Page 84 of Crossfire
“That guy that tried to kill me,” I said, recalling the accusation Grayson made in my living room. Specifically the kind of people he thought I was in bed with. “He was an arms dealer?”
His non-denial confirmed it while my mind grappled with the shocking reality. I had been lured to a parking garage by someone who was either an arms dealer or knew that an arms dealer would be there.
That took the attack against me to a whole new level and opened up more questions than answers.
“And then you followed me,” I realized. “You followed me to the coffee shop and pretended it was the first time you’d seen me.”
“Tell me about your father,” he said.
My jaw tightened, my head whiplashing with his rapid changing of the subject.
“What about him?”
“Might he have been?—”
“An arms dealer? No.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Wasyourfather an arms dealer?” I spat, trying to prove my point.
“My father was the noblest person I knew,” Grayson said.
“Looks like the apple fell pretty far from the tree then,” I retorted.
“Your father…”
“Was a protector, not a killer!”
“How can you be so sure?”
“The same way you know your father wasn’t an arms dealer. We know our family, Grayson. And I knew my father. He protected me when…”
Grayson’s head tilted to the side. “When what?”
Crap. I hadn’t meant to let that slip—the darkest secret in my past.
“Nothing.” I looked down at my legs. “Next question.”
“What did your father protect you from?”
I said nothing.
“I’ll remind you of the terms of our agreement. I ask questions, and you answer them.”
“It’s none of your business, so if that’s a deal-breaker, go ahead and slit my throat.”
He glared at me. “You’d risk death rather than answering?”
Part of it was to protect my heart; it had taken me years of therapy to get past that childhood event, and I certainly wasn’t going to pick the scab right now when I was my most vulnerable. Plus, I wasn’t about to divulge something so intimate to this guy, who’d already penetrated my heart once.
“It has nothing to do with today.”
“We don’t know that.” Grayson stepped forward, fingers flexing at his sides while a thousand thoughts seemed to flash across his features. “Your fighting skills,” he started, his voice low and measured. “Those are mastered over a period of years of careful training and practice.”
My heart quickened, and my palms grew clammy. What did he want, true or false responses from me? Not happening. Iwould not let anyone see the scars that I kept hidden deep inside.
“It started as self-defense classes, didn’t it?” he pressed, searching my face, probing for the truth that I desperately tried to conceal.