Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 128307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
If that happiness is with Cameron, I will accept his decision and support him as he has always supported me.
Though I assured Grayson I didn’t need a babysitter, to be safe, he wired himself up as if he were attending a sting undercover before ordering Brandon to keep an eye on me.
Brandon watches me as closely as I watch Grayson. Being treated as a fragile artifact should bother me, but it doesn’t. I’d rather they mollycoddle me than forget me and leave me in the dark.
“Are you sure we should be encouraging this, Mace?” Brandon asks, stealing my focus from Grayson, who is still building the courage to knock. “Alex didn’t send him to the other side of the country for no reason. You know that, right?”
I wish I didn’t, but I do. It wasn’t a coincidence that out of all the agents in the bureau, Grayson was the one to land at my doorstep.
Instead of answering Brandon’s question, I remind myself that Grayson needs this more than anything. “We just need to support him as he always has us.”
Brandon hums yet offers nothing further.
I check my oxygen levels when Grayson shifts his weight, then knocks once. The bang of his knuckles on the glossy wood echoes through the feed. It is as thumping as my pulse but as hollow as the pit forming in my gut.
When Grayson’s knock goes unanswered, I lean forward and squint through the brightness of the screen. Cameron’s apartment is silent yet occupied. Brandon conducted surveillance while Grayson and I were traveling to her building.
It was pretentious of me to involve Brandon in this while faking a lengthy bathroom break, but I didn’t want Grayson walking into a potential situation unprepared. Cameron is a victim, but certain aspects of her demeanor rub me the wrong way. Maybe it’s jealousy, but I couldn’t live with myself if I dismissed it as envy and then something went wrong.
“She’s home, right?” I keep my voice low so Grayson’s earpiece doesn’t pick up my question.
Brandon doesn’t look away from the monitor. “Yeah. Her car is in the lot, and infrared has registered movement inside her apartment. She’s just ignoring him.” His frustrated sigh whistles through the speakers, drawing out my annoyed huff.
I bite the inside of my cheek, fighting not to retaliate to Cameron’s deliberate silence with more than a huff. She’s making Grayson wait, or worse, making him chase like he hasn’t already been pursuing her for seventeen years.
My nostrils flare to cool my rising body temperature. I hate how upset Grayson looks when he knocks again, harder this time. His shoulders are lower than they were seconds ago, and he’s biting the side of his lip hard enough to mark—both telltale signs that his ego is being slapped with back-to-back whacks.
He needs this closure, and I detest that Cameron is keeping it from him.
I straddle the line between good and evil before my love for this man overrules all rational thinking. “What’s her license plate number?”
Brandon’s brows knit as he glances at me, confused. “Why?”
“Just tell me.”
He sighs, taps a few keys, and then reads off Cameron’s license plate number. Worry that I’m making a mistake trickles through my veins when I jot it down, but the plan has already formed, and I do not back down when challenged.
Grayson returns to the van ten minutes later, his knocks unanswered. Anger and confusion pinches his face, and he clenches his jaw tight, as if holding back a torrent of words he knows he can’t take back once he releases them.
I meet him at the sliding door of the van, looking relaxed. He’s wound up tight enough for the both of us, so I won’t add to his frustration.
“She didn’t answer,” he says, like he isn’t wired up.
“She will,” I reply. “It’s not over yet.”
His lips twitch as his brow gets lost in his rigorous hairline. “What do you mean?”
I hold up the spark plugs I removed from Cameron’s car engine, dangling them as if they’re prize-winning fish. “She has a meeting tomorrow. Something important. She won’t want to miss it, so she will be more than willing to accept the help of an apparent”—I air quote my last word—“stranger if he’s her only means of transport.”
His eyes widen in surprise before another emotion I can’t decipher narrows them back to their normal width. He looks as torn as I feel, but instead of praising my brilliance, he reminds me that I usually play good cop. “You shouldn’t have done that, Mace.”
I follow him into the van, slot my backside in the passenger seat, and then fasten my belt. “Once she sees you, she will want to talk to you. We’ve just got to force the first contact.”
Force wasn’t the right word for me to use. It sinks Grayson’s shoulders further and sees him pulling out of the alleyway like I told him my water broke.