Wound Up (18 page)

Forever.

She looked up at him, rubbing her temple. “You okay?”

“Sorry about that. I’m fine.” The intercom beeped. “Grace?”

She stepped out of his embrace. “Yes?”

“There’s a delivery for you at the front desk.”

“What is it?”

The receptionist chuckled. “An amazing bouquet of roses.”

Grace glanced at Justin, brows raised.

His heart plummeted. He hadn’t sent her flowers.

The door handle rattled.

He shoved Grace aside as the door opened and he was suddenly staring down the barrel of a gun.

18

“S
TAY
THERE
,
G
RACE
. Do
not
turn around.”

Those were the first words that registered with Grace. “Excuse me?” she snapped, irritated. What the hell had he shoved her for? Did he think the door was going to hit her harder than he had when it opened? It had been locked, for heaven’s sake. She made to stand.

“Damn it, Grace,” Justin snapped. “Stay. Down.”

She cradled her hands, scraped raw on the industrial carpet. She glanced over her shoulder as Gavin stepped inside the office brandishing a 9 mm Berretta. A
cocked
9 mm Berretta. “Oh, shit,” she breathed.

Gavin shut the door and locked it, refusing to look down at her. “You aren’t supposed to be here, Grace.” Gone was the “Ms.” he usually addressed her with. She started to roll over and his trigger finger shifted from running down the side of the barrel to hovering over the trigger, the gun still pointed at Justin. “Uh-uh. You stay there and do what Maxwell says. Turn around.”

She stopped moving, her heart wedged so tightly in her shrunken throat she couldn’t breathe. “Don’t do this,” she quietly pleaded. She wasn’t trying to exert her influence as an authority figure. She was expressing the truth of her vulnerability. Gone were all the reasons to talk this out with him professionally. Gone were all the lessons she’d ever learned by living in a domestic war zone. Gone were her years of training. All that remained was a woman facing the prospect of losing the man she loved when she’d only just found him. “Please, Gavin.” Her voice broke on his name.

“Stay down, Grace,” the teen commanded. “I don’t want you exposed to this kind of violence.”

Laughter colored with madness escaped her in a whoosh. “You don’t, huh?” She rolled to her side, refusing to look away, afraid of what could happen in that blink of an eye. Fear threatened to shut her mind down. Then she gazed up at Justin. He was facing the young man, hands loose at his sides, face completely neutral. She owed it to him, to them, to what might be, to do better than freeze. As if on cue, her mind began to work.
Use his name.
“You’re the one exposing me to the violence, Gavin.”

She rolled a little farther, and his finger shifted to rest on the trigger. “I told you, stay down.”

“Please, Gavin. Don’t do this.”
Make it personal.
“Don’t do this to me.”

“I ain’t doing nothing to
you
, Grace. I’m taking out a traitor to D’eight,” he spat, using the gang’s common name. “You know this dude is a traitor, right?”

Keep his focus on you.
“Wait. What do you mean he’s a traitor?”

Gavin spat on Justin’s shoes. “He was full Deuce. The brothers had his back. They were gonna provide for his momma and her kids. All he had to do was cap a cop who’d worked his way into Deuce. Woulda been easy, but he broke faith, Grace. He wouldn’t pull the trigger.”

“The guy had a family,” Justin said softly. “A wife, small kids, his own mother living with him.”

“Shut up!” Gavin shouted, hand shaking so hard Grace was terrified he was going to accidentally shoot Justin. “You shut up.”

Justin shrugged, and Grace jumped in before he could say anything else. “What do you get out of this, Gavin? What does—” she almost lost it “—killing Justin get you?”

“I’ll be full Deuce. The boys’ll bring me in, take care of
my
family like they woulda his.”

“They’re lying to you,” Justin said calmly.

Gavin raised the gun to Justin’s face. “Shut. Up.”

Grace began to sweat, her muscles aching from sustaining the same position too long. “Gavin, please. Don’t do this to me. And you
are
the one doing this.”

“I’m gonna make you rich, Grace.”

“Rich?” she asked, confusion making her shake her head quickly.

“D’eight’s going to pay me hard for taking out this muthuh. When I’m rich, I’ll come for you, take care of you in style.”

“You can’t believe I’m going to go with you if you shoot Justin?” No way could she say “kill” again. Once was one time too many. Everyone had limits. That was hers.

“He’ll take you, by force if has to,” Justin said, still calm.

The teen shoved the nose of the handgun into the soft spot under Justin’s chin. “I ain’t tellin’ you again to shut your fuckin’ mouth, Pretty Boy.”

Grabbing the detail, she asked, “Why’d you call him Pretty Boy?”

“It was the name D’eight gave him. I’m Code 3,” he said with pride.

“Why Code 3?” she pressed.
Get him to talk about himself.

“Because I’m going to be their point man.” When she didn’t comment, he smiled affectionately. “Means I’ll be head of the enforcers’ unit. You’ll learn.”

“You’re going to ruin my life, Gavin.” She looked up at him, forcing herself to focus on his face and not the gun or Justin.
Keep face-to-face contact.

“I’m going to
make
your life, Grace. You’re going to love me,” he said, cocking his head to the side in an attempt at being coy.

“I’m never going to be able to trust you.”
Get to the root of the issue.

“Like you can trust this turncoat?” he scoffed, the first vestiges of insecurity showing through his facade as he glanced between her and Justin.

“I do trust him. Completely.”

Gavin blinked quickly. “How can you? How can you trust someone who didn’t stand by what they said they’d do?”

Clarify emotions.
“I feel about him the way you want me to feel about you.”

“Tell me,” Justin said softly.

This wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen. There should have been time, a hundred thousand hours to say this a hundred thousand different ways, but now she was reduced to the most basic truth, offering the only answer she could. “I love you, Justin Maxwell. I’ve loved you for years.” She faced Gavin. “If you shoot him? I will never, ever forgive you. You want my respect? You want me to believe you’re an honorable man?” She finished rolling over and sat up, palms out. “Do the right thing here. We can all walk away from this.”

“I can’t,” Gavin whispered, the gun lowering a fraction. “I have to—”

Justin lunged, grabbing the barrel of the gun. He grabbed the barrel of the gun, shoving it up and back, twisting to break Gavin’s hold on the weapon between heartbeats. The kid didn’t have the opportunity to squeeze off a shot before Justin had control of the gun and had aimed it at his attacker.

Grace scrambled off the floor and reached for the phone.

“Don’t.”

The absolute vacancy of emotion in Justin’s voice stopped her cold. “What?”

“On your knees, Gavin. Hands behind your head.”

The kid paled so hard and fast Grace feared he might pass out, but he did what Justin demanded. A dark stain appeared on his jeans where he wet himself.

Justin didn’t react. “I’m going to make a few things crystal clear for you before we finish this. First, don’t ever,
ever
think you can bring violence against Grace and not face repercussions. I will defend her to my last breath.

“Second? They call you Code because that’s how they expect you to arrive at the emergency room. Dead, you dumbass. Coded. As in, no medical assistance required because this piece of shit is beyond help. And you’re number three because there are two other Codes in front of you. You guys are just collateral. They don’t give a damn whether you live or die. I was in Deuce for years. Years, Gavin. You think they really believed you’d take me down? I’ve done the kind of stuff you haven’t even begun to
dream of
, kid.”

“Nuh-uh,” Gavin said weakly.

“Believe what you want. Third? The only reason this hasn’t ended differently is because I won’t bring the violence to Grace. Not like you did. She deserves a life free of the mess you wanted to subject her to. You would sentence her to death out of some misbegotten sense of entitlement to her?”

Grace watched Justin struggle with something she didn’t completely understand. Watched as his hands shook and his pupils dilated. “Justin?” she said again.

He kept on as if he hadn’t heard her. “You think I’m going to just up and let you walk out of here? You’re wrong. They called me Pretty Boy because no one who looked at me believed I’d ever be able to pull the trigger, to do the dark shit that tainted the soul. I did, Gavin. More than once.” His chest heaved. “If it hadn’t been for the compassion of the cop I was sent to kill, I
would have done it again
. He helped me get out. So I’m going to give you a choice. You get out now and go legit, get into Second Chances and become a mentor, or your mother gets a call from the coroner this afternoon to come identify your body. Because here’s what you
don’t
get. No one threatens me and mine.”

“You’re sayin’...they sent me in here to fail?”

“Probably. You were a message to remind me to keep my nose out of their business. You were also a tool they could afford to lose. On the off chance you got the drop? They’d have owned you, man, because once you pull the trigger? The options to get out alive are pretty much nil.”

Gavin folded in on himself. “But I got to take care of my mom. She lost her job, my old man’s a drunk. I got a little brother.”

“Then get a damn
job
, Gavin! Don’t take to killing people to supply your old man with drink. Your mom deserves better than going to her son’s funeral in the next three months.”

“I don’t got skills.”

His tone softened. “If you get involved here, you can learn some. In the meantime, I happen to know a construction crew who’s always looking for cleanup people. Means walking around picking up nails and boards and stuff, but it pays pretty well. I’m willing to make the call if you’ll pull your head out of your ass and man up.”

Grace watched as Justin retreated from the violence that had nearly claimed him. He was working this kid like a pro, scaring him, then offering him redemption and a way to save face.
Making it personal.

She took a step toward him but he held his hand out. “Not yet. Not while I have a gun in my hands.” He stepped back, the weapon tucked up close to his body so Gavin wouldn’t be able to return the favor and take it away from him. “Now what’s it going to be?”

“You going to call the cops?”

“Them or the bodymobile. Your choice. You have to accept responsibility for your actions, Gavin. You chose every single move you made over the past, what, three months?”

“Two.”

“Two months, then. That’s what being a real man is all about—earning your way in the world, owning your mistakes and working to be a better man. It has nothing to do with what you can take by force. Feeding on those weaker than you doesn’t make you better, it just makes you a target for more people—those who are stronger and want to prove a point and those who are weaker who you’ve done wrong.” Justin clicked the gun’s safety on. “Be glad I stopped subscribing to that warped take-by-force mentality a long time ago. Now, what’s it going to be?”

“Call the cops.”

“Make the call, Grace.”

She rushed to the phone and dialed with shaking hands. When all was said and done, she turned back to Justin, fighting to keep calm.

He looked over to her and smiled even as worry continued to fill his gaze. “So, you love me, huh?”

“Enough that I’m going to absolutely kill you when this is over and we’re alone again.”

“She’s crazy about me,” he said to Gavin.

“No need to rub it in, asshole,” Gavin muttered.

Justin snorted. “Yeah. There is.”

“Both of you cut it out.” She sank to the floor, buried her face in her hands and, through the tears, tried to make her mind slow down and work even a little logically. Everything Justin had been through had brought him here, to this moment. It had enabled him to handle staring down the barrel of a large-bore handgun without blinking, without folding, without fear. She’d grown up rough, but she was nowhere near as prepared as he’d been to embrace the violence and meet it blow for blow. What he’d done, who he’d been and who he was now, they’d all come together in those terrorizing minutes. This world was where he was meant to be—the same hell she’d worked so hard to escape. If she stayed with him, would he only pull her down again? Or would he able to show her how to do what he’d done, to find true healing in the heart of despair?

Grace looked up to find Justin watching her. “You were so comfortable with the ugliness.”

He didn’t answer, only stared.

Tears traced down her cheeks, hot against her chilled skin. “I don’t know if I can live with that.”

* * *

J
USTIN
’
S
WORLD
TILTED
, throwing him off balance enough he was forced to take a step to recover, planting his feet wide. “What are you saying?”

“I’m not sure.” The words were hushed but undeniably broken.

The police barged in, bringing with them a flurry of activity. They dragged Justin away from Grace as he was temporarily cuffed and the weapon taken and disarmed. By the time they hauled Gavin away, Justin was standing clear of the general ruckus and watching as the police took Grace’s statement. In an absolute twist of irony, the cop he’d been sent to kill had made detective and shown up today as part of the response team the patrol unit called in after arriving.

“How’s my favorite hit man doing?” Detective Stevenson asked, eyeing Justin.

“Just earned my doctorate and came back to work for the center.” It felt damn good to be able to answer him that way.

Stevenson whistled long and low. “Doctorate, huh? And you’re working here?”

“It was that or join hostage negotiations for the cops, and I didn’t think they’d take my application too seriously given our history.”

The other man laughed. “Yeah, they’d have eighty-sixed it.”

“Not surprised.” Justin looked around Stevenson again, checking on Grace.

“She yours?” the detective asked, pulling out a stick of gum and offering one to Justin.

He declined. His mouth was so dry he wouldn’t have been able to work up the spit to chew. “She was before this whole thing went down.”