Page 54 of Grim’s Angel

“Explain the station.”

“I instructed Rivers to create a confrontation and withdraw once you intervened. His men were supposed to frighten Miss Crane long enough for you to understand that she was being taken against her will.”

“The man we caught believed he was taking me to Vegas,” McKenna says.

“Rivers kept the complete plan from his crew. Their reactions had to appear genuine.”

I stare at him. “You handed her to men who believed they had permission to take her.”

“Rivers was ordered to control them. They were forbidden to injure her.”

“One of them bruised my wrist,” McKenna says.

“That was not authorized.”

“Her bruises do not give a damn what you authorized.”

He flinches.

“They put their hands on her,” I continue. “The harm started there.”

“I know that now.”

“You knew enough when you hired them.”

He has no answer.

McKenna steps closer to the table. “What would have happened if I had agreed to go with them?”

“Rivers was instructed to provoke a confrontation before you left town. Your refusal made that unnecessary.”

“My choices only changed the shape of your trap.”

My father lowers his gaze.

Lock turns the screen toward him. The contract remains open, my legal name sitting beside McKenna’s like a fresh wound.

“Why Grim?” Lock asks. “Why create a protection job instead of telling either of them the truth?”

“Because John would save her.”

His confidence is a match held over gasoline.

“You believed you could predict me.”

“I believed the boy I failed became a better man than I ever was. I knew a woman asking for protection would get past every wall you built.”

“You do not get credit for the man I became after you abandoned me.”

McKenna goes still beside me.

“You did not know her,” I say.

“I investigated her before purchasing the contract. She had completed nursing school. She volunteered at a domestic-violence clinic. Every reference described her as compassionate, loyal, and stronger than she understood.”

“I was a woman in danger,” McKenna says. “You treated me like an item in a catalog and decided I suited your son.”

My father’s silence confirms it.