Grayson blocks its climb by lodging his elbow between the tinted glass and the metal window channeling it. “That wasn’t a favor. It was a warning. If you go into this with guns blazing,as I’m reasonably sure you’re planning, you’ll be up against more than Rimi Castro.”
“I’m not worried.”
Grayson laughs like Rocco’s finger isn’t itching to inch back his trigger. “Then that makes you a fucking idiot. There’s more at stake here than your family’s pride, Dimitri.”
Something inside of me snaps. “Pride?You think this is about pride? Henry Gottle can have New York, he can have the entire fucking country as far as I’m concernedwhenI get my daughter back.Whenshe’s sleeping in the crib I built for her.” I bang my chest during the last half of my statement. “AndwhenI see her face for the first time in front of me instead of via a fucking monitor. That’swhenI’ll let myprideslide. Not before. It most certainly won’t happen before.”
Grayson doesn’t know how to reply. Nothing but silence resonates from both inside and outside of the cab for the next several long seconds. I want to say it eases my agitation. Regretfully, it doesn’t. I’m more worked up now than I was when Rocco had to strain to see Roxanne’s breaths to prove she was alive.
“How old is your girl?” Grayson’s voice is as rough as the wiry hair on his chin.
Not interested in idle chit-chat, I signal for Preacher to go. He slots into the position of driver when Clover wants to catch up on missed sleep. He was on alert to move all night, so he’s as tired as the rest of us.
“Hey, hold up.” Grayson follows the Range Rover’s slow creep down the road as Preacher seeks an opening in the traffic. “Do you want your girl back or not?”
“I don’t need your help to do that.”
Air puffs out of his mouth when he huffs out a laugh. “I wasn’t offering my help. I’mtellingyou the job will be done quicker if we work together.”
“I don’t work with the Feds.”
“Neither do I,” Grayson fires back with a waggle of his brows. “Well, not when it concerns Kirill.”
My lips involuntarily curl at the tips. I had wondered if my advice months ago worked. Grayson’s disclosure reveals it most certainly did. “What are you proposing?”
When Preacher’s eyes shift to the rearview mirror, seeking confirmation on if I want him to pull over, I shake my head. If Grayson wants to talk, he better do it quickly. We’re almost on the open road.
The fact his words aren’t chopped up from the clomps of his boots reveals he has maintained his fitness while undercover in Kirill’s crew. “A mutual corroboration like the one you had with Tobias. Shared information on the agreement it isn’t used foranyoutside influences.”
My brow cocks. “A ‘you scratch my back, I scratch yours’ situation.”
“Yeah,” Grayson answers, unaware I wasn’t asking a question. I was merely validating his name got him into the academy more than his academics.
“Kind of like your arrangement with Rico.”
I slice my hand through the air like I’m swatting a fly, not only wordlessly demanding for Preacher to stop, responding exactly as Grayson was hoping.
“Not as dumb as I look, hey?” He smirks a smug grin before straying his eyes to Smith. “You really should be careful which back doors you sneak through. When you leave it wide open, your footprints are easy to follow.”
While grumbling several curse words under his breath, Smith attacks his keyboard with the malice of a savage. I can tell the exact moment it dawns on him that Grayson isn’t lying. He not only initiates a lockdown on all our devices, he commences stripping information from Grayson’s cell phone. How do I know this? A photo of Katie Bryne popped up on his laptop screen within seconds of him hacking in.
“You don’t need to hack into my phone to understand my objective, Dimi.” Rocco doesn’t take kindly to Grayson using my nickname any more than me. “I’m more than happy to share it with you. We are, after all, on the same team.”
Grayson’s cockiness gets smacked into the next century when Smith barks out, “Katie Byrne was sold in a private auction when she was eighteen. Her handler was an up-and-coming prodigy your father had taken under his wing. He was supposed to prepare the mark for sale. Instead, he fell in love with her. That not only saw him falling out of favor with your father, it had his supervisor at the Bureau on the back foot as well.” Smith raises his eyes to Grayson, mouthscheckmate, motherfucker, before he hits him with the motherlode. “Tobias did everything he could to help his rookie agent out of the pickle he got himself into, but despite both his stellar reputation and the rookie’s dad’s high standing in the Bureau, Katie was sold, shipped to another country, and was never seen again. Boo-fucking-hoo.”
Ouch. I forgot how nasty Smith gets when someone tries to outsmart him.
Spit flies out of Grayson’s mouth when he roars, “You punk-faced motherfucker.” For a man with shoulders as wide as mine, I’m shocked how far he climbs into the car. He gets close enough to Smith to knock his laptop off his lap, but nowhere near close enough to wring his neck like he really wants to.
“Enough,” I say a short time later, over the theatrics.
“Enough!” I roar for the second time when my first order is ignored. Grayson can get away with bypassing my directive, but Smith and Rocco can’t. “Tell me what you have. If it is of interest to me, I’ll return the favor.”
Grayson’s blue eyes shift to mine. They’re not holding an ounce of the humor they had earlier. “That isn’t how things work—”
“Then, we’re done.”
I signal for Preacher to go. I can tell Grayson wants to let me walk. It is in his eyes, slicking his skin. Hell, it’s even readable in the way he holds his jaw. He hates negotiating, especially with men like me, but it just has nothing on the rage he felt hearing how the men who were supposed to have his back didn’t.
