Page 51 of Grim’s Angel

The marriage contract names the man who saved me from it.

Lock opens another file. Corporate records and inheritance trusts fill the screen, the numbers large enough that I read them twice.

The St. Valecourts are old money. Their name appears on hospitals, museums, universities, and financial institutions across the country. Their fortune has survived generations of wars, scandals, and market crashes.

Torch stares at Grim. “You’re one of those St. Valecourts?”

“I was.”

“You have access to this kind of money?”

“That isn’t the problem.”

Lock’s gaze moves from the trusts to Grim. “The shelter. The medical room. Every time the club needed money and it somehow appeared…”

Grim looks at him.

Lock stops speaking.

Striker remains silent. He is the only man in the room who does not look surprised.

Grim’s eyes find mine. Guilt appears there before I can form the question.

“Your father bought me for you.”

The words wound both of us.

Grim looks at the certificate as if he could destroy it with his hands. “That’s what it says.”

“Why would he hire you as my escort if you were the intended groom?”

“I don’t know.”

The answer sounds different this time. It comes from a man discovering that someone has been living behind the door he buried.

Lock opens the original protection request. “The client specified Grim by road name.”

Torch turns toward him. “You told us your father was dead.”

“He has been to me for more than twenty years.”

The room becomes too small.

The men at the station. Grim’s arrival. The gun in my hand. Every choice we made inside a crisis someone else created.

Grim steps away from me.

“Don’t,” I say.

His gaze snaps back to mine.

“Don’t decide what this means before we know why.”

“My name is on the contract.”

Pain moves through his face.

An alarm sounds at the gate.