Page 48 of Grim’s Angel

When I fasten her bra, I kiss each shoulder before pulling her sweater into place.

“You take care of me after,” she says.

“Before, during, and after.”

“That sounds suspiciously permanent.”

I meet her gaze. “Nothing about you feels temporary.”

Someone knocks twice.

Striker’s voice comes through the door. “Motel team is ready, Prez.”

McKenna’s expression hardens with purpose.

I settle my cut across my shoulders and open the door.

Tonight, we take Rivers’s records, drag the truth out of her brother, and find the name of the man who bought her.

Then I make sure no piece of paper ever owns part of her life again.

Chapter 8

McKenna

Less than half an hour after we leave the clubhouse, Alan’s frightened voice fills the command SUV parked across from the motel.

Lock sits beside me while Grim’s entry team moves through the two rooms upstairs. Camera feeds cover the screens in front of us, and the open comm line carries every voice directly into my ear.

“Hands where I can see them,” Striker orders.

“I didn’t do anything. Rivers handled the contract.”

Grim’s voice follows, low enough that Lock glances at me. “You entered your sister in an auction. When she refused to go through with it, you came to Roseburn Falls to force her. Choose your next lie carefully.”

I close my eyes.

Part of me still wants Alan to say there has been a mistake. That part remembers the older brother who taught me to ride a bicycle and carried me inside after I scraped both knees.

The rest of me understands that boy can exist in the same body as the man who sold me.

“Both rooms secure,” Hound reports.

“Rivers?” Lock asks.

“Gone,” Torch replies. “His coffee hasn’t gone cold. He can’t be far.”

Grim curses softly.

“The safe?” Lock asks.

“Still here,” Torch says. “Rivers wired it to a thermite charge.”

Lock’s fingers move across his keyboard. “Don’t touch the keypad. Give me the serial plate.”

Torch reads the number aloud.

For the next ten minutes, Torch reports each step as he exposes the wiring. Lock tells him where to place the bypass and waits for confirmation before giving the next instruction. Their voices remain calm enough to make the charge sound less dangerous than it is.