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Okay. Again different. Usually, after a botched mission, they wanted her to talk.
Her mother tugged at the fabric draped across her shoulder. “Yes. We need to discuss your young man.”
Her young man? She didn’t like the sound of that. She looked each in the eyes in turn. “Momma. Leland. I won’t stand for you taking his memories. I won’t.”
“Calm down and listen,” Leland said. “Sandesh is with Gracie.”
“Gracie!” She jolted to her feet. Nightmare. “Where? When?” Poor Sandesh. She had to rescue him.
Chapter 38
Sandesh stepped off the escalator at the Philadelphia International Airport with a chip on his shoulder. He adjusted his too-light backpack across his shoulder. The overhead fluorescents by the baggage carousel gave off enough light to see clearly but not enough to seem warm and friendly. Ah, Philly.
He moved past the baggage claim and outside, toward the cabstand.
What the hell?
He blinked until he was sure that he understood what he was seeing. A redhead. Red hair pinned back in an angry little bun. A pissed-off redhead, as hot as she was angry-looking, holding a sign with his name.
This would be Gracie. What was it Justice had said about her sister? Something about never wanting to be on her bad side. Looks like that’s where he’d started out.
The redhead, Gracie, sauntered right up to him. She didn’t just wear her attitude; she was cloaked in it. That attitude made her bland, black suit seem threatening and imperial.
She pointed at him, then hitched her thumb toward a limo. “Let’s go, big guy. We need to talk.”
Chapter 39
Momma waved at Justice. “Sit. He is fine.”
She sat. Her legs felt dull and heavy against the chair. Her sister had her… What was Sandesh to her? “Great lay” sounded a bit cold. “Why Gracie? She could be behind all this.”
“If she is,” Leland said, “she won’t like the fact that we’re bringing a man into the organization. Your man. Especially when we made her give up hers.”
Fuckers. So manipulative. They were putting Sandesh in the line of fire with Gracie. And Tony. After being excluded from the Jordan mission, Tony would be so pissed if Sandesh was… Wait. What? “You’re bringing Sandesh in?”
Momma shifted in her seat. “Yes. It is imperative for his safety and our security.”
Oh. That was good. Wasn’t it? “What do you mean?”
“The Brothers Grim, or I guess we can call him the Grim Brother now, believe that your friend Sandesh has a deeper connection to our mission than he does. Probably because he and Salma intercepted a shipment of women bound for Walid and the Americas right before he helped you escape.”
Looked like Walid had put one and man together and come up with the wrong conclusion. Way to stick to character.
Dude had no idea how very wrong he was. “So, what? You’ll use Sandesh to flush out the traitor, then dangle him in front of Walid as bait, and then after he’s served his purpose, you’ll M-erase him?”
Momma sat up straighter. Offended? Good. Leland put a hand on her raised shoulder. She relaxed.
“Justice. I am allowing Sandesh his memories, so he is aware of the threat and can defend himself and his charity.”
“How totally selfless of you.”
Momma slapped angry hands together. “Would you have me throw away opportunity? Yes. I am sending a message to whoever betrayed you, us. That person might now grow angry and careless. And yet will fear revealing more information to Walid, knowing that doing so will bring them more easily under our scrutiny. But at the same time, I am giving Sandesh a chance to prove himself. Perhaps we can continue this business relationship.”
She brought her masked gaze directly onto Justice. “Can you say you have dealt as fairly with him?”
That hit home like nothing else. She was right. Her mission had jeopardized his charity, and she’d then left him to put the pieces back together while she took on Walid. And Momma.
Heartsick. That was the only way to describe the feeling in her chest. Like her heart had a fever, the chills, and was curled under the blanket of her chest, moaning in pain. Oh, Sandy, I’m so very sorry.
She schooled her features. “And you’re going to trust him? You’re going to allow him to know our secrets?”
Leland shrugged. “That wasn’t our choice.” His eyes took her in, accused her. The sudden rush of blood to her cheeks heated her face as a wave of cold dread settled into her stomach.
Leland continued his stare down, as if weighing Justice’s thoughts and emotions. “Besides, trust won’t be an issue. First, because he has more to lose than us. Second, because you are going to stick to him like glue. And third, because he’s being brought here to be tagged.”
She cringed. “He’s agreed to have a GPS implanted under his skin?”
Leland waved a hand. “We expect you’ll handle that minor detail.”
Chapter 40
The redhead with the I-cut-glass-with-my-unyielding stare leaned over the desk toward Sandesh. Under the black business jacket, she had a Beretta Tomcat. A tiny little thing that easily hid its real potential for danger. Telling.
They’d been in this windowless, colorless, almost airless ten-by-ten room for hours. His neck hurt. His ass hurt. Apparently, this was the way the Parish family treated potential suitors. They sat them at an Amish-crafted wood table, on a schoolmarm-straight wooden chair, while accusing fluorescent lights glared down at them.
Not that he thought Justice would ever consider him a suitor. Damn. He’d settle for “I won’t screw you into a warm, satiated coma and then abandon you without your passport in a foreign country.”
He’d need more than luck for that. He didn’t even know where she was right now. Didn’t even know where he was. He had some idea, though Gracie had blindfolded him. After he’d agreed.
That seemed to be a big deal for her. Asking if he’d mind her blindfolding him and taking him somewhere.
It had taken them three hours to get here, but he suspected that was to throw him off. The Mantua Academy was eighty minutes from the Philly airport. Where else would they take him?
The limo had seemed to drop down at one point, like into an underground garage. And she had taken him into and down an elevator that felt more like a ride at Great Adventure.
So he was down deep. And there was a muffled feeling that came from being surrounded by earth. He sat back, stretched.
Gracie grinned at him. “So when was the first time you and Justice had sex?”
Sandesh blinked. That
was a turn in a whole new direction. They’d spent hours discussing Jordan and now she wanted to get personal. Curiosity? Or some weird suspicion? “That’s not significant to this discussion.”
“It is to me. And since you need our protection—”
Sandesh laughed. “If you didn’t get the memo, I did just fine protecting myself. And your sister. Unlike your supposed group of professionals.”
Gracie’s green eyes narrowed. Her pale skin reddened. Sandesh had never been a fan of blushing, but he was bored and angry and had to keep himself from taunting her to see if he could provoke a deeper skin tone.
“So you don’t care if Salma and her family are in trouble?”
He lowered his arms. Clenched his hands into fists. “What are you saying?”
“Well, tough guy, you rescued a group of enslaved women and girls on the same night Walid’s brother was killed. He followed the trail of those women and it led to Salma and you. He’s convinced you and she are his enemy. Which is part of the reason I took so long to get here. You’re on the Mantua Academy campus. Had to make sure Walid’s men weren’t following you.”
He let that sink in. Not just the statement—how the hell did she have access to that information?—but the domino effect. Salma’s organization, her safety, the safety of those they’d freed, the IPT’s mission, all compromised. And the final domino. The big one.
He was being bribed. Stay in line. Do what we say. Keep our secrets. And we’ll protect your friends and business. Mob-like practices. He kept his face impassive. He’d give her nothing. Not even a sense of his annoyance.
“What do you want?”
Gracie jerked her head sideways, as if cracking her neck. Frustration? “What do I want? Or what does Momma want?”
“There’s a difference?”
“A big difference. Momma wants your help taking out Walid. She wants you brought into the family, into our inner circle. I have no idea how they can possibly think that you’re worth it. When other men, good men, are…lost to us.”
Brought into the family? This fact pissed her off enough that she’d told him about the offer before her mother had even made it. She must be seriously pissed off. People made mistakes, revealed things when they were angry. Good men lost to us? “So you don’t have sex yourself. Is that the reason you want to hear about your sister’s sex life?”
