Shadow Empire by Bri Blackwood
Grace
“Where are you taking me?” I clutched my purse close to my stomach as if it were some sort of shield to protect me from whatever Broderick was about to throw at me.
“My apartment. For now,” he said in a clipped tone. Broderick’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.
“I don’t want to go to your apartment. Take me home.”
“Tough shit.” Although his silky, smooth voice had made the comment sound less condescending, there was no way I could let this go on.
And that was the comment that had done it.
His words pissed me off. “Are you fucking kidding me? You aren’t the boss of me. What the hell is going on?”
My questions flew out of my mouth a smidge lower than a roar. If words could kill, Broderick Cross’s head would be slumped over, not an ounce of life to be found in his body.
“Does it look like I’m fucking kidding?”
His emphasis on the word fucking made me pause for a moment. I’d heard him curse at other people over the years, but never had it been directed at me, even slightly. His blue eyes stared a hole into me before turning to watch the road we were traveling down. He was going as fast as NYC traffic would allow him, just above the speed limit, and I grabbed the armrest on my door when he sped up. I was convinced it was only a matter of time before the cops pulled us over.
I didn’t know what to feel. Had Broderick just saved my life or endangered it?
“Don’t talk to me that way.”
He glanced at me again but said nothing. I didn’t know what response I hoped to get out of him, but it wasn’t this. Then again, maybe this was the best thing that could have happened between us at this moment.
I looked out of the side window to see if anything was amiss. Were we being followed? But I saw nothing that would indicate we were, and when I looked back at Broderick, I could see that he was doing the same. His eyes shifted from mirror to mirror quickly, not staying on any one long enough to take his attention completely off the road in front of him.
I took a deep breath to try to calm my racing heart. Things were moving a touch too fast for me to process what was going on and I didn’t like it. Even when things were moving at the speed of light in the emergency room, I relied on my training, experience, and instincts to guide me through. I was out of my depth here, in a world of unknown, trying to figure out what my next move should be.
My gut told me that I should trust Broderick. After all, we’d known each other for years and he’d never done anything to make me doubt his trust. But after his behavior during our recent encounters, was I right to trust him completely?
The shrill sound that came from my phone made me jump. It was clear that my nerves were shot. I pulled out my phone and Broderick placed a hand on my knee, stopping any movement that I was about to do. My phone rang again.
“Is that a call or text?”
“I think I should be asking the questions here.”
“Don’t play with me, Grace. Is that a call or text?”
I glared at him, refusing to give in. Part of me felt as if this was petty, but I didn’t care. None of this was okay. I couldn't decide if calling the police to come and save me was worth it or not, but knowing what I knew about the Cross family, there was a chance that the NYPD was on their payroll.
When I didn’t answer, he glanced at me and said, “In either case, I don’t want you telling anyone what happened tonight. At least not yet.”
That caused my eyes to widen. “Are you kidding me? Broderick, we saw someone get hurt or potentially killed and you didn’t let me try to help.”
“And as I mentioned, it was for your own safety. I know that you have no problem putting your life on the line for someone else, but how about we try something different tonight? The attacker could have easily turned the knife on you.”
I knew he was right, but it didn’t mean that I liked it. I’d gone into this profession to help as many people as possible and it pained me to not have been able to help the victim.
“It was a text message by the way. Probably Hunter.”
“Don’t tell him.”
“He’d want to know about my well-being.”
“And you’re going to tell him that everything is fine.”
I shifted myself in my seat to get a better look at him as he pulled up to a red light. “I don’t appreciate your tone of voice so knock it off.”
“I didn’t realize I would have to sit here and explain to you how I just saved your life.”
I threw my arms up in the air before they landed back on my lap. “That’s the thing, Broderick. You aren’t explaining anything.”
When he didn’t say anything right away, I checked the notifications on my phone.
Hunter:I’m sorry you didn’t have a good time.
Hunter:Maybe we can catch up for drinks when I get back?
I quickly typed out a response. It was almost too easy to come up with the lie.
Me:I had a great time but didn’t realize how tired I was. I’m sorry. But yes, we should meet up when you return. Where are you going?
Hunter:DC for a week and a half for work. I leave tomorrow morning.
Me:Okay just send me some dates and times that work for you. Congrats again!
Hunter:Thanks, sis.
“Well, Hunter will be out of town for a while. He’s traveling for work for two weeks.”
“Good. Hopefully that puts him out of harm’s way.”
“What do you mean?” I asked my question slowly, as if I was unsure of the words that were leaving my mouth. “What does he have to do with any of this?”
“Potentially nothing at all.”
He was being purposely vague with his answers, but at least we were no longer cussing at each other. “Just tell me what you know.”
“I don’t know much, but I don’t think it was an accident that we saw what we did.”
“Run that by me again? How do you know that it wasn’t just a random attack? Maybe a burglary gone wrong?”
“Because he waited until you were close enough to potentially see just what was going on, and he didn’t run off even when he was spotted.”
“But it all happened so fast.”
“Not that fast. Especially for someone who is trained to kill.”
I did a double take. There was no way that Broderick was being serious. “It sounds like you’re spinning a dangerous, fabricated story.”
“Hellion, if you only knew the half of it, you’d realize that this is anything but a fairy tale.”
Before I could say anything else, I saw that our ride was coming to an end. Broderick pulled into an underground garage that I recognized as the one near his apartment, effectively shutting me up for the time being.
A nervous energy sprinted around the car as Broderick parked the SUV and unlocked the doors. I stayed seated.
“I wasn’t kidding about wanting to go home.”
“And I wasn’t kidding when I said tough shit. Now let’s go.”
“No.” I folded my arms across my chest, ready to sit here for the long haul.
“If you don’t come on, I’m leaving you here.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Broderick undid his seat belt and opened his door. He turned to look at me, but I didn’t move. I saw a smirk slowly start to form on his face before he could hide it. He got out of the car and slammed the door behind him. He walked around the front of the car and appeared on my side, standing in front of my door. When he opened it, I still didn’t move. He rested his arms above his head, leaning on the frame of the car. I resisted the temptation to look over at him to show just how much he’d pissed me off.
“I’m going to give you one last chance to step out of the car because you aren’t going to like what I’m going to do if you don’t.”
This time I had no problem looking him dead in his eyes, blue eyes as deep as the ocean. “No. Take me home or I’ll call a car.”
The smirk was back before he acted. I don’t know how he was able to move so swiftly, but before I could count to three, he’d undone my seat belt.
“Get away from me, Broderick.”
“No.” He said it in the same tone that I had used just seconds before.
He turned my body and maneuvered us in such a way that it took him mere seconds to throw me over his shoulder into a firefighter’s carry.
“Have you lost your mind?” I asked just before I took a deep breath. I started beating on any part of him that I could get my hands on. It did nothing to deter him, the pounding from my hands bouncing off his muscles as if they were made of tungsten. Too bad that wasn’t real.
“This is the second most sane thing I’ve done today. The first was dragging you away from that crime scene,” he said.
“Help! Help! Someone help me!” I hoped that someone would hear me as Broderick carried me along. The only response I got back was the sound of my voice echoing in the garage.
In between one set of my screams, Broderick said, “Don’t make me gag you.”
“You wouldn’t dare.” He walked through a door and did something before turning around to take a couple of steps back. It was then I saw that we were in front of a set of elevators. I closed my eyes as I tried to prevent the dizziness that was taking over.
“I’m starting to feel sick.”
“Why do you choose to question me?” I didn’t answer his question, so he continued. “If you’d just done what I said, none of this would have happened.”
“The same thing could be said if you’d just taken me home.”
“But we both knew that that wasn’t going to happen. Only one of us accepted that answer though.”
“What has gotten into you? You never used to be this much of an asshole.”
Once the elevator doors closed, he set me down on my feet and I looked at him straight in the eyes. It was only then that he answered me.
“You’ve gotten to me.”
As I waited for him to elaborate on what he had just said, he crossed his arms over his broad chest, his eyes staring straight ahead. I waited to see if he would say something else, but he didn’t. The conversation was over, at least on his end.
“I’m…I’m so confused.”
He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “We can talk more when we get upstairs.”
I wondered if it was wise to take a different approach to getting the answers that I wanted. Instead of fighting with him further, I leaned back on my heels, choosing instead to watch the numbers on the elevator as we ascended. This was an opportunity to try to put the pieces that I had together and hopefully would give me enough time to come up with a plan that might get me out of this mess.
As the elevator continued on its journey, I thought about how all of this might go down. Could I trust Broderick? Outside of his new behavior, he’d given me no reason to not trust him, but I didn’t know if that was naïve on my part. I knew bits and pieces of what the Cross family was involved in and rumors of what they’d done to get what they wanted. I was worried I would meet the same fate.