Chapter 22 #2
“Would you like to see?” Grayson noticed my gaze and moved to the left door.
I followed, a bit dazed, as I continued to take in the room.
Inside the door was a storage room of sorts, about the same size as my bedroom in the cabin.
It was a room full of what I knew were stolen objects, displayed or stored in protective cases.
I clasped my hand over my mouth as my eyes filtered through all of it, disbelieving what I was seeing.
Grayson was watching me with a half-smile, chuckling as I pointed to the bronze head sculpted by Constantin.
I knew what that one was worth. I had seen it on the news.
It went missing about a year ago, leaving the police dumbstruck. They had not a single lead to go on.
Grayson delighted in my disbelief, while my legs grew more and more unsteady beneath me as realisation sunk in. Who was this man before me? He and his friends had been able to… acquire all these things without ever getting caught. How was that even possible?
“What do you do with it all?” I croaked.
Grayson shrugged, taking a step closer to me, but not touching me. “Some we keep, some we sell. We even give some back, when we’ve had our fun. Depending on who the owner is,” he added with a grin.
Hunter cleared his throat, and Grayson’s grin fell.
I looked to where they waited. Gemma was chewing her lip nervously, not noticing that she was staring at me, not blinking.
Hunter had his head low, watching his shoes, hands fisted deep into his pockets.
They were the picture of unease, making my heart sink.
What had them so nervous? Were they afraid of letting me into their world?
I looked to Grayson but found no comfort in his eyes. He cocked his head to where his accomplices were standing, motioning for me to join them. “I’ll show you what we’re working on right now.”
They all turned to the board with the pinned-up papers, so I did the same, but it was impossible to tear my eyes from Grayson.
“Is this your next heist?” I asked, to dispel the quiet around us, taking a step closer to stand next to Grayson.
A surge of excitement and nervousness flushed through my system.
Was I going to be a part of this one? Is that why they were so tense?
What I wouldn’t give to have Grayson look at me again the way he did outside that storage place.
When Grayson turned to me, his face was hard, set in that emotionless mask he once wore around me, but now I could peer through the cracks.
I could see the weariness that hid in his eyes, the panic that started to build.
The heat in my stomach from my previous thoughts fizzled out.
I sent up a quick, wordless prayer to whichever god would listen.
What I was praying for, I did not know yet.
“Yes, in part.” Grayson’s eyes were focused on my hands, which was nervously smoothing over my braid.
He turned back to the board and pointed out a picture.
It was a large jewel. “I need to find out where this diamond is being kept. It’s called The Crimson Dame, the largest red diamond in the world.
I’ve been looking for it for almost ten years now.
The man who has it has multiple locations where he could safeguard it, and I’ve never been able to find out which one.
It’s like the diamond doesn’t exist anymore.
No one’s seen it or heard him talk about it in twenty years.
” He studied the board before him, his eyes darting over it in frustration, willing it to reveal the location.
“And who is this man?” I asked and watched as a muscle ticced in Grayson’s jaw.
“Someone I’m going to enjoy killing once I find the diamond.”
I shuddered at the violence in Grayson’s voice. I hadn’t heard him like that since the day he pulled Digger off me. I quickly turned away from him and focused my attention on the board. The part of me that was terrified of him, a part which I’d thought was long dead, stirred beneath my skin.
I looked closer at the pinned maps. It was of different parts of the world.
One was of a city in Germany, one of Paris, and I focused in on the map of a city, close to my hometown.
Willsbury City, where I went to university.
A large photo caught my eye, pinned at the edge of the map, almost in the middle of the board.
No.
I took a step closer to make sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me.
It couldn’t be.
My mouth went dry, my limbs freezing up. I knew that man. I knew him.
I searched the board for the other photos. This couldn’t be the man he was talking about. No way.
My breathing stopped, as my eyes locked onto it. In the upper right corner, with a yellow sticky note attached to it, was a photo.
A photo of Shaun. And me.
My mind spiralled and froze at the same time as I stared at a still image of myself walking down Second Avenue, laughing hand-in-hand with Shaun, my boyfriend at the time.
I remembered that day. It was hot as hell, and we’d just left our favourite bar, on our way to meet Rachel and her latest fling for a double date at the movies.
I even remembered the conversation and why he looked so put out in the photo.
He’d accused me of flirting with our female server, which I’d found absurd and hilarious, not yet fully realising my own sexual inclinations.
The photo was taken four months before Shaun and I broke up.
Four months before I’d found out he’d cheated on me, at one of his frat parties.
And it was pinned to Grayson’s board. Along with a large photo of Shaun’s father, smack in the middle of it.
My heart hammered as I read the yellow sticky note, my world unravelling at the last two words, which had been crossed out, but then circled again.
I wasn’t just a random woman taken that day because I tried to defend my friend. It wasn’t fate or bad luck. No. While I was laying on the floor of that bank, he had stood by my head for a reason. He already knew me. He already knew my name.
Grayson already knew my name.
Nausea rolled in my stomach as the memories of him grated through me, of how he kept asking for my name again and again. When he already knew it. Had I been that blind?
I stepped backwards, gripping onto the island table for support.
Had any of it been real?
My eyes flashed to Grayson. He just stood there, his eyes so intense. But there was no confusion at my reaction, to signal I had it all wrong. No. He was waiting. Waiting for me to piece it together.
It felt like I was dying. Why? I finally captured the thought fluttering around wildly in my distraught, muddled mind. He had planned it.
I looked to Gemma, her eyes wild. “This is what you wanted to warn me about, wasn’t it?”
She gave a jerky nod, looking even more bewildered. Not daring to speak. She knew. Had known all along. Had helped him.
My name circled. The stripped room. He had planned on taking me. Gemma in the bathroom, telling me there was more to it. My breath left me in a stagger as I recalled his words the previous day, right when he was getting ready to fuck me.
“From the first time I laid eyes on you, I wanted to let your hair loose from that uptight bun and wrap it around my fist.”
When was that? How long has he known me? That photo was taken five years ago.
I stifled a sob. He had been planning this for at least five years. Planning on taking me, upheaving my life. Making me fall in love with him, then making love to me for hours like he felt something for me. For what? For a fucking diamond?
Had it been a sick game to him? A challenge to see how fast he could get in my pants? Get me to do his bidding? Had the paint been a test? To see if I would help him steal something? Gods, I was the most ridiculously stupid, foolish woman to have ever walked this earth, I was sure of it.
I had to get out. The emotions burned in my chest. Hurt.
Anger. Embarrassment. I couldn’t breathe the same air as them anymore.
I had to get out. I whipped past Hunter hurtling towards the door as Gemma called out to me, the sound coming from a mile away.
I willed my shaky legs to climb up the stairs to freedom.
Finally outside the bunker, I started running into the woods, away from the cabin.
I didn’t care where I was going or that I could get lost. I just wanted to get as far away from them as possible as my mind spiralled and spiralled.
Recalling everything, every good memory with them, and calling it lies.
Shattering some of my happiest memories with Grayson to reveal that it had been fake, a forgery, all along.
I came to a halt as a stream blocked my path and collapsed on the bank. I dug my fingers into the dirt as the sobs racked my body, as I let those burning feelings consume me, fuelled by the cruel, ruthless thoughts shredding their way through me.
No one had ever hurt me like this. No one had ever made such a fool out of me. I replayed all of it. All the signs I missed. All the things I ignored and blinded myself to. Even Grayson himself had warned me. Had told me that I would regret him.
My heart shattered anew as I realised that the regret of knowing him wasn’t coming. I couldn’t find it in me, no matter how hard I looked. He had lied to me, used me, but I would give anything for him to look at me, touch me, hold me like he had.
Stupid, stupid, girl.
Even if it were a sham, it had been the most beautiful lie I had ever experienced. And if I was being ruthlessly honest with myself, had I any choice, I would choose it again. I would relive all of it again. Even this very moment.