Shadow Empire by Bri Blackwood
Grace
Istepped forward into his apartment and wasn’t all that shocked by what I saw. He hadn’t changed much since the last time I’d been here, maybe added a painting or two, but other than that, there wasn’t anything glaringly obvious that would show that he had remodeled his home.
The walls lined with exposed brick gave the apartment in the sky a more distinct look, something I hadn’t expected from him when he showed it to me the first time. The dark furniture that he had filled the space with made more sense to me, given how much he enjoyed wearing dark colors. Heck, I wondered at times if it was a common trait among the Cross men since over the years when I saw them, often, they were wearing darker colors.
I let my eyes dance over the space, wondering if there might be anything I could spot that might have changed. It gave me an opportunity to take my mind off of the situation at hand and to calm my emotions before we addressed what had happened tonight, never mind what had become of our friendship over the last few weeks. I took a brief inventory of my surroundings, making note of anything that might come in handy later.
“Drink?” His question brought my attention back to him and I saw that he was holding a beer. “Although we both would probably prefer something harder, this is a good option so we can keep a clearer mind about what we need to discuss.”
I shrugged and then nodded. I wondered if his words were in reference to the screaming match that we had gotten into on the way over here but decided not to push my luck. I needed to choose my battles wisely since I was the one who needed answers that currently only he could provide. After all, right now, it was the only choice I had.
I walked over to his counter and leaned my back against it just before he handed me a beer. He had popped the top off, so I took a greedy sip of the beverage, as if I hadn’t had anything to drink within the last few hours.
When I drank what I wanted, I said, “I’ll take a glass of water too. Seems as if I’m a little dehydrated.”
While he got the glass of water, I placed my beer down on the counter and rubbed my hands on my denim-covered thighs, hoping to get rid of any moisture that had gathered on them over the last couple of hours. The motion helped ease some of the tension that I felt, giving me a chance to think clearly about what was going on. When he turned to face me, he stared at my thighs a little longer than necessary, making me shiver slightly with intrigue. I shook the reaction off, choosing to focus on the shambles that my life was in. When he handed me the glass of water, I gave him a small smile before I took a sip. I appreciated the small reprieve from the strain in our relationship for the time being as I took a longer draw from the glass. I was also determined to not let any of the drinks I was consuming take full control over my senses. I was getting out of this apartment tonight whether Broderick liked it or not.
“Shall we have a seat?”
“Why not? The quicker we get this over with, the better.”
“I agree.”
That might have been the first time we agreed tonight, and I considered that a win.
With us sitting down on his couch, I crossed my legs, hoping to give the illusion of appearing confident and in control even when I felt as if my world was spinning without an axis. I thrived in life when I had a plan and right now not having one with the danger that loomed right around the corner, I wasn’t doing well, hence the desire to distract myself by any means necessary to get my bearings.
Before Broderick could try to take control of the conversation, I struck first. “Why don’t you think this was a random attack? Weird things happen in New York City at all hours every day. This wouldn’t be the first attack where there were witnesses who just happened to come across someone getting assaulted.”
Broderick waited a beat before he pulled out his cell phone. He then gave it to me. “Because of this.”
My eyes widened as I read the message on the device repeatedly.
Unknown Number:It might be worth checking in on the woman you let get away.
“What in the entire—”
“I know. I got it after I had already started following you out of the bar.”
And there was another answer to a question I had. “Wait. Not before?”
“Nope. I was determined to have whatever conversation you didn’t want to have.”
“How lovely of you. Can’t take no for an answer.” I couldn’t resist the snappy comment and wished I could take it back. I was still trying to maintain the peace until I got all of the answers that I wanted.
“You’re damn right. Especially when it’s something I want.”
My eyes narrowed at him as I took another sip from my beer. His gaze never wandered, making me wonder if the double meaning I was getting from his words was accurate. It would explain his recent behavior.
“I highly doubt that needs to be discussed right now.”
“What are you afraid of, Hellion?”
“For the love of everything, stop calling me that! I’m not a hellion.”
“Whatever you say.” He paused before he chuckled. Then, he took a draw from his beer.
“That is not appropriate right now given if what you say is right and my life is in danger.”
“You’re right. Have you noticed anything strange going on recently? Within the last couple of weeks.”
Now we are getting somewhere. I leaned back on the comfortable couch and thought about my life over the last few weeks. Had I seen anything that had been amiss?
“Things at work have been normal…well, as normal as things can be working in the emergency room. That’s pretty much all I do outside of running errands or hanging out with friends occasionally,” I paused, taking another moment to review any events that stuck out in my mind. “Well, there was this one incident that I chalked up to me being paranoid.”
“What was it?”
“One evening I saw a car sitting directly across the street from my condo. The driver turned off the headlights, but never exited the vehicle. Well, at least they didn’t while I was watching. I didn’t think much of it because there could be a few reasons why the person didn’t leave their vehicle, but it did strike me as strange. Nothing illegal about it though and they could have left the car after I stopped watching. So, I thought nothing of it until just now.” I stopped my rambling just in time.
“Could be something. Could be nothing, but thanks for sharing. Did you get a good look at the vehicle or the driver?”
I shook my head. “I was far enough away from the car that it looked like your stereotypical dark colored sedan. And from the angle of my window, I couldn’t see the driver well. I guess I would suck as a detective.”
Broderick chuckled briefly. “Hardly. You didn’t know to be suspicious of the person and you couldn’t see them from where you were.”
He made a good point.
“Why me?” I took another sip of my beer.
“That I don’t know the answer to, although I wish I did. I do think that, for the time being, you should stay with me.”
I coughed as I tried to get the liquid down my throat. “Excuse me?”
“We don’t know who we’re dealing with out there, Grace. But we do know that this person has connected you with me and wanted either you or me or the both of us to see what he was going to do. That should be troubling enough for you to start taking precautions.”
“The only thing I want to do is go home and relax. I’ll be more observant about my surroundings, and I’ll carry mace on me. I don’t want to stay here and that is not me trying to be offensive. I would be more comfortable in my own home.”
“You also have the potential to be dead in your own home as well. Is that a risk you want to take?”
I was taken aback by his candor, but that didn’t stop the words from spilling out of my mouth. “I could be dead just by walking down the street. Staying here doesn’t remove that risk.”
“But it lowers it. I will do everything in my power to keep you safe.”
His words forced me to pause, and while I appreciated his concern, I also knew how to take care of myself.
“Broderick, you can’t force me to stay here.”
“I can’t?”
This was not a road that I was willing to travel down. “I don’t think you would appreciate holding me here against my will.”
“If it meant protecting you from whatever outside force is trying to harm, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”
I shook my head. Where the hell was this all coming from? He didn’t have the right to storm into my life and just take over everything. But arguing with him wouldn’t get me what I wanted. No, I needed to think more logically about this. To give me some time, I turned on the charm, knowing damn well that what I was about to say was going to be a lie.
“We can discuss living arrangements later. What can we do now to help us find out who coordinated the attack?”
A knock on the door brought the conversation to a halt as I jumped from the sound. Before Broderick could stand, I sent him a puzzled look. Did he have plans to have company come over this late? Instead of responding, he chose to stand up and walk over to his front door. The first thought that came to my mind was that it was the attacker. But what good would it do them to knock on the door announcing their arrival?
Broderick chose not to leave me in suspense any longer and opened the door and in walked Kingston Cross. Broderick had called in the big guns to handle this.
Kingston gave me a small wave before Broderick said, “I forwarded Kingston the text message I received just before I walked out and found you.”
“Sorry it took me a little bit of time to get here. I was held up wrapping up another client’s case, but I came as quickly as I could.”
“It’s not a problem.” Broderick gestured toward the kitchen. “Can I get you anything?”
“No, I’m good. Rather just get to the facts of this case so that we can start hunting this person now.”
That’s what I liked about Kingston, someone I had met over the years through various functions that the Cross family had put together. He got straight to the point due to his no-nonsense personality. I knew it benefited him greatly when it came to building his security company, Cross Sentinel.
Kingston sat down in a chair opposite the couch I was seated on while Broderick joined me again. Instead of allowing the space that he had given me when we were talking before Kingston arrived, he sat down right next to me, our legs lightly touching. Although there was little chance for me to feel it, I thought I could feel the heat coming from his body and I did my best to mask my desire to touch him. How could I even think about touching him after how he treated me? I shook my head once, ridding myself of the thoughts. We had more important problems we had to face.
“So, I wasn’t able to track down who the owner of the phone was or the number. If I had to guess, I would assume that the device was a burner phone.”
“Shit,” I said, voicing my thoughts out loud.
“Hold on, I’m not done.” I turned my attention back to Kingston, wishing that he had some good news to share. “I was able to track down the location of where the person made the phone call due to cell towers.”
I swallowed hard. I couldn’t tell if he was pausing for dramatic effect or not, but the anticipation was driving me mad.
“Well? Continue.” It was driving Broderick up a wall as well.
“It came from Queens.”
I nodded. “So that means the person who stabbed someone in the alleyway couldn’t have been the one to send it.”
“Correct, unless he somehow scrambled the data we retrieved, making it so that we wouldn’t be able to track the sender’s exact location.”
Broderick spoke up again. “I thought this person might be working with someone else. No hard evidence to go on, but it seemed like a very coordinated effort. Something that couldn’t have been a spur-of-the-moment type of thing.”
I didn’t disagree with him. Some planning had to have been done in order to know where I would have been and when to strike. That, however, didn’t answer another question I had. “But I don’t understand how the attacker would’ve known the street I would be walking down and how to plan the attack in the alleyway. It wasn’t as if I had written down that I would only stay at my brother’s celebration for a certain length of time.”
“That’s a good point. The only potential explanation I have is that he or she or they had eyes on you.”
Kingston’s answer sent a shiver down my spine. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t thought of that being a possibility but having someone confirm it was another matter entirely.
“Might explain that dark colored sedan you saw outside of your house.”
“I was thinking the same thing, Broderick. Only thing is I haven’t seen anything else like that since it happened.”
“Doesn’t mean that person wasn’t still out there spying on you.”
Kingston cleared his throat. “I’m going to need as much information as you can provide about this.”
I relayed the same story that I had told Broderick about when I had seen the car. It pained me that it wasn’t much, but at least it’d be something to go on. When I was done, I looked at both men in the room. Kingston was busy jotting down notes, and I found Broderick staring at me, his gaze unsettling me even more. My thoughts temporarily jumped back to his behavior that I tabled earlier and wondered if he was thinking about it too.
Before I could give that discussion another moment of my precious time, I turned to Kingston and asked, “Did you hear anything about who the victim was? Did they survive?” I gulped down more of my beer.
Kingston didn’t answer for half a second as he continued to write things down on the notepad that he brought with him. When he stopped, he looked up at me. “Yes. His name was Stewart Carnaby, and no, he didn’t, unfortunately.”
My hand froze with the beer near my lips. There was no way that was true. I knew that it was pointless to doubt Kingston’s version of events or any intel that he had found out, but that didn’t mean that I wasn’t in shock. There was no way that he had said the name that I thought he had.
“You can’t be serious.”
I don’t know if I had ever seen Kingston smile and he wasn’t right now. I got up again, my thoughts returning to the night of the tragic accident.
“Grace, do you know this person?”
“Sort of. He came to my hospital after getting into a car accident. The other guy in the car I couldn’t save, but we were able to save him.”
“Well, I hate to be the bearer of more bad news, but he passed away at the scene according to police reports.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I leaned forward and put my head in my hands, trying to wrap my thoughts around what was happening. “We knew it was a hit-and-run, but now I suspect that it wasn't merely an accident.”
Kingston nodded. “If I had to guess, I would think that is correct. If I had to make another assumption, I would say that it seemed as if he wasn’t supposed to make it out of that accident alive, yet he did because of you. Whoever wanted him dead has now set their sights on cleaning up the loose ends.”
“Which would mean me.”