7. Grayson
GRAYSON
It was rare for Jack to meet with me outside of our normal weekly coffee at the diner. Some situations called for a change in routine. Some even called for us to sit in my truck in a parking garage across the street from the restaurant where I’d scheduled a sit-down with my childhood friend.
“She needs help.” I adjusted my tie, which felt a hell of a lot more like a noose.
“Badly. It’s exactly the way I imagined.
They were together six months, he assured her she was dead if she ever tried to get away.
” I couldn’t imagine those words coming out of my mouth, ever.
Only a weak, sniveling, cowardly piece of shit would threaten a woman that way.
A brave woman. Feisty. Someone whose frank, level gaze and half-naked body had inspired more than one ill-timed daydream since I left her yesterday.
Since then, she’d called using the burner to tell me she was safe at the new motel, where there’d be no trace of her presence.
I hadn’t expected her to show up at the door wearing next to nothing, like hearing me out there had gotten her moving before she thought logically about what she was doing.
It wasn’t the first time she’d used doubtful judgment. Hence, my waiting here before going in to sit down with her ex.
Jack grunted his shared disgust, scrubbing a hand over the white bristles covering his cheek. “You know how it is for guys like him. The sort of guys you grew up around. Once something is theirs, it’s theirs. Nobody else can touch.”
“I remember.” Did I ever. Memories of countless women who liked to wear sunglasses indoors and at night overlapped in my mind’s eye. There had actually been a time when I’d asked myself why they didn’t get divorced if their husbands smacked them around. Hard to believe I was ever that innocent.
“The way I see it, you have a handful of options,” he concluded. “You can do your job as you promised and tell him you found her and where he can locate her. You can wash your hands on this and move on with your life.”
The idea left me shifting in my seat. My throat tightened, and my pulse picked up speed. “Right,” I grunted.
“You can tell him you never found her,” he continued. “Tell him she went to Reno, maybe, and got a job there before getting spooked and moving on. You could tell them you lost track of her.”
“That’s true.” Not that I liked the idea any better.
The silence that fell between us was deafening. He pursed his lips thoughtfully, his eyes darting over my face. “Or you could tell him you found her but don’t intend to give him her location.”
Dammit. When he said it out loud, there was no denying the reaction in my body. My throat got tighter, my pulse faster than before, but there was also a sense of focus. Of finding the path, the purpose.
Like that night. That faithful, fatal night when it all became so clear.
I could feel the heat from the flames radiating from the past, reaching into the present to warm my skin.
The scent of blood dripping down my neck, soaking into my shirt, dripping onto the ground beneath me, was vivid as if it was happening again.
In the midst of so much chaos, the truth was clear.
Jack didn’t bother waiting for my response because he knew. His soft voice, followed by a click of his tongue, told me so. “He’ll view it as an insult.”
“An insult? We both know better than that.” I sipped my drive-thru coffee, which was slightly bitter but had nothing on the bitterness building as I imagined Dominic’s reaction. “I’ll be his enemy. That’s how it works. Black or white. No in-between.”
“You think you can take that on? Is one woman worth the repercussions that are going to rain down on your head?”
“It’s about more than that, and you know it.” Angling my body toward his so I could look straight at him, I asked, “How can I look myself in the eye every morning while I brush my teeth, knowing she’s terrified of him, and I rolled out the red carpet to her front door? How do I live with myself?”
“I know you, I know you wouldn’t be able to,” he acknowledged with a slight nod. “I’m only making sure you understand how much more complicated this will become.”
“I get it.” We exchanged a long look. The resignation in his face stirred something close to guilt in my gut. “I have to do it. I can’t give him what he wants.”
“So long as you’re smart about it,” he urged. “I didn’t spend all these years trying to help you out of all that dark shit to have you get killed over a woman. No disrespect to the lady.”
He understood. Our shared history told me so. He was only pretending he wouldn’t have done the same thing in my place out of concern. “None taken. But quit busting my balls, huh? This isn’t some romantic thing. It’s the right thing.”
“Absolutely.” His normal scowl turned to something touched with fondness. “You’re a good man, Grayson. I’m glad to know I didn’t waste my time on you.”
Emotion swelled in my chest almost too suddenly for me to fight it back.
“All right, let’s cut it before we start a full-on tear fest. I’d better head in before we end up with soggy shoulders.
” It was mid-afternoon, and the restaurant that Dominic had chosen for our meeting was one the family traditionally used for celebrations and big occasions.
We’d had dinner there more times than I could count—weddings, confirmations, engagement parties.
Back when I was part of something bigger. An evil, ugly thing that only looked appealing on the surface. Like a blue, placid lake with jagged rocks just beneath the surface.
That was the image filling my head as I exited my truck while Jack did the same before going to his car.
I continued across the street and entered the restaurant, where a single table had been set with water glasses and a plate of antipasto.
Two men guarded the door, one of whom made a move to pat me down before Dominic waved a hand from the table.
“Don’t insult the man,” he chided before gesturing for me to join him.
“Even if I am a little peeved that he left me hanging for so long.”
“My apologies,” I offered as I approached the table. The sight of yet another perfectly tailored suit, this one pinstriped, left me glad I’d dressed in a suit for the occasion—it was like battle armor.
“So?” He couldn’t hide the eagerness in his voice as he leaned in from across the four-top table. “What have you found? Is she okay? Where did she go?”
Dominic. You could have been a decent man. I couldn’t help but remember the kid he used to be as I gazed across the table, my heart sinking. “I’m sorry to tell you, but I’m refunding the deposit you sent over.”
He chuckled warmly, dimples showing in his cheeks. “How is that bad news? I get my money back.”
I had witnessed this dance too many times to misinterpret his meaning. He was going to twist my nuts as long as possible, make me sweat, make me squirm. He would have to keep waiting. That wouldn’t happen. “I can’t help you.”
“You can’t?” Lifting his eyebrows, he leaned back in his chair.
His fingers tented beneath his chin while his elbows rested on the carved arms. “Exactly, why can’t you?
Has there been an issue? Do you not have the resources?
Because I find it hard to believe she could escape you when you’re supposed to be excellent at what you do. So, what’s the problem?”
Before I could utter a word, he asked, “What’s changed? Don’t you care that she could be in jeopardy?”
“Of course. That’s what this is all about.”
“Well, then?” he barked, his teeth gritted. Apparently, the man had inherited his father’s impatient nature, among other things.
And he had the fucking audacity to sit there and bark at me.
“Let’s get one thing straight. I am not one of your men.
I don’t work for you. And since, according to my administrative staff, the deposit has already been refunded as of my arrival here, I don’t owe you anything.
This simply isn’t going to work out.” I shrugged with a sigh.
“Did they get to you?” he asked, lifting a thick eyebrow. “One of the other families? Is that what this is about?” He was still determined to keep up the charade.
“Don’t insult my intelligence,” I warned in a low voice.
“We both know what this is all about and has been from the beginning. You want her back not because she’s in danger from another family but because she’s in danger from you.
And you know how I know that? There’s still a code. There will always be a code.”
His nostrils flared, and his jaw ticked, but that was as much emotion as he revealed. “Times have changed.”
“Have they changed that much? Let me ask you this,” I continued.
“Frankly, I should’ve asked you this in the first place.
Why are you not protecting her if you thought she was in danger?
You should have told her from the beginning you would do everything in your power to keep her safe.
You must have houses stashed away, properties that are untraceable to you.
” I paused, taking his silence as confirmation before continuing, “You have the financial resources. If you gave a shit about her and her safety, you would have taken care of that from the beginning. You didn’t. Why didn’t you do this yourself?”
“I’m a busy man,” he gritted out, a flush now beginning to creep over the collar of his crisp, white shirt.
“If a woman I genuinely cared about was in danger because of something I was into, you had better be sure I would do everything in my power to protect her no matter how busy I was.”
He scoffed openly for the first time since this charade began, rolling his eyes. “Don’t tell me what I do and don’t care about. You drop off the fucking map for fifteen years, and then you tell me how to conduct my life?”
This was the real Dominic, and he reminded me a hell of a lot of someone else. Someone who had been dead for a long time.
And I knew because I had watched him die.