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Mack nodded. He looked a little older. Nose a little less straight. His face a little rounder, like he’d put on a few.
“Guess you’re wondering why…” Mack trailed off.
He wasn’t wondering. Dusty knew exactly why he was here. Turned out the FBI didn’t take kindly to agents using manufactured evidence against innocent people. Mack’s case and career had fallen apart. But not before he’d taken the low road.
“Naw, I think I get it. You need a job.”
Mack’s eyebrows jumped, and he laughed. Just a little. He waved around the club. “Pretty romantic.”
Yes, it was. Every time he walked in here, Dusty was struck by the overwhelming truth that he’d been given a gift. Her. He hadn’t been sure she’d say yes. And he’d had nerves the night he’d asked her to marry him like he hadn’t had in…well, ever.
The word yes had never sounded as sweet in the history of mankind. Made even sweeter by the sharp yeses he’d coaxed out of her fifteen minutes later upstairs in that big bed of hers.
“I came to apologize to Gracie Parish. It got messy there.”
Messy? Fucker had arrested Gracie after they’d come back from dealing with Layla and her crazy vendetta. Dusty had gone insane trying to find Gracie. Fucking Mack. He’d had her transferred to a black site. Tried to get her to confess, hoping to salvage his career—and Rush’s.
Honestly, he’d never been more grateful for the Parish family pull than when they’d joined with him to help locate Gracie, and Dusty, Justice, and Sandesh had gone in there and busted her out.
Still made his blood boil. So, no, he wasn’t going to be nice to Mack. It was all he could do to stop himself from punching the guy before forcibly hauling his sorry ass out of the club. He caught the eyes of the woman whose presence was currently stopping Dusty from following that exact course of action. Beautiful. “If you want to apologize to her, turn around. She’s standing behind you.”
Mack blanched and spun around. Gracie stood there, wearing her Club When? finest and looking hotter than any woman had a right to.
“Apology accepted,” Gracie said. “Now if you don’t mind, Dusty and I were just going to rewatch the shockumentary on disgraced Senator Andrew Lincoln Rush. Did you hear when the authorities finally came to believe my version of events and searched Layla’s home, they found she had numerous videos showing the disgraced senator had drugged and raped girls? Including several recordings of him, drunk and slurring, admitting his despicable behavior?”
Mack nodded. “I did. Yes. I guess you just can never tell what people are like behind closed doors. Sometimes, people confuse you.”
“Yeah,” Dusty said, scratching at the beard he’d been growing, “it’s so difficult to figure out that someone drugs and rapes people when you’ve seen the video of one of his rape victims telling you that she’d been drugged and raped.”
Dusty eyed his old friend meaningfully. Mack had the good sense to stay quiet.
He began to walk away, turned his head back toward Dusty. “Your dad died. Did you know?”
He did. And he knew his congregation had tried to stay together, but in the end couldn’t. He hoped they all ended up better for it.
Seeing Dusty wasn’t going to answer, Mack took a deep breath and walked away. Dusty watched him go. Good riddance.
Gracie climbed up onto a stool, leaned across the bar, ran her thumb along the shadow of stubble on his chin. “You’re still mad at him, huh?”
She looked worried. Like he’d hold that grudge forever. And he might. But how to explain to her? Those panicked, brutal moments of not being able to find her, then finding her and realizing she was locked up, taken somewhere where people could and did hurt her. Of the anger, and the lengths he’d gone to to rescue her. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t.
She had her own stuff to deal with regarding that mess. But she was here now. Safe. And—as much as she’d object, tell him the word meant ownership, though that’s not how he felt—she was his.
Maybe seeing the thoughts playing across his face, Gracie swung over the bar, dropped down next to him, wrapped her arms around his waist. Aw, hell. This woman. He bent to her, kissed her for all he was worth, kissed her like a man who had almost lost the best thing that had ever happened to him.
And she kissed him back. Just as sweet and hot as every minute he spent with her. When they pulled apart from their kiss, it was to the approach of three twenty-somethings, who sat down and began singing with the music pouring through the club’s speakers—“Going to the Chapel”—out of tune and without the correct words.
Gracie grabbed him by the belt hooks and moved her sweet ass to that god-awful song. Actually, now that he thought about it, he kind of liked that song. Might just be the company. Or the friction.
“Love you, Grace.”
The singing trio whistled and hooted as Dusty bent and kissed his bride-to-be. His.
Chapter 72
Making their way through the corridor of the Parish Palace, as Dusty had taken to calling the Mantua Home, Gracie tried not to let her tell-a-tale face let Dusty know just how freaked out she was about what was going to happen. It was unprecedented, unusual, and scary.
Now that the lower levels of the League were back in operation, Momma was going to reverse the M-erasure that Tony had performed on Dusty. Unfortunately, it was much easier to hide a memory, as Tony had done, than to retrieve it, so they weren’t sure it would work. But Momma was going to try and make him whole, give him back his memory.
They walked in silence, their footfalls resounding off the corridor walls as a soccer game echoed from the gym. She directed him left, toward the elevators. Though she pressed the up button, they weren’t going up.
The doors to the elevator slid open. They walked inside. The doors slid shut. That was probably the longest she’d ever not heard him talking.
Dusty reached for the B—basement floor—but didn’t press it. “Not really four floors, right?” he finally said.
“Not really.” Gracie put her wrist up to the control panel. The elevator beeped. Gracie swallowed and said, “Subfloor 4B.”
Another beep. The new system had added security that she thought was a bit too much. A small door on the panel slid open. She bent, let it scan her eyes. The elevator repeated the floor she’d identified and then said, “Grace Divine Parish. Welcome. Rider two, identify yourself.”
Dusty turned his wrist over, eyeballed the elevator like it was a demon. “So I just…”
She grabbed his chipped wrist and held it up to the sensor. The elevator beeped. He bent toward the scanner. It read his eyes and said, “Leif Eric McAllister. Also known as Dusty. Also known as American Ninja Warrior. Also known as Southern Accent. Welcome.”
He laughed in a way that was both amused and disturbed. He looked at her, honey eyes alight. “Rome?”
She nodded. He shook his head. “Kid’s gonna pay for that.”
Dusty reached for the indented handrails on the sides of the elevator. She intercepted his hand, pushed h
is arm away. “Nope. Justice would never let you live it down.”
He smirked at that.
The elevator intoned, “Proceeding to Subfloor 4B.”
“Well, I’m all about impressing your…”
The elevator dropped.
Fast.
Dusty jerked sideways, hit the wall, grabbed the handrail. “Shit.”
Feet braced wide, Gracie stood her ground and grinned at him as he used the handrail to regain his feet.
“Got a lower center of gravity,” Dusty muttered.
And that only made her smile widen.
The elevator slammed to a stop. Dusty released the white-knuckled grip he had on the handrail, walked away from the sides. Looping her arm around his, she didn’t bother to hide her smile. “What do you think of Elevator-X?”
His easygoing grin gracing his too handsome face, he declared, “That’s just not natural. That’s what that is. Un…natural.”
He bent and kissed her. His tongue moved into her mouth. The stubble on his chin scratched pleasantly against her. Heat rolled through her body and she grabbed his shirt, pressed herself closer.
As the doors opened, the elevator announced, “Sub-floor 4B. Welcome, you are being monitored. Entering unauthorized areas will result in immediate expulsion.”
He pulled back from the kiss, rubbed his thumb across her lips. “Sweet as you are hot.”
Heart hammering with lust and a sudden fear, she really fucking loved this guy. She grabbed his hand, squeezed. “It’s going to be okay.”
“Hadn’t been nervous at all until you said that.”
Taking a right off the elevator, away from the misted glass doors of Internal Security—no way was she going in there—she led him to a door that meshed with the walls so seamlessly you had to know it was there. She held her wrist up to the hidden sensor in the wall. There was a beep. Dusty leaned over her and did the same. Another beep and, “You are cleared for access to Neuro Room 3D.”
