The Price of Grace Read online

  “I assume you’re talking about the Equal Pay Initiative. The one that states a woman needs to show substantial proof that her work is equal in quality and effort to a man’s before filing a suit claiming wage discrimination based on gender.”

  “You know that is what I mean. It’s another hoop and unnecessary. The federal Equal Pay Act established in the sixties, for all intents and purposes, already makes this qualification.”

  “Then I don’t see what the issue is. We are merely firming up the law.”

  “It is another roadblock to equality, one that requires a woman be grilled and subjected to gross humiliation, and you know it. Stop delaying. Kill the bill. Or I will tell the world about Gracie and end your bid for president before it even begins.”

  She hung up.

  Stunned, Porter tried twice before managing to set the phone down on the cradle.

  Gracie?

  Chapter 9

  The two intersecting corridors on the upper level of Gracie’s Club When? were devoid of decoration. Or personality. Four foreboding steel doors, three of which led to work spaces, and the fourth, the only one in the second corridor, led to her apartment.

  In the main corridor, the work doors led to a server room, her office, and the door she was currently behind, a tactical operations center for the underground railroad.

  The underground railroad was a League cyber operation that worked exclusively in the United States. It helped locate abused women and girls, organized rescues, and placed those rescued in a new state, home, school, or job—depending on their needs.

  It was here, in a state-of-the-art command center tight with computer equipment, Gracie sat creating databases to help identify creepers seeking children and vulnerable women via the dark web.

  She rubbed at sore eyes. She’d been at this awhile, streamlining things so it worked not just for her, but for law enforcement. Needing a break, she pushed back from the desk, rolled her shoulders, then cringed when her cell rang. It vibrated across the shiny black surface of the desk.

  She didn’t need to look at the caller ID to know who it was, but her eyes strayed there anyway. Yep. Momma.

  She firmed her resolve. Having Tyler wave at her had unchained her need to be part of his life, a need so powerful she couldn’t wrestle it down and leash it again. As difficult as it would be to convince Momma a new deal could be worked out, John would be worse. If he thought she was still involved with the League, he would never let her into Ty’s life.

  To reconnect with Tyler, she had to cut herself off from the League. And that decision, ignoring the needs of the world’s women, the League, her family, was easier if she didn’t have to face them.

  She picked up. “Hello, Momma. If this is about dinner, I’m sorry, I have plans.”

  “Are they unbreakable plans? I would consider it a sincere kindness if you came tonight.”

  A “sincere kindness” was as good as a summons. Momma didn’t make demands like that without reason. “Why?” she asked.

  “Your newest sister, Cee, asked specifically for you.”

  “Cee is asking for me? I’m the person who said she shouldn’t be adopted into our family. I know she knows this, because I said it to her face.”

  And Cee had a huge need for payback. Attested to by the fact that during her rescue from a sex-slaver, she’d shot and killed one of the bad guys. Sure, she said she’d done it to rescue Justice, but Gracie wasn’t convinced it had been absolutely necessary.

  “Perhaps that’s why she asks for you. She trusts your bluntness.”

  Hmmm. No. Cee didn’t strike her as the soft type, looking for connection. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Momma sighed. “Her interest in you is unusual, I’ll agree. But she sees how you live, outside the League and yet still within it. Less rules. Less attachment. She wants to know more of this. And you. Perhaps you can help train her. Your expertise in Muay Thai would be useful to her.”

  Less attachment was harder than it looked. She’d thought Cee liked it in the mansion, liked her new siblings. “She’s a kid, Momma.” A confused kid. “She needs to be a kid for a while. And I’m not interested in training anyone.” She hadn’t been to the gym in…yikes, a while. “Or in dinner.”

  Momma paused before her soft, “You have always been less active with the family, but this…is it something I’ve done?”

  That stung. It hurt because yeah, it was.

  Running a secret vigilante group that was always more important than Gracie’s life was something she’d done. Threatening John’s memory so Gracie was forced to send him and their son away was something she’d done. Not sharing Tony’s plan to take out the Brothers Grim separately, so Gracie never knew the extent to which he’d felt ignored, was something she’d done.

  “I’m sorry, Momma…” The words, like the moisture in her mouth, dried up. She eyed the dish of watermelon Jolly Ranchers on her desk, unwrapped one, and popped it into her mouth. Mmmm. There was no stress watermelon-flavored corn syrup couldn’t help ease. Time to rip off the Band-Aid. “I just need a break from the life for a little while. All of it. The field stuff. And the family stuff too.”

  “Are you saying that you won’t be part of the family? And will relinquish your role in the underground railroad?”

  What? “No.” That work didn’t require her to go out on operations. She could do that at her desk. John couldn’t object to that. “I consider that work sacred. And I’m making some great progress with the pervert detection software I’ve started developing. I feel like it could one day be used by others, like law enforcement.”

  She was good at that, hiding behind a keyboard, not showing her face, her emotional front page, revealing more than she wanted.

  “I see. So you want the protection of the League to do your work, to keep your secrets, but will disavow our work and the responsibility to your family?”

  Ouch. Her neck and cheeks warmed with heat. Disavow? No. That wasn’t… She did believe in the good work the League did. Not just the secret work of righting wrongs, but also the educational work of their world-famous boarding school, the groundbreaking research of Parish holdings, the charities and foundations they supported, and especially her big, crazy, loving, adopted family.

  Crud. Momma always knew the exact buttons to press. “I’ll be there in a half hour.”

  * * *

  Following Momma’s summons, Gracie exited her club. Yikes, it was July out here. Like stepping into a sauna. And here she’d dressed up. Sort of. Hair down, magenta sequined shirt, and black skinny jeans.

  Flipping her hair back from her neck, she locked up and set the code for the alarms via her cell. When her phone buzzed, she readjusted her purse strap, turned toward her car, and with the crunch of gravel loud under her shoes, read the text as she walked.

  I know you’ve been spying on my son, stalking him. Remember our agreement? Stay away from Ty. I’m not putting up with you and your family’s craziness in our lives. Don’t come around again. This is your one warning.

  My son? Hurt and anger landed a punch to her lungs. Gracie stopped by the side of the car; her hands shook as she stared at the dimming screen. Thirteen years. She’d been sharing her contact information with John, waiting thirteen years to hear from him, to get one word from him about Tyler, and he’d just used that information to send her a threatening text. She took deep, struggling breaths, debated replying.

  And because she was trained, because it was quiet, because her intellect suddenly recognized a threat, her ears listened of their own accord. The whoosh of a single car passing, the bark of a distant dog, and the crack of a—

  She dropped to the ground a moment before the round thunked against her car. Scurrying under the car’s chassis, she dropped her phone, took her gun from her purse, and flicked off the safety.

  The flood of adrenaline muted everything b
ut the sound of her heartbeat. Her eyes sharpened, methodically scanning the parking lot. There was another shot and another. Stones popped up and hit her car, tinking into steel like heavy rain.

  She scooted farther under the car, came out the other side, and crept toward the rear of her vehicle, gun pointed toward the wooded area that lined the back of the parking lot.

  The glow from the light poles kept her from seeing anything among the trees. A moment passed. Two. Sprinting across the parking lot, she entered the woods, ducked behind a tree. She listened to the silence, then moved cautiously forward.

  It was darker in the woods, but enough light from her club filtered through the dark trees so she could see the piled dirt and leaves, the berm that someone had created. Someone had lain in wait for her here. How long had they been here? How had they known she’d be coming out tonight?

  This was no random act of violence. This person was trained, so said this setup and the fact that he—or she—had used a silencer.

  She bent down and examined the area, picking up shell casings. Heard footsteps. Someone moved across the parking lot toward her. She spun, raised her weapon.

  Chapter 10

  The finger snap of a silenced gun brought the soldiers on Dusty’s neck to attention and sent his heart into double-time. He was already approaching Gracie’s Club When? but now he broke into a run.

  Two blocks back, he’d realized something was up when his phone alerted him that the surveillance camera he’d set up in the club’s parking lot had quit working. He’d placed it to keep track of Gracie’s coming and going. It was well hidden, so either it had malfunctioned, or someone had used a jammer.

  Another shot and another.

  The drive leading to the parking lot was flanked by two hippie sculptures. He leapt over the first—a timepiece that looked like something right out of Alice in Wonderland. He jogged down the driveway, a stretch of asphalt squeezed between a warehouse and her club.

  Gun out, he pulled up beside the club and scanned. No one around. There was a small crop of trees that lined the far edge of the parking lot. It’s where he’d placed his camera. No one there either.

  Someone darted out from behind a car. Gracie? He watched her enter a small copse of trees that lined the far edge of the parking lot.

  That’s where he’d placed his camera. He scanned again before heading out to give her a hand.

  Nearly at the edge of the parking lot, she stepped out with her gun raised and pointed at him.

  “Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. It’s me. Dusty.”

  Her eyebrows inched up when she recognized him, but she didn’t say a word. As if they were back in Mexico, she crooked her head, indicating she’d go left. He went right. After triple-checking the surrounding area, they met back by her car.

  Dusty holstered his gun. “You okay?”

  “Of course.”

  Lowering her gun, she held up a finger, as in give me a minute. He gave her the minute, but had no doubt she’d use that time to come up with an excuse for what had just happened.

  Readjusting her disheveled shirt, covering the strap of a crimson bra but not the raspberry scrape on her arm, she bent to retrieve what turned out to be her purse and phone from under the car.

  The phone and her weapon—Glock 22—went into her big bag. She opened the car door, tossed the purse inside, shut the door with an angry slam. Finally, she refocused her attention on him. “Why are you here?”

  Was she serious? Not even an excuse, just a counter-attack? “Because I heard gunshots, and you’re jumping out of the woods with a gun in your hand.”

  “Some nut tried to rob me,” she said, as if that were nothing to be alarmed about. Which sent off every alarm in his body. “I had a gun. He ran. And don’t try to distract me. I meant why are you in town?”

  “Rob you?” Uh. Huh. “With a suppressed weapon? And I’m dumb as a box of rocks.”

  She smiled. The kind of smile that made men drop to their knees or lose their minds.

  He lost his mind.

  Must have, because he was here for Mukta, the woman who adopted girls and made them into soldiers for her own war. He wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less than proof of that.

  So it was definitely the smile that caused the outburst: “Sure, Gracie, someone tried to rob you. With an expensive silenced weapon. Using an EMP jammer sophisticated enough not to set off your security. In a town so overconfident of the peace, not a soul opened a window to look out here. It surely wasn’t more than that. It surely doesn’t have a lick to do with your family and whatever shit y’all are into.”

  She studied him long and hard. Or maybe what he’d said. Her eyebrows crashed together. “Why are you checking up on me? Showing up in the nick of time? Asking about jammers?”

  Shit. “Why don’t you explain to me why someone wants to kill you?”

  He stared at her. She stared back. She’d sent the letter, hadn’t she? She was reaching out for something, wasn’t she?

  She drew nearer to him, so close his heart started its engines and revved, waiting for the green in her eyes to signal go.

  Head inclined, her eyes flashed innocence, invitation, and challenge beneath long lashes. “Do you want to kiss me?”

  “What?” He stepped back. The opposite of what he wanted to do. He wanted to wrap her in his arms, kiss her senseless, reassure his pounding heart she was safe—but not like this, not as a test, not as a game, and not when she was trying to distract him. Too bad his johnson hadn’t gotten the message.

  She huffed at the distance he’d created. “Guess not. Or maybe you’re undercover and actually feel bad about lying, pretending to be former FBI.”

  She quirked her mouth, ran her tongue along her upper lip with exaggerated slowness. Oh hell, she was practically calling out his cover. He stepped forward, grabbed her by the waist, pulled her body flush against his hard-on. Her eyebrows rose in surprise. She wiggled just a little.

  His head dropped before he knew what was happening. His lips slid restlessly over hers. She opened wide for him. Soft. Wet. Sleek. Her glorious tongue stroked his, sent his heart thumping in his chest.

  She deepened the kiss, put her hands around his waist, grabbed the belt loops on the back of his jeans and used them as leverage to grind herself against him.

  The rough friction caused his dick to strain in his pants. He seriously needed to stop, to… Oh, good Lord. What is she doing with her tongue?

  She broke the kiss.

  Head spinning. Breath hot. He kissed along her cheek to her ear and whispered a plea and a moan. “Darlin’, tell me this ends with us upstairs.”

  She laughed, squeezed his ass. “Sure. I’m going to boink your brains out and then give away all the family secrets while you lie satiated beside me.”

  Boink?

  She swatted his ass, stepped away. “Moron.”

  Wait. What?

  His head cleared. Slowly.

  Oh. Shit. He’d walked right into that. He’d seen the trap, watched her lay it out in front of him, pretty as a picture, told himself not to go near it, then jumped the fuck inside. She was right. He was a moron. He grunted. Put his hands in his pockets to hide his still-raging boner.

  Gracie grinned. He fought his own smile. Which wasn’t right, because he was pretty pissed off. “Okay, Gracie. Suppose I’ll see you soon.”

  He turned and strolled off, unhooking his phone to make sure the feed to the camera was back on. It was. So the jammer the sniper had used wasn’t destructive. He’d have to devise a way of keeping track of her that was less vulnerable to interference.

  He watched her run a hand through her hair, lean against her car, and after a moment that went on long enough to boost his confidence, turn from watching his ass and get into her vehicle.

  Chapter 11

  Wearing workaday jeans with a button-down over her C
lub When? T-shirt—a giant gold question mark over a clock—Gracie knelt at the periphery of the dance floor. She took another piece of red, white, and blue foam padding from the storage box and fastened it onto the gilt rail bordering the dance floor.

  Around her, the sound of workers using drills and hammers to remove old decorations and put up new decorations invaded the normally quiet morning. Club When? changed themes, based on a time period or specific event in history, every eight weeks. The new theme was the Fourth of July.

  Flags and fighter jets hung from the copper ceiling panels, along with strobe lights that would add to the Fourth of July fireworks light show. As she worked, her wary eyes swept the laborers, glad for the concealed carry at her side.

  How much did she know about the men working on the club changes? Sure, she’d hired the contractor, Doug, and his crew many times over the years. But these weren’t all the same people who’d worked for him when she’d done her initial background check. Were they?

  She wiped at her brow with the back of her hand. Sheesh. It had only taken an assassin and being threatened by an ex-lover to wake her up from the delusion that she was safe here.

  She shifted as one of the workers came over to her with the framed Independence Day poster, an alien ship beaming an aggressive red light onto the Empire State Building. “Where you want it?”

  Ignoring the hair that had escaped her ponytail and fallen across her eye, she quickly assessed any threat the man posed. He was tall, with a lanky build, but he held himself like someone who had some kind of training. Maybe former military.

  This guy was one of the two men working here today whom she hadn’t done a background check on. Her heart doing that tentative dance, that ready-in-a-whisper acceleration, she put her arm flat across her stomach so she could draw her gun more quickly. Paranoid? Sure. But she could live with that.

  She nodded toward the picture of Prince in all his glory—between two art deco stained-glass windows near the bar. “Replace that one.”