Chapter 22
Grayson
By the time Grayson pulled into his condo, the sun was doing a slow slide behind the Spring Mountains, leaving a colorful trail of reds, oranges, and purples in its wake.
Although he was physically tired, his mind was anything but.
He put the car in park and left it running so the AC could beat back the day’s heat and then turned to Cass, who was curled up, asleep, in the passenger seat, her glasses at an awkward angle.
She’d dropped off almost before they’d left the hospital parking lot.
Grayson couldn’t blame her—it had been a hell of a day.
He let his head drop back against the headrest and closed his eyes.
He just needed a minute, maybe two, to get a grip on things.
As soon as he was certain Cass wouldn’t slide back into a cascade, they had rushed a groggy Sofia to Santos Medical.
Swanson met them, briefly introduced the two-person private security team he’d brought in, and then informed them that Elias was already in surgery because the shard of glass that had pierced his side had caused serious internal bleeding.
While Cass got Sofia checked in to a private room, Swanson shared with Grayson that the EMTs had lost Elias once on the ride in.
Fortunately, Cass missed that bit of news as she was busy with Sofia’s doctor, who wanted the younger woman to be medically monitored as she drifted in and out of consciousness.
The attending had grilled Grayson on the curse as she examined Sofia, eventually reassuring Cass that Sofia’s reaction was well within expected norms. The younger woman simply needed rest, mentally and physically.
Once the doctor left, Cass asked Grayson to sit with Sofia while she took Swanson to the hall and caught him up.
She was gone awhile, dealing with the family lawyer and the curious authorities, so Grayson called Zane.
He updated the Hound on what they had walked in on and mentioned Rhea’s disappearance, hoping Zane would find a usable trail.
Zane promised to dig deep and fast but couldn’t guarantee he would find anything.
On Zane’s end, he had the mess at Incantanto well in hand.
He’d managed to identify the dead mages, who were known mercenaries, and set Candace on tracing their payments through a maze of ghost accounts.
He was still tearing through Russell Seagraves’s life, searching out any connections to the Cabal and the Ambroses.
He told Grayson he had a faint scent he hoped would grow into something more substantial.
It wasn’t much, but it was something for Cass to hold on to when she returned to the room and paced the floor, worrying about her father, sister, and mother.
They spent the afternoon waiting for news on Elias. Waiting for Sofia to fully wake up. Waiting for Zane’s updates.
Tense hours later, when the surgeon finally showed, it was to share that the team had stopped the bleeding and Elias was stable, his chances for recovery good.
Once he was cleared from post-op, he would be moved to the adjoining room.
That was followed by a call from Zane, informing them that Candace had managed to track the mercenaries’ payment to an account buried deep within Burton Entertainment, the same group that held partial ownership of Incantanto.
Adding that piece to the phone call Elias had told Cass about, Grayson knew a visit to Cole Burton was up next.
So did Cass, who had no intention of waiting to confront him.
That led to an argument as Grayson wasn’t keen on letting her get close to the man without knowing what they were walking into.
Especially not after his close call with Sofia’s curse.
You could only tempt fate so far, and Grayson was pretty sure the odds were not in their favor.
Not to mention that Cole Burton was not someone you accused—not without solid proof, and all they had were suspicions.
By the time they were ready to leave the hospital, he’d gotten Cass’s reluctant agreement to follow his lead, but Grayson wasn’t an idiot.
Just because she’d given in didn’t mean she wouldn’t try going around him.
He couldn’t blame her. No matter how complicated her relationship with her mother was, there was no doubt in his mind that Cass would do whatever it took to save Rhea.
Hell, she’d almost killed herself saving him and Sofia.
As he blinked his gritty eyes open and loosened his white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel, he realized he was still angry about that. Gods, she scared the shit out of me. That ugly fear still clung, and he needed to get over it.
He’d been working the curse, making his way through the layers and trying to keep Sofia from slipping further away, when his instincts whispered that he was missing something big.
Urgency and caution collided and then things seemed to shift, like a lens slipping into place, crystalizing the details into an unmistakable path.
He hadn’t questioned his sudden insight, knowing, on some level, that this strange clarity was Cass’s doing.
He simply moved faster, quicker until Sofia was safe.
Then he came back to find Cass sitting on the floor, her back against the wall, body twitching, and eyes an eerie ghostly white, and he knew with sickening surety that he was losing her to a cascade.
He couldn’t explain what had happened next, only that everything in him had reached for her and wrapped her tight, refusing to let her go as she was dragged further and further away.
An echo of that panic beat at his temples even now.
Maybe if she hadn’t reached back, they both would have been lost, but he was just grateful she’d held on.
But if I hadn’t caught her when I did… if I’d taken longer with Sofia…
That didn’t bear thinking about. He scrubbed his face with his hands and turned to their more immediate problem.
They needed a reason to see Cole and find out if he was involved.
Grayson couldn’t make the pieces fit. Yes, Burton was a client of Pythia, but he was heading toward a council seat.
Why would he risk all of that to go after Cass’s family?
What were they missing? The answers were there, somewhere, and would take time to find.
He just didn’t think time was on their side.
Cass stirred, opened her eyes, and blearily looked around. “We’re here?” She rubbed a finger under one eye, knocking her glasses to her lap.
He shook off his thoughts, grabbed his phone, and turned the car off. “Yeah, let’s head upstairs.”
She put her glasses back on, undid her seat belt, got out of the car, and met him on the sidewalk. Together, they went up to his condo. She was checking her phone as he powered down the security wards, opened the door, and nudged her inside.
“Anything?” He closed the door, threw the lock, and reactivated his wards.
“No. No ransom demands, no nothing.” Frustration made her voice tight as she paced into his living room. “I can’t wait for a call that may never come, Grayson.”
“I know.” He tossed his keys onto the counter.
She went to the glass doors that led to his balcony and stood there, staring out through the open blinds, her back stiff, her shoulders rigid. “I need to talk to Cole,” she said with a hint of belligerence.
“I know,” he repeated and started a text on his phone.
“What are you doing?”
He looked up to find her studying him with a little frown. “Getting Burton’s address from my dad.” He hit Send.
Her shoulders eased, and her expression lightened with relief. Then she was moving into him, wrapping her arms around his waist, and hugging him tight. “Thank you.” It came out choked.
He set his phone aside and held her back. He wanted to demand she stay out of whatever this was, but that would never happen. Better that they deal with it together, even if he didn’t like their odds.
Resigned to the inevitable, he said, “Something isn’t making sense here.”
“I know, but he’s the only link we’ve got.” Her voice was muffled as she kept her head on his chest.
Grayson ran a hand down her back, comforting them both. “And if that’s the whole point?”
Her head lifted and tilted back. “At least it’s another piece of the puzzle.”
On the counter, his phone vibrated. Without letting her go, he reached back and grabbed it. On screen was a response from his dad—an address followed by a simple Why?
Cass turned his hand so she could see the phone’s screen. Her fingers tightened on his wrist, and then she gave him a pointed look.
“He may not be home,” he said.
“Okay, so we have Candace track his phone.”
When he twisted his wrist gently, she let him go. He called Zane, putting him on speakerphone.
The Hunter picked up with an abrupt “What?”
“Need Candace to track Burton’s location.”
There was a pause. “Grayson, don’t be a fucking idiot.”
“Cass wants to talk to him.”
“No, she wants to confront him,” Zane snapped. “You two are going to get yourselves killed.”
Cass frowned, temper coloring her face. She opened her mouth to speak, but Grayson quelled her response with a look. “Just get me a location.”
“Fuck, fine!” Zane all but snarled then hung up.
Grayson set his phone aside, his gut churning as he held Cass’s gaze. There were secrets in the green-gold depths and, even more concerning, a war between guilt and determination. His heart sank, but he managed to keep his voice level. “Are we walking into a trap?”
Her gaze slid away, and she started to pull back, but he tightened his hold, keeping her in place. Her hands went to his chest, her fingers curling into his shirt, but what she didn’t do was answer.
Frustration made him sharp. “Cass.”
“Yes.”
Her quiet, reluctant admission lit the fuse on his simmering anger.
He let her go and took a step back, worried he would resort to shaking her, as that rage burned through him, searing away his patience.
Grayson locked his emotions down and refused to let her wince at his reaction penetrate his consciousness.
“When were you going to tell me?” he asked. Something flashed across her face, too fast for him to catch, and his anger went ice-cold. “Maybe the better question is, were you going to tell me?”
Color came and went in her face, but she held her ground. “Yes, I was going to tell you.”
He wanted to believe her, but it was hard. He folded his arms and continued to watch her, his doubt a silent accusation.
“I was, Grayson.” She moved to him, her eyes on his, her hands coming up only to stop short of touching him.
“I was,” she repeated without looking away.
“I wouldn’t risk you like that, but I don’t have much to go on.
Just flashes.” Her hands fisted at her sides as he continued to watch her.
“They have my mom.” She was pleading now.
“They’re hurting her. They want her to pay because she interfered with their plans. I know that much.”
Questions whipped through him, but only one escaped. “Who’s ‘they’?”
A muscle jumped in her jaw. “I don’t know.”
His temples throbbed as his frustration and blood pressure rose. “But you’re sure Burton’s involved?”
“He’s a connection.” She started to pace, taking her glasses off to rub at her face. “Maybe? I don’t know.”
His hold on his temper crumbled more with each nonanswer. “What do you know, Cass?”
She spun around and glared at him. “That he’s my only path to saving my mother.”
“How?” he asked. When she put her glasses back on and continued to glare at him, he closed the distance between them in two angry steps. “Explain it to me so I can understand.”
He watched her emotions chase across her face, and the fear that he would lose another woman he loved to useless self-sacrifice seared away the last of his self-control. He grabbed her arms and pulled her close as he got in her face.
“Tell me you aren’t planning on sacrificing yourself for her,” he snarled. “That you won’t just hand yourself over to whoever these fucks are.”
Cass’s defiance dissolved. “She’s my mother!” Fury, terror, guilt—it was all there in her voice and in the tears that pooled and then spilled from her eyes. She sagged against his hold. “She’s my mom, Grayson. I can’t leave her. Don’t ask me to.”
Her broken plea was a knife cutting through his resentment and fear. He gathered her close and dropped his head over hers. His rage eased back, replaced by a terrible understanding. His heart ached because he knew the forces tearing her apart.
“I won’t, Cass, I won’t.” He rocked her, comforting them both. “But you can’t keep me in the dark, no matter how bad it is, okay?”
“Okay,” she choked out.
On the counter, his phone vibrated with an incoming text. Cass pulled back, and he let her go. She wiped the tears from her reddened eyes and shoved her glasses up.
He waited until she had regathered her composure before saying, “Tell me what you can so we can figure out how we’re going to handle Burton.”
She took a breath to steady herself. “It’s not much, and some of it doesn’t make sense, but I think whoever is behind all of this targeted Pythia specifically because of its connection to Burton.
Something about him, or something he can do, is driving all of this. ” Her voice strengthened as she talked.
“And your family is Pythia.”
She rubbed her arms as if chilled. “Right, so if you want to stop Pythia, you have to stop my family, specifically my mother as she’s the lynchpin.”
“And Sofia…?”
“Was the easiest way to gain access to my mother and, by extension, Pythia.” Cass used the tail end of her shirt to clean her lenses.
These bits and pieces of information were linked by supposition, not the actionable evidence they needed to cover their asses, but it was a start. “Which made Russ a tool. And Burton? Is he another tool or the mastermind?”
Cass came up beside him and put her glasses back on. “That’s the million-dollar question.”
He grabbed his phone. The incoming text was from Candace, confirming Burton’s location. He held it up so Cass could see it. “Then I guess we should go ask the one person who can answer it for us, then, huh?”