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He put an arm around me and said it was a “lover’s spat.” I said my bruises were from a car accident. It didn’t look like the authorities entirely believed our story, but with me not the least bit afraid of Grant and me yakking at him for his high-handedness, it appeared that he was the recipient of the abuse and not me. We went back to the penthouse and that was when I made anotherdiscovery.
Ipaused rightoutside my bedroom door as a thought hit me and I spun around and headed back to the living room where the men were gathered. I tossed my hobo on the coffee table. “Removeit.”
The mentensed.
“Remove what, Angel?” Grant askedpleasantly.
“You found me too quickly,” I said. “I left my phone here at the penthouse. The Port Authority bus station is massive. How did you find me so fast, Grant, if you don’t have a tracker onme?”
All three men werequiet.
“Take itout.”
“We can’t,” Jakesaid.
“Can’t or won’t?” I snapped. “I swear if you guys stitched it into the leather and ruined the purse, I’ll …I’ll…”
“You’ll what,baby?”
I narrowed my eyes at Grant. “Take itout!”
He crossed his arms, bit his lower lip as if he was controlling a grin and rocked back on his heels before he pinned his gaze on me. “We can’t. It’s inside you,Blaire.”
“It’s a tracker using nano-technology,” Jake explained. “When you swallow it, it diffuses and binds into your bloodstream. The effect is long-lasting.”
When I could speak again, after my shock and horror morphed to rage, I yelled,“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me! How? Who makes thisshit?”
“The military,” Jakeshrugged.
I had to rein in my temper for a full thirty seconds. Otherwise, I would have beaned all three of them with my heavy purse. “And how did it get inside me?” I asked through grittedteeth.
“I may or may not have slipped it into your orange juice,” Tylercoughed.
“Unbelievable,” I muttered. “You guys are unbelievable. I could sue you forthis.”
I grabbed my bag and marched into my bedroom and slammed thedoor.
Two weeksafter my attempted escape, we went to Atlanta for Liam’s funeral. Tyler did a search for relatives of Lucas Myers—Liam’s real name—and discovered he had a daughter who was about my age. I learned that he and his ex-wife had divorced when his daughter was seven years old, but he had been in her life until he accepted his undercover assignment with the Russian mafia. Liam’s daughter wanted custody of her father’s body. His daughter was married with two children under the age of eight. My heart broke for his family. The sacrifices Liam had made for his job, for me … especially for me, had been extreme. Grant, Jake, and I watched the service from afar because the funeral brought a resurgence of overwhelming guilt for having taken away this great man from people who lovedhim.
But I loved himtoo.
What the past few weeks had taught me was to gain perspective. The evidence had been brought to the U.S. Attorney General and they had begun prosecution proceedings. Liam didn’t die in vain. He had spent almost six years of his life to bring down the ROC and it was finally happening. Orlov’s death had left a power vacuum, so it had made it easier to round up the members of his inner circle. It pained my heart that Liam wasn’t alive to see the fruition of hissacrifices.
Grant had taken time out of his busy schedule to accompany me to U.S. AG office in Brooklyn. He also convinced me to go to a therapist to work on what happened to me in that dungeon and to come to terms with Liam’s death. As I stepped out from my third appointment with Dr. Jones, drained and having cried a bucket of tears for the loss of my friend, I was expecting to see Tyler at the reception area when, instead, I found Grant waiting forme.
“Grant, what are you doinghere?”
“Taking you to lunch. You haven’t been eating much lately. You’re starting to hurt Colette’sfeelings.”
“My lack of appetite has no bearing on her cooking skills,” I retorted. Grief and oral surgery to repair my loosened teeth sustained from the beating didn’t exactly stimulate myappetite.
“I know, baby.” He smiled at me indulgently and my belly fluttered. No. No. No. I was not falling for that Grant Thorne charm again. Apparently my heart had a shortmemory.
I couldn’t deny that without Grant’s quiet support these past few weeks, I’d be a mess. Therapy helped where I could just cry, get angry, feel sad, and not be judged. Sad moments and those flashes in the dungeon had become infrequent and, instead, Grant’s thoughtful gestures for that day would occupy my mind. I received flower arrangements almost daily; he’d call me at random times of the day or text me just to find out what I was doing. I’d received all kinds of baked goods, although Colette had something to say about that and Grant had to stop sending me sweets. I had no idea why he was keeping me with him. We weren’t having sex and, although he’d asked me out to dinner a couple of times, I’d refused. I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea that I was agreeing to a date with him. I told him several times once I was done with my twice a week therapy sessions that I was moving out, and he couldn’t stop me. Other than the tightening of his jaw, he had no comment, and he’d often change the subject. But I had a feeling he was reaching the end of his patience withme.
Grant took me to lunch at a French Brasserie in SoHo. It was October in New York and there was a definite chill in the air, but the autumn sun was enough to make outside seating comfortable. I didn’t know where Tyler and Jake were, but I knew our security detail were somewhere nearby. Grant had become unusually paranoid when it came to my safety, but at least he allowed me to leave the penthouse as long as my three-man security team was with me. I’d gotten used to them shadowing my excursions around Manhattan as they weren’t intrusive. It was usually Tyler who was by my side; the other two either checked ahead or protected therear.
“Anything particular you like with the specials?” Grant asked after our server left us with themenu.
