“What we do? Rescue people? Stop pedophiles? Stop abuse? Defend those without power?”
“That’s not your job.”
She honestly could not get enough air into her lungs to tell him about her creeper detection software, her work. He disapproved of her. Not Momma. Not the League. Her.
Her stomach roiled with sticky tentacles of regret. “We need to talk about this, John. I’m not going to go away this time.”
“Don’t say that.” He surged forward, hands balled into fists. The crisp blue suit, polished and professional, contradicted the impulsive anger behind the action. “I’m not putting up with any of that craziness in Ty’s life. I have another son. A wife. Don’t come around. Don’t test me.”
“Are you threaten—”
“No. No. But I will do what I have to do to protect my family. Remember that.”She hadn’t recognized when he’d taken Ty what he’d been capable of. So what was he capable of?
“You realize that’s a threat, right?”
He glared at her, turned, and stormed out, slamming the door behind him—on her, on their past, on the lies—with a firm click.
She sat back and clasped her trembling hands tightly between her knees.
Chapter 30
Entering Club When? Dusty noticed a guy coming out the front door. He held the door open for him. The guy’s eyes traveled up, widened at the sight of Dusty. That made two of them. Gracie’s ex, John.
Dude looked pissed. What was he doing here? Probably none of his business, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to find out.
Passing through the club, Dusty went into the kitchen. The smell of French fries reminded him he hadn’t eaten this morning. He shouted hello to the chefs, gave a thumbs-up to the distracted dishwasher before heading to Gracie’s office.
The door was open a crack. He toed it with his boot and it opened the rest of the way. Gracie sat behind her desk, sobbing into her hands.
Shit.
She looked up and immediately buried her face in her hands again. “Go way.”
She probably meant away, but that’s not how it came out, so…
He closed the door, walked around her desk, spun her chair toward him, and took a knee. He leaned close enough that his shoulder practically kissed her forehead. “Gracie.”
She slumped forward, dropped her head onto his shoulder. He put his arms around her shaking body. His own heart picked up its pace. What had John done? What had he said?
He lifted her up, brought her onto his knee, and held her tighter. “What’s wrong?”
For a few wracking minutes, she sat there crying. Her tears dripped onto the shoulder of his gray henley, her fingers dug through the fabric into his biceps. Then her breathing evened out, her tears slowed. She slid off his knee and into her chair. “I’m not sad. I’m angry.”
He shifted onto his haunches, reached over to the tissue box, got a tissue, handed it to her. “At what?”
She blew her nose, tossed the tissue into a can beside her desk. “At myself.” She looked him directly in the eyes. “I gave up my son to protect his father, who could not have cared less.”
Her stare was a direct challenge. If he admitted knowing she had a son, he as good as admitted to investigating her. Her family. And after what Mack had just said…time was not on his side. His throat grew tight. Aw, hell. “Tyler. Your son. You gave him up to protect John.”
She closed her eyes in what looked like relief, exhaled, opened her eyes, and told him the story. Well, the bones of it. Her family didn’t “get along” with John. He didn’t approve of some of their “business practices.”
After saying that, she blushed a red so deep he could feel the heat on his own face. “How did John find out about those particular business practices?”
She shrugged. “I told him. I know it sounds hard to believe, but I was naive.”
Not hard at all. “You’d been educated in the Mantua school, adopted into the Parish family. All your experiences, schooling, spirituality, had been filtered through that world. You got out and fell in love. Wanted to share your truth with someone. Not so hard to believe.”
He adjusted his position. Gracie stood so abruptly, he had to grasp the desk so he didn’t fall over. She moved around the desk, got the chair there, and dragged it to him. “You look uncomfortable.”
Now why did that make him want to hug the stuffing right out of her? He took the chair, set it beside the desk, and sat. “Thanks.”
She sat down again, swiveled so she faced him. “You’re right. I was sheltered enough that it was almost culture shock to find out what I’d been taught was dogma and not necessarily how the rest of the world worked.”
“What had you been taught?”
“You know, it’s my responsibility to fight for others, to seek out injustice, to right wrongs. Marvel superhero stuff.”
Sounded like she was mocking herself. “So you got out into the world—to a bar, no less—and saw people drinking, screwing around, having fun, realized you’d been sold a bill of goods, and said—this is the teenage you, now—fuck this?”
She shook her head. “No. Never. The responsibility was too deeply ingrained, but that fact—that I couldn’t give up the fight—made me F-word mad. I’d never been given the option of just worrying about my own problems, having a family, making money, taking care of my business. It didn’t seem fair.”
“And then John showed up.”
“Yep. An opportunity to just be me.”
“You got pregnant.”
“And for a while it was actually good. I got to be Gracie in love. Gracie pregnant. Gracie as a mom. Until, in a hormonal lovefest, I spilled the beans to John.” She bit her lip. “I guess you can say I’m not the least emotional of people.”
So said the memories of her riding him in this very office, her boldness in Mexico, her tears right now. “So not-the-least-emotional-of-people tells her first love she comes from a family of”—he paused, adding secret weight to the words—“businesspeople. And all hell breaks loose. Family’s pissed. Boyfriend’s pissed. And Gracie Parish does what she can to make it okay.”
Gracie’s shoulders slumped. “Not that simple. But, yeah. And everyone went back to their lives.”
“Except you.”
She nodded. “Ty was two when I gave him up. So I still remembered the smell of his baby skin, the feel of his hair against my cheek, the way his laugh made the world better. Naturally, I tortured myself with memories.”
Her hands simultaneously swept tears aside from under both eyes. “Then a few years ago, Ty got sick. He was in the hospital for a month. During that time, I kind of lost it. I couldn’t be with him. Hold his hand. Brush back his hair. I blamed myself, a lot. But I also blamed Momma. I stewed on that anger. Then I did something to get back at her.”
She stopped there, looked at him. Though she’d never admitted to sending that email to the FBI, he could see that confession in her eyes. He nodded. “Got it.”
She let out a breath. The tears came again. He reached across the desk to the tissue box and pulled out another and handed it to her.
She took it, wiped her eyes. “Ty’s getting sick made me realize I could lose him without even knowing him. So after Mexico, after Tony…I decided to try to live a different life. I thought I could return to being in Ty’s life. Not as his mother. But in his life.”
He could see where this was going. “John came by today and told you that was never going to happen.”
She nodded. “Yeah. Guess I can’t blame him.”
“I can.”
She shook her head. “You don’t get it. My life is dangerous.”
Like hell. He was investigating her mother for vigilante activities, and he understood better than most. Naw, he just couldn’t square a man who’d keep his son away from a caring and loving mother. “More dang
erous than a cop, a detective, FBI or CIA, a solider? Lot of parents with those jobs.”
She rubbed at her forehead.
“Gracie, when your biological mother showed up, after giving you up for adoption, Mukta, your momma, let you go live with her?”
“Not without stipulation—I returned for classes, training, Sunday dinner—but yeah.”
“You think that was okay?” he prodded. “Sheila had lymphoma. That wasn’t going to end well. And she was taking you away from everything you’d ever known, to a bar, no less.”
Gracie blinked, squared her shoulders. “Wait a minute. Momma let me go because she loved me. She wanted me to know my mother. And all of that judgmental stuff didn’t matter.”
“Why not?”
She stared at him. “Love matters more.”