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“Nor was I,” I say, feeling a bit choked up, because Eric doesn’t just say things to say things. Eric isn’t a fluffer or a “feel-good” kind of guy, but he’s just managed to make me feel quite good. That is until he releases me and Blake motions to Grayson’s door.
“We need to talk,” Blake says, and now he’s the intense one, and that doesn’t read like good news.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Grayson
Control.
There are very few people in this world that really know how much I value and need control. Mia knows. Eric knows. Right now, I do not feel in control. At all. It’s driving me mad. I catch Mia’s hand and pull her ahead of me into my office, a possessive, protective action, I know, but I can’t help it. I just endured my enemy holding a gun on her head, and he’s not done coming at me, and us, yet.
Blake shuts the door, and we converge around my conference table. Eric tosses a file down in the center. “Statistically,” he says, savant that he is, “those are the ten employees hired in the past year, most likely to be dirty. However,” he adds, “statistically, the odds of you being burned by one of those people is eighty percent less likely than you being burned by someone you know and trust, someone close to you.”
“Me?” Mia bristles, when Mia doesn’t bristle easily. “Are you talking about me?”
“Easy, baby,” I murmur. “He’s not talking about you.”
“Are you?” she asks, focused on Eric.
“The odds of it being you are about even with it being me, Mia,” he states, “which is ten percent, statistically speaking only. Neither of us is going to burn Grayson. And you know I have an intimate understanding of being burned by those close to me.”
He means his family, who own an empire of their own and treat him like a bastard—which technically he is, as his mother wasn’t married to his father, but that’s beside the point. They treat him horribly. “If I thought you were the bad guy here,” he adds, “I’d be handing Grayson a drink and talking to him one on one.”
“We’d all need a drink to tell Grayson that shit,” Blake adds. “The bottom line here is that we all know Grayson is still under attack. The FBI now knows that Grayson is under attack.”
“How do we know the FBI isn’t a part of that?” I ask. “We know the DA’s office has dirty players. If the DA’s office can do it, why not the FBI?”
“We have enough documentation to cover his ass,” he says, “but when you talk about someone near and dear to Grayson, you’re talking a bigger exposure.”
There’s a knock on the door, and Davis, my second confidant to Eric, and my personal attorney walks in. “You rang?”
Blake motions him forward and Davis, a tall, regal, looking man, in his thirties, with dark hair and a short, neatly trimmed beard, joins us at the table. Once he’s up to speed, the debate begins. “What about Nancy?” Davis asks. “She knows everything you do.”
“No,” I say. “It’s not Nancy. She’s loyal, and she makes as much as a seasoned attorney.”
“Honestly, Grayson is so good to everyone. Why would anyone who knows him burn him?”
“You’d be surprised what people will do for a big payday,” Eric says, tapping the folder on the desk. “I put together the top twenty people closest to Grayson for Blake.”
“We’re going to start digging,” Blake confirms.
“I included my banking information and welcomed him to dig into my life,” Eric adds.
“I don’t have much to offer, but what’s mine is Grayson’s,” Mia says. “And we’re signing a prenup anyway.”
I catch her hand, lacing her fingers under the table, at the mention of a topic that we’ve fought about since long before my father passed. I’d been against it and Mia for it, but my opinion had changed when my father told me that he had one with my mother, who was the love of his life. Of course, I know Mia loves me. I know she isn’t after my money, but my father reminded me that life is long and hard, and I want to know she stays because she keeps loving me. So rather than cheat her in a prenup, he instructed me to be generous—to make sure that if she falls out of love, she leaves. I’m damn sure not going to let her fall out of love with me.
“I’ll offer up full access to my everything,” Davis interjects. “I don’t work here, but I’m close to Grayson, really fucking close and a data source to all his private affairs.” He eyes Blake. “I’d welcome some help ensuring I’ve secured his documents.” He grimaces. “Though from what I understand about this group involved, it’s probably too late.”
“We’ll take a look at your data for breaches this afternoon,” Blake offers before eyeing the table. “To be clear,” he adds, “this threat has a three-month expiration. After which, no one with any skin in the game remains engaged. That’s when the payout expires.” He motions to Davis. “I brought him up to speed. Everyone here knows that Ri hired the Dungeon.” He doesn’t give anyone time to reply. “I know,” he adds, “that three months feels like forever, but it’s not forever. That said, Eric has one additional statistic that brain bomb of his conjured up that we need to discuss. It’s a conclusion I came to without his complicated brain, which means we landed at the same place in different ways and need to take notice.”
