Page 18 of Reckless Woman
I take a beat to process it, and then I’m hitting the brakes hard.
“Fuck!” I roar again. “FUCK!”
Re-reading the message, I grip the wheel so tight I can feel the black leather biting into my skin. New York wasn’t in the plan. I had every intention of staying in a safe house near the rehab center for the next forty-eight hours and ignoring my problems with a bottle of Jack.
He calls with more details as I’m pulling out of the driveway. By then, my heart is so heavy it’s hanging out somewhere near the gas pedal.
“Grayson?”
“Speaking.”
“Did you get my message?”
There’s a coolness in his voice that I don’t appreciate today. I haven’t apologized for what happened in his office, and he’s not exactly known for his amnesty. We’ve been acting like two tigers ever since—snapping and circling—and that’s the way it’s staying until he comes to his senses over his niece.
“It just came through.” I tell him.
There’s a pause. “Williams?”
“Delivered. Leaving the center now.”
“I need you in New York to take my place for something.”
“What and why?”
“Eve’s having contractions. I’m flying back to the island now. Peters has something urgent for us. It’s sensitive, and he wants to deliver it in person.”
Jesus Christ.“Can it wait?”
There’s a pause. “No, it can’t fucking wait, Grayson.”
My hostility is catching him off guard. I’ve usually backed down by now.
“He’s meeting you outside Sanders’ bar in Manhattan at nine. There’s another jet waiting for you at Opa-locka Airport.”
I ring off after that. He’s already pissed all over my plans enough.
It’s late afternoon in Miami and the sun is dueling with the tinted windows. Even my Wayfarers are acting like a waste of two-hundred dollars. Pulling over, I call my man inside Greens. Anna doesn’t take one step in the US without constant eyes on her, even when she’s in rehab. She’s been kidnapped twice before, and it’s never happening again.
He answers on the first ring.
“Grayson.”
“I’m out of town for the next twelve hours. I want updates.”
“No problem.”
“Any hint of trouble, I want to know about it.”
“Understood. She’s going into a group session now.”
“Call me afterward.”
Hanging up, I take my frustration out on the incoming traffic—swinging away from the curb so violently I leave a chorus of squealing brakes in my wake.
An hour later, I’m thirty-thousand feet up in one of Santiago’s jets, nursing a whiskey and cursing every single mile that takes me further away from her.
Closing my eyes, I let the sound of the engines lull me down to hell. I can feel him approaching from the back of the jet, his wet sneakers leaving bloody footprints on the carpet. It’s always worse when I’m alone and half-cut. They’re the lock and the key, and I’m the shit security guard who lets him in every time.