Safe at Last (Slow Burn #3) (7 page)

“Call the police,” Sterling barked at his assistant.

Dane held his hands up. “Whoa. I think everyone needs to take a step back and calm the hell down.
You
called
us
here.”

“And I’ve asked you to leave,” Sterling said bitingly. “Which you’ve refused to do. So unless you get out in the next three seconds, the police
will
be called and you will be charged with harassment. One has only to
look
at her to believe that charge.”

He nodded again at Cheryl, who seemed frozen in place, eyes wide, still clutching the painting that had started it all.

“We’re leaving,” Dane said calmly.

“No, the hell we’re not!” Zack roared. “Not until someone gives me some goddamn answers!”

Eliza gently pulled him a short distance away from Beau and the others and said in a voice too low for the others to hear, “Hon, come on. You’re doing more harm than good. Look at her. Really
look
at her. She’s scared out of her mind. And this standoff isn’t doing her any good. I understand that this is important to you. But you know where she is now. You know
who
she is. I’ll help you. I swear I won’t rest until I help you get the information you need. But right now, you have to leave or this is going to get even uglier than it already is. And if this woman is important to you, which she obviously is, then you aren’t winning any points here. Don’t do or say something you can never take back. Take the high road. Not out of respect for that egotistical asshole, Sterling. But for Gracie. Do it for
her
.”

Dane and Beau both closed in on Zack, Dane gently nudging Eliza away with a soft directive to remove herself from the situation and then they both took Zack by the arms and hauled him toward the door.

It went against every fiber of Zack’s being to simply walk away, as Gracie had apparently once done. To just give up, without a fight, for the single most important person in his life. The only person who’d ever meant the entire goddamn world to him. The woman he would have done everything for. Sacrificed anything for, no matter how important. Would have protected with his life. And would have spent the rest of his life loving and cherishing her to the exclusion of all else.

But his team wasn’t giving him a choice. He struggled, but Isaac and Capshaw added their strength and they forced him past where Sterling stood, glaring them all down, his arm still tightly holding Gracie, who was firmly shielded behind his much larger body.

In the end, they simply subdued him, though it took them all, and with their combined strength they pushed him into the parking lot.

He wanted to hit someone. His fists were clenched and his body language was clearly defiant. The others knew it. Beau pushed him against his truck and got into his face.

“I don’t claim to know what the fuck just happened back there, but you need to pull it together and fast. This isn’t you, man. You don’t treat a terrified woman like you just did. You don’t push the issue when she’s out of her mind with fear. I get this is important, but there has to be another way than you ending up in jail on assault and harassment charges.”

Zack shoved him back and then closed in, going nose-to-nose with Beau.

“You tell me, if that was Ari. If someone got between you and Ari and then told you to back the fuck off. Would you just walk away? Take the fucking
high road
?” Zack roared, throwing the last two words out with the disdain they deserved.

Beau paused, his eyes flickering with instant understanding. Then he closed his eyes a moment and sighed. “Jesus. So it’s like that.”

Rage. Grief. Fury. Soul-deep sorrow. They engulfed Zack and despair slammed into him like a tidal wave. His shoulders sagged and he closed his eyes, leaning back against the vehicle and out of Beau’s—his friend’s—face.

Eliza’s cool hand covered his arm, squeezing just enough to get his attention and wrest him from the fog surrounding him.

He glanced her way and saw bright emotion in her eyes as she inserted herself between him and Beau. Almost like she
knew
his story. As though his dark, stormy thoughts were displayed in real time and she could see right into his shattered mind.

“I’ll help you, Zack,” she said softly. “You just tell me what I need to know so I have a starting point. You don’t have to tell me all of it. As little or as much as you’re comfortable sharing. I swear to you on my life that I won’t rest until this is resolved for you. I
won’t
give up. You have my word.” And left unspoken was the fact that Eliza’s word was solid. She didn’t offer her word lightly, and neither did she ever break it when given.

Before he could respond, Eliza pulled him into a hug, which was an impressive feat given her height and weight disadvantage. But her hug was fierce. Packed with emotion, solidarity. Loyalty. She was the sister he’d always wanted to have.

He’d grown up an only child, his mother ditching him and his father when Zack was still a baby. And Gracie had come from a broken home with an alcoholic mother who didn’t even know Gracie existed most of the time. Her father? Some random hookup of her mother’s. She didn’t even know who the father of her child was, never mind Gracie ever knowing her father.

He and Gracie had both wanted children. As many as they were blessed with. They wanted to fill their home with absolute love and a strong sense of family. All the things he and Gracie had been denied.

“How soon?” he asked in a barely audible voice, one that was so strained it cracked with just the two words.

He didn’t have to explain the two-word question. Eliza knew exactly what he meant.

“We can go into the office now,” she returned. “Or if you prefer, I’ll grab my laptop and meet you at your place. Or you can come to mine. It’s up to you.”

She was offering him a way out of further losing his shit in front of the others, something he was grateful for because he wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep it together before he completely broke down.

It was like a ten-ton anvil had dropped from the sky and squashed him like a bug. He was still reeling from the shock of seeing Gracie in the flesh. No longer a ghost from his past, but a living, breathing woman—no longer a girl of sixteen—twelve years older but just as heart-achingly beautiful as ever.

“Your place,” he managed to get out. “If that’s okay.”

It was the only place where he felt comfortable enough to spill his guts. He damn sure didn’t want to have this conversation in front of all his coworkers at the office. He’d hidden his pain from the rest of the world for twelve years. Only since he’d gone to work for DSS had he formed any semblance of a friendship with others.

They’d just seen him at his lowest, but he knew it would only get worse, and he had no desire for the others to know the torment he’d lived with for so much of his life. He knew he was pathetic, but it didn’t mean he wanted more witnesses to his weakness than necessary. Furthermore, now that finding Gracie was no longer an impossible dream but a stark reality, he didn’t give two fucks how pathetic it made him that he refused to just let it go. As fucking if!

She gave his arm another reassuring squeeze. “Then run me back by the office so I can get my car. I’ll just need to go in and get my laptop and then you can follow me over to my place.”

“Thanks, Eliza,” he said softly.

“No thanks necessary,” she said just as softly.

SIX

GRACIE
buried her face in Wade’s back, her entire body trembling. She couldn’t control the shaking. And the cold. God, she felt cold to her very bones.
Shock
wasn’t even an adequate word for what she had felt looking up into the eyes of an older but still devastatingly handsome Zack Covington. If anything, he was more handsome. Gone was the boyish charm and easy smile and in its stead was a much harder looking man, one that appeared as damaged as she was herself.

She’d thought she’d felt pain over the years. Grief. Regret. She didn’t think it could get any worse than what she’d already been dealt.

She was wrong.

Because never in that time had she faced Zack. Never since that night. No amount of imagining or mental preparation could have possibly prepared her for the reality of seeing him, when she’d made certain they would never again cross paths. Apparently fate wasn’t on her side. Also apparent was that fate evidently didn’t think she’d already suffered enough heartbreak for a lifetime.

Wade turned, sliding his arms around her in a comforting gesture. He gathered her to him tightly, hugging and soothing her with a low-pitched voice.

“He’s gone now, Anna-Grace. He can’t hurt you. I won’t let him hurt you ever again.”

His words seared through the chaotic tumble of her thoughts and through the numb that had settled over her body, paralyzing her. She shoved away from Wade sharply, catching her footing when she would have fallen again.

“I have to go,” she babbled, searching desperately for an escape route.

She couldn’t go out the front. What if he was out there waiting for her? What if he followed her? What if he found out where she lived? What if he already knew?

Oh God, he had to know where she was. How hard could it really be to find her despite the lengths she’d gone to over the years to ensure her privacy and make it so no one would ever discover her?

“I have to get out of here, Wade,” she said, hysteria rising in her voice. “Please, you have to help me. I have to go
now
. But where? I have to think of someplace he can’t find me. I can never come back here. I have to leave. I have to go. Tonight. Before he shows up at my apartment!”

She knew she was making no sense. She didn’t care. She also knew that she was allowing irrational fear to override all else. But her sense of self-preservation had firmly taken over and she was content to let it do its thing. She hadn’t survived this long by ignoring it.

Wade’s hands slid up her arms and gently but firmly grasped her shoulders, holding her, forcing her to look at him. His expression was hard and anger glittered in his dark eyes. He wore that dangerous look that would scare the holy hell out of anyone else, but she’d learned that despite it, despite his appearance and the fact that there were things about him she didn’t know—preferred not to know—that he was no threat to her.

“Anna-Grace, look at me,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument.

Her eyelids fluttered and she lifted her gaze to meet his, desperately trying to keep the mind-numbing terror at bay.

He framed her face in his hands and gently stroked his thumb over her bottom lip.

“You will
not
allow him to control your life any longer,” he said, soft reprimand in his voice. “You’ve allowed him too much control for too long. That’s over with. He can’t hurt you now. I swear to you, I’ll never let him hurt you. Do you trust me?”

She bit into her lip, because God, that wasn’t an easy question for someone like her. Someone who trusted no one. Who had no reason to trust anyone. And yet she’d already admitted that she did trust Wade. They’d established that point. One he was calling her on again. But before they’d been just words. Now they meant something.

She reluctantly nodded and he relaxed the slightest bit, almost as if he were afraid she’d deny it and run from him just as she’d run from everything else in her life for the last twelve years.

“You are
not
that frightened young girl any longer,” Wade said gently. “You’re strong. You’ve built a life for yourself. A career. A very promising career. You’re talented. Far more talented than many of the big names in art right now. You’ve created a place for yourself in the world. Are you going to let him destroy all that?”

Anna-Grace frowned, because when put that way, while she hadn’t had a choice over what happened to her all those years ago, now? She
did
have a choice. She was a different person than she’d been then. Older. Wiser. Not as young and naïve. Not as gullible. And yes, as Wade said, she was stronger now.

It was nearly laughable to consider any part of herself strong when she’d hidden for so long, scared of her own shadow. But she
was
strong. Stronger than she gave herself credit for. And Wade was also right in that she’d built a life for herself. Right here. Her showing was in a week. It was what could launch her entire career.

Wade leaned in and pressed his lips to her forehead in a gesture that looked decidedly intimate. To someone peeking in on them, they would appear to be lovers, clear affection between them. Only Anna-Grace and Wade knew better.

“Take a stand, Anna-Grace,” he whispered. “You aren’t alone. You’ll never be alone. Don’t allow your past to rule your present a single day longer. This is your moment to shine. Your moment in the sun. Don’t let anyone ruin it for you.”

She squared her shoulders and then lifted a hand to cup over Wade’s that still rested on her cheek. She leaned into his palm and briefly closed her eyes.

“I’m not that sixteen-year-old innocent, naïve girl any longer,” she said falteringly. But her voice grew stronger as she continued. “I’ll never be that girl again.”

She looked up at Wade with fire in her eyes.

“He took my life from me once. I won’t let him do it again. I’ll never allow him—anyone—to have that kind of power over me again.”

Wade smiled. “Now that’s the Anna-Grace
I
know.”

Anna-Grace took a deep breath. “I’m scared, Wade. I won’t lie about that. You heard him. He thought I was dead. What if they were supposed to kill me?”

Wade’s expression became hard. So hard that she shivered at the danger reflected in his dark eyes. His thumb rubbed along the indention of her chin and then moved to the corner of her mouth.

“I will never allow any harm to come to you, Anna-Grace. I swear it on my life.”

SEVEN

ZACK
paced the interior of Eliza’s living room like a caged, restless lion ready to attack and kill. He dragged a hand repeatedly through his short, spiked hair until it was in complete disarray, shooting in a dozen different directions.