing and locking the door behind me.
“I’ll put the app on your phone and show you how to work it and everything, but yeah. I didn’t come here to fuck around.”
Her tongue slides out and glides across her bottom lip, leaving it shiny and bitable.
I want her lip in my mouth.
I want to suck on her flesh, on every single inch of it.
I want to slide inside of her cunt and fuck her.
I’m not sure how much longer I can last.
When her gaze flicks down to my feet, I follow it and notice a bag of trash next to the door.
“I was trying to work up the courage to take it to the chute,” she says.
Lifting my eyes to meet hers, I clear my throat.
“Glad you didn’t. The alarm would have been set off. I’ll do it.”
Without saying anything else, I bend slightly, curl my fingers around the handle of the bag, and pick it up before turning toward the door and tugging it open.
It takes me thirty seconds to dispose of the trash and then make it back into the apartment.
I still lock the door behind me, because it would take Landon Tate ten seconds to slip inside of the apartment with my back turned.
He’s a piece of shit, but he’s not stupid.
He’s been able to evade us for this long.
I know, without a doubt, he could best me if I weren’t on my game.
When I walk back to Nadine, I again lock the door behind me and take her in, this time really looking at her.
She’s got her hair up in a messy bun, and it appears as if she’s been not just cleaning but deep cleaning, possibly out of nervousness and anxiousness, and I know that I need to check in with her.
“You good, baby?” I ask.
She jerks her chin, her eyes widening.
“I’m good,” she lies.
“The fact that you’ve been cleaning like the Tasmanian devil says otherwise.”
Her eyes widen, but then she instantly presses her lips together and rolls them a few times before she makes an almost inaudible noise in the back of her throat.
I watch as she takes a step backward, turning her back to me before she moves into her living room.
She sinks down on her couch, and for the first time, I notice her furniture.
I was here earlier, but it was only to set up her system, so I didn’t take in her space at all.
Now that I’m here and really absorbing everything, I realize that it’s decent, but it’s not new.
Nothing in her place looks like she bought it within the last five years, which is how long she’s been working for Theron, and I know that Securus doesn’t pay her millions of dollars a year, but I also know that she’s received some fat bonuses and raises.
Enough to pay her rent and outfit her whole place with inexpensive but brand-new things.
She’s told me about her past, though I’m coming to realize just from the conversation I had with her brother earlier that I don’t know everything.
She’s kept some of her life close to the vest, but she shouldn’t have.
I’m here, helping her, and I can’t do that with only partial truths.
So now it’s time to dig in and get to the bones of the accuracy.
She’s given me the flesh, but I want down to the bones—to the goddamn marrow of it.
“What do you do with your money, Nadine?”
I’m met with silence.
She stares at me for a long moment, then clears her throat.
I’ve looked into her, though.
We all have access to her information, and not once did I see a large amount of money sitting in any of her accounts.
Don’t get me wrong, they’re healthy enough, but now that I’m seeing what she’s got around her, it makes me wonder if she’s got it squirreled away somewhere.
I’m not sure why this seems so important, but it does.
Her eyes widen before she presses her lips together and rolls them a few times.
Then she lets out a heavy sigh and turns her back to me.
This tells me that it’s something more than just saving it for a rainy day somewhere other than her bank accounts.
I watch as she walks over to the window, then she sinks down onto her knees.
There is a small bench there.
She takes out blankets and some other items, then pulls out the actual bottom of the damn thing before she lifts something else up and stands.
When she turns to face me, my brows furrow at the sight of a box in her hand.
She doesn’t explain anything to me, even though I’m sure the look on my face gives away every question I have, because she smiles as she sets the box down on her small coffee table and gently opens it.
“This is my savings,” she says.
The box is stacked full of one-hundred-dollar bundles of ten-thousand-dollar straps.
What the actual fuck?
“Nadine,” I hiss.
No doubt it comes out sounding as angry as I feel on the inside because the small smile she’s been wearing drops immediately, and her eyes widen.
She recoils from me, no doubt sensing anger coming from me.
But I’m not angry, I’m concerned.
“What the fuck are you doing with that much cash on hand?”
She shakes her head once, and with it, she effectively shakes off the expression on her face and replaces it with nothingness.
“When you’re on the run, Grayson, you need to be ready to go underground at any given moment. Don’t tell me you don’t understand that.”
I grunt because I do.
All too clearly.
But now it’s time for me to fully understand her reasoning for it.
And it’s not just because this guy slapped her around a little bit.
There is more.
So much more.
And I have a feeling I’m going to understand it more than she realizes.
It’s bigger than that because if he just smacked her around, she wouldn’t need to protect her brother the way she has.
I see it, and now it’s time for her to explain it to me, in detail.
“You need to be honest with me now, Nadine. What the fuck is really going on here?”
NADINE
Staring at Grayson, I can’t help but think about something I learned a long time ago.
Honesty is not always the best policy.
Ever.
In fact, honesty isn’t even in the top ten best policies.
I’ll take lying through my teeth over honesty any day of the week.
Except in this case.
In this moment.
I think it might be time for me to confess everything.
I’ve only told him the absolute bare minimum.
The basics.
Giving someone your whole life story, the good, bad, and really freaking ugly, is scary as hell, especially when you want that someone to own your body, mind, and soul.
But I have to realize that the situation between Grayson and me is nothing more than employer and employee.
He’s not even really my employer.
Sure, he’s a partner in the company that pays me, but my direct boss is Theron.
“My husband is Landon Tate. He’s an executive assistant director in the ATF. And chief director of assholes,” I state.
My lips twitch into a smirk, mainly because I think I’m a little funny.
Grayson’s expression doesn’t change.
Apparently, I’m not as funny as I believe I am.
Whatever.
He already knows who Landon is, but he doesn’t know everything.
“He knows who and what my brother is, and when we were married, it was because I was trying to save my family's ass, and he blackmailed me into marriage. I never loved him, and he didn’t love me. He thinks he owns me.”
“Where are your parents?” Grayson demands.
My smile vanishes just thinking about them. “They dabbled in explosives. People would hire them to plant explosives in a building they needed an insurance claim on. Drugs were a major part of their world, too, even though they tried to deny it. They were better at explosives than they were at being addicts, though. About a month after my wedding, something went wrong…”
Kaboom .
I don’t say the quiet part out loud, but thankfully, he doesn’t ask me to, and he no doubt understands my silence.
“Did you sign a contract with him?”
“Other than my marriage license?” I ask.
Grayson dips his chin, his eyes never leaving mine. “No,” I breathe. “Marrying him was the only way he would turn a blind eye to my parents’ dealings.”
“And Brody?”
“Brody doesn’t deal with explosives.”
He arches a brow, crossing his arms over his chest as he waits for me to continue. I inhale a deep breath and hold it for a moment before I let it out slowly. “Brody runs a construction company.”
Grayson snorts. “Yeah, and I’m Willie fucking Wonka.”
“I don’t know what Brody does, and I don’t ask.”
I do know some of what my brother does, and I know that it’s not legal, but that’s about the extent of my knowledge. I try to stay away from any real knowledge when it comes to his world.
“But you’re some kind of amazing hacker?” he asks. “You know how to navigate a part of the web that most of the free world doesn’t even know exists, and you can manipulate and hack it even though it’s supposed to be impenetrable.”
We stare at one another in silence for a long moment, but I choose to break that silence with more vulnerability.
“My life wasn’t good even before Landon entered it. I would lock myself away with a computer that a teacher who felt pity for me gave me. I got good at hacking things. It was my life—my passion. And Brody would have me do stuff for him, for his club, when they were just starting out.”
“Like?” Grayson asks.
“Steal money from people.”
“Jesus Christ, Nadine,” he hisses.
I can feel his judgment, and I know it should bother me, but it doesn’t. I’ve experienced so much pity and judginess over the years that it doesn’t mean anything. At least that’s what I tell myself because the last person I would ever want to see me in a bad light is this man in front of me.
“My parents weren’t good or smart people, Grayson. They all but sold me to Landon for their own selfish security needs, and it didn’t even work. Landon made sure every single day of our time together that I was well aware of the fact that he owned me.”
“How is that?” Grayson asks.
A shiver of disgust slides up my spine. I don’t want to say the words out loud. If I do, it feels like I’m inviting that monster back into my house, back into my life. But he wants to know, so I am going to tell him.
“My body wasn’t my own. He used me for whatever purposes he wanted, and that included whoever he wanted to share me with. Humiliation was his thing, especially since I was nothing.”