CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
When Toya woke up alone in bed to her ringing cellphone, she quickly answered it. She was still sleepy, but Grayson was on the line and he wanted her in his office at Carrington Capital asap. And he said it was about his father. He wouldn’t tell her what it was about, and she was afraid to ask.
“My car was totaled, remember?" she said when he first called. “I’ll have to get an Uber.”
“I’ve already notified my valet to have my Porsche at your disposal. It’ll be out front. Get dressed and come on over.”
She was brushed and gargled and showered and dressed and hurried down the stairs that led into his home office, and that led out of the front door.
But instead of a clean getaway, the assistant butler, or the AB as they called him, was near the front exit talking to one of the maids about the standards she was not upholding and that was why she was being let go, when he saw Toya walking down the stairs.
The AB frowned. “What were you doing up there?” he asked angrily. “That’s Mr. Carrington’s private residence. You have no business being anywhere near that second floor.”
“Mr. Carrington knows,” Toya said.
“You’re a liar!” the AB yelled out.
But Miss Javits walked in on his rage. “She’s telling the truth,” she said. “She’s Mr. Carrington’s girlfriend and you will treat her with the same level of respect you treat Mr. Carrington. He’s made that clear. Do you understand?”
The AB was shocked. “Yes ma’am.” He looked at Toya again, still shocked, and left.
As soon as Toya stepped down onto the first floor, Miss Javits handed her a set of keys.
“This is the key to the residence. This is the master key to the front door and all of the home offices. And this is key fob to his vehicle. I took the liberty of having the car pulled around to the front for you, Miss Morgan.”
Toya was as shocked as the AB was. But she wasn’t about to let Miss Javits or anybody else see it. She behaved as if she belonged there too. “Thank you,” she said as she accepted all of the keys.
But as Toya made her way out of the mansion, she was getting concerned.
He gave her a key to his home as if she lived there too, when they’d had no such discussions.
If she allowed it, she would be so dependent on him that it would be terrifying.
If they had an argument, her entire life would collapse.
No job. No place to stay. Nothing. Miss Javits and the AB and Dena Allen and the entire staff at the mansion seemed envious of her as it was.
Now they believed she was living with the boss? Toya was worried.
But all she could think about was why he wanted her at his office, and if his father had agreed to help her.
But when she saw that it was a sportscar she would be driving, she felt kind of surprised.
And when she saw that it wasn’t just any sportscar, but a Porsche, she felt intimidated.
But when she got behind the wheel and could smell Grayson’s cologne scent all over the gorgeous black leather interior, she felt relieved.
And happy again. Last night he said he had her back.
But after last night, she knew he had much more than that.
He had all of her. He was giving her his best. She drove that car like it was no big deal at all.
But she still couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that her freedom was tied to Grayson’s father. A man she never met. And that was still a daunting realization for her to cope with.
She was still thinking about that realization as she drove to Carrington Capital. But then suddenly, right before her very eyes, she saw a car swerve out of its lane on the opposite side of the street and head straight for that Porsche. It was going to be a head on collision!
But she swerved, too, to avoid that car, and she almost had a clean break. But it wasn’t clean. That car sideswiped her with such force that it caused her to momentarily lose control and spin out. But the Porsche came to a complete stop upright and okay.
But as soon as the car stopped, and before she could even unbuckle her seatbelt, another car, from behind, rammed into her so hard that she started spinning again. She assumed it was a car that couldn’t stop when she was spinning the first time and rammed her by accident.
But she quickly realized it was no accident when that same car began ramming into her again when she stopped spinning. And the first car came over, too, and began ramming her from the opposite side. It wasn’t an accident. It was an ambush!
She knew it was fight of flight time again. She knew she was in a fight for her life again. And just like she did when Bam had that gun on her at that gas station, she chose flight. She gassed it and took off.
Both cars began chasing her. And it was a scary chase as she was forced to dip in and out of lanes and swerve to avoid this truck or that SUV.
She didn’t realize she knew how to drive until she was weaving in and out of traffic the way she was doing.
But it wasn’t her skill that was driving that car so proficiently.
It was fear. And the unwavering determination she felt that whomever were driving those cars were trying to kill her or lame her or both, and she was not going to let that happen.
But when she heard gunfire and then heard the sound of the back windshield exploding in shards of shattered glass, her fear was nearly panic.
And when she heard the sound of bullets peppering the metal of that Porsche, she was in full-blown panic.
And she drove even more wildly. She had to survive. She had to get away from them!
She didn’t realize she was heading straight for Carrington Capital until she saw the big dome at the top of its building in the far away distance. She was heading straight for Grayson.
But she didn’t get there.
Both cars caught up to her when the traffic in front of them got thick, with nowhere to go, and they rammed her again so violently that her airbag deployed.
The other two cars veered off and were out of control too. One of them flipped and flipped and landed upside down. The other car got away.
But the Porsche was spiraling into another scary fishtail that had Toya tossing side to side in her seatbelt as if she was a rag doll, and then it started spinning around again rapidly until it finally came to an abrupt stop. Everything seemed to stop.
There were no more hits from behind, side, or front.
There were no more sounds of crashing metal or bullets flying.
There were no more flips or spins or anybody else burning rubber speeding away.
All that was left to be heard was terror masquerading as a quiet peace.
An eerie, devastating, mortifying peace.