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I shift to study him. “What was that about?”
“He’s going with Blake’s team on the mission tonight.”
I know very well that Eric is an ex-Navy SEAL so I don’t allow myself to read too much into this. “Is he missing the action?”
“He says he has a gut feeling they’re going to need him tonight.”
The implications of tonight’s raid on the attorney’s house going wrong, perhaps dangerously wrong, has me turning and sinking against the seat. The scent of trouble is in the air and it’s pungent and harsh.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Mia
Eric’s the brother Grayson never had and while I know that he knows Eric can handle himself, he’s concerned for him. He has to be. I am, too. All I know about this underground group is their quest for money at all costs, and money and greed too often lead to destruction.
We arrive at the building and Axe pulls the Escalade to a side entrance. It’s not long before we’re out of the vehicle with both men standing with us. Axe is blond with a square jaw, the silent type who speaks few words. While Adrian is big and tall, Axe is a monster who towers over him a good two inches, which must make him six-five, at least.
“We’ll both be on night shift,” Adrian informs us. “We’ll be watching the building and your apartment. We’re wired into the property’s security camera with some additions we made ourselves.”
“Because we think someone is going to come and attack us in our apartment?” I ask.
Grayson catches my hand. “They’re just being cautious, baby.”
Adrian points at Grayson. “Your man here pays us, and pays us well, to be paranoid little shits.”
And a team of bad guys wants to take down Grayson and get a big payday, I think, but I leave it alone. Bottom line, they do think someone might come at us here, or they wouldn’t be here. It was a stupid question. I shouldn’t have even bothered to ask it.
Adrian motions to the door. “I’ll go first. You can follow. Axe is going to stay right here.”
And I just want to be inside our apartment. Adrian enters the building and Grayson steps behind me, leaning in to whisper, “Relax, baby. Once we’re inside the apartment, all this will melt away.”
He means we can pretend that the danger is gone, but right now, that sounds pretty darn wonderful. Adrian returns and motions us forward. The minute I’m inside the familiar lobby with shiny white marble floors with the towering ceiling, memories explode inside me and so do my nerves. I’m nervous. It’s so silly. This is my building with Grayson. This is my home, but I can’t deny the truth. My belly is fluttering.
I end up with both men framing me on the walk toward the elevator, with Grayson holding my hand. We pass the security desk, where a guard I don’t know is on duty. Grayson leans in close, near my ear, and whispers, “I never took you off the security ledger.”
My heart swells with the emotions this man stirs in me and with the reminder that he never let go of me. I thought he had. I so thought he had and I was wrong. I’ve never been so happy to be so wrong. We reach the elevator and the doors open. His hand is on my lower back as I enter the car before him. Once he joins me, his arm is around my shoulders, our bodies snuggly molded together. I don’t look at him. I can’t yet because I know that when I do, when I really look at him and talk to him, it’s going to be emotional for both of us. We’re in love, passionately in love, but we lost each other for a full, painful year and I know now that we are far from that pain. I’m afraid, too, and I need him to know that.
In what feels like eternal minutes we finally say goodbye to Adrian and step into our apartment, our home. A huge part of me wants to just see it again, to feel it again, but it’s Grayson I really need to feel. And I’m not sure he told me everything about that call with Eric. Grayson shuts the door and locks it behind us and I turn to face him, setting my purse on the entry table.
“Eric? What don’t I know?”
He shrugs out of his jacket and tosses it on the entry table. “He’s not a man of many words. That’s all he said.”
“Are you worried?”
He closes the small space between us and his hands find my face. “I don’t want to talk about Eric right now.”
There’s a dark edginess to him that I know all too well. This is the side of Grayson only I know. That part of him that manages to be demanding and fierce, and yet somehow tender. “You’re worried.”
