Swallow (Kindred Book 2) (17 page)

“How could you think to bring him here?” she demanded.

Giving Grant his due, he did appear flummoxed and it wasn’t as if he and Brodie were close enough that Grant would know the intimate details of Brodie’s past. But she’d learned her lessons about underestimating this man. Grant wasn’t the saint she’d once thought him to be.

“Who is he to you?” Grant asked, and his curiosity made her regret her emotional reaction to Caine.

She’d painted herself into a corner, but she folded her arms and rested her weight on her back foot to consider her answer. “He’s an enemy.” Playing it cool now was a bit belated, but after processing her statement, Grant sighed out his own disappointment.

“Brodie’s enemy,” Grant stated and he was already shaking his head. “Why do you take up his cause so readily?”

“You know why,” she said, because she didn’t want to grind salt into Grant’s wound and remind him of how she felt about his brother.

Grant turned his back on her to saunter back to his desk and it was only when he was seated again that he looked at her. “Because you believe yourself in love. You don’t know anything about him.”

Trying not to take out her own frustrations on Grant, she rolled her eyes upward to calm herself before looking at him again. Brodie said the same thing, and it pissed her off, but Grant saying it was like waving a red rag.

“I know more about him than you do,” she said. “As this meeting proved. Griffin Caine is a parasite who feeds off the misery of his prey and he’s using you as a pawn in his game, trying to provoke us.”

“I don’t know that Brodie would appreciate being referred to as prey.”

He had no right to talk about Brodie as if he knew him, even if he was right. “You don’t care about Brodie,” she said, moving across the room toward him. “You don’t care about him at all. But I am telling you not to trust that man, shouldn’t that be enough for you?”

“You don’t realize how much damage you did to our relationship,” he said, brushing a hand over the stack of papers on his desk. “Our relationship, Zara, yours and mine.”

After the handover with Sutcliffe had gone so completely wrong at the Atlas warehouse, she had gone back to the manor and had stayed there for days without talking to Grant. The relationship had been damaged and she didn’t trust him anymore, not since her perceived betrayal. She’d come back because the Kindred needed her here.

On the first day back, she’d shown up with suspicions that this was a ruse and had been expecting to be tossed out or to have her boss ream her out for her actions. Instead, he had groaned and rushed across his office with a pile of files. He bundled them into her arms and gave her a push toward her own office with a comment about the backlog of work.

While focusing on clearing the backlog and taking opportunities to gain Grant’s confidence, she found that work soothed her and helped her forget about her woes with the Brodie situation. So she’d fallen back into her old CI routine.

Grant hadn’t been forthcoming about how he planned to move forward with regards to Game Time. In fact, it wasn’t mentioned at all and she didn’t want to be too eager about bringing it up in case she blew her cover. She and Tuck agreed that it was a good idea to stick close to Grant, but when Sutcliffe seemed to vanish, they’d believed there was a chance that the situation was finished with.

Quelling her confrontational emotions, she took a breath. “I know that you don’t trust me anymore,” she said, lowering herself onto the edge of the guest chair opposite his desk. “But you have to believe me when I say that Griffin Caine is bad news.”

Grant was still emotional. “And you have to believe me when I say Sutcliffe isn’t finished. He orchestrated that holdup in Purdy’s where you could’ve been killed. He has plans, and although you claim not to want to be a part of that, you are. I don’t want you to be caught in the crossfire. I still care about you, Zara. You might not like the choice that’s in front of you, but you have to make it. If you choose Sutcliffe, you’ll live. If you don’t, you’ll die. I can’t put it any clearer than that. Are the outcomes the same with your boyfriend?”

Brodie wouldn’t kill her for dumping him or the Kindred. But he’d also protect her with his life. Grant was right not to trust her because she did not intend to consider joining Sutcliffe’s cause. But for as long as she was here, she had to portray herself as unthreatening and as caring for Grant’s well-being, which meant letting him believe she was open to other possibilities.

“What if he does want to hurt me?” she asked.

“Sutcliffe and I will protect you if you join us.”

It was difficult to look a person in the face and lie to them, knowing all along that she didn’t have Grant’s best interests at heart, she tried to be genuine when they talked. All she could hope was that her guilt wasn’t written all over her face. She was sure her cheeks glowed because the heat of them radiated enough to almost steam her glasses.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” she said “But I can’t understand why you are so intent on taking up with a man who wants to hurt people. You’ve just stated that he’ll kill me if I don’t follow him.”

Grant considered her for a moment, then leaned on his elbows to inch closer. “Sutcliffe’s desire for the device does not correlate to his want to hurt people. He’ll only hurt those who are a threat. Purdy’s was about more than capital. It was a rehearsal. He needs his men to practice with live ammunition. He will place the devices in strategic locations and talk to the relevant leaders before he uses them. He will give our enemies a fair chance to change their ways before he thinks about hurting them.”

Grant was talking, but she stayed calm because that was the best way to keep him talking. “Is that what he told you?”

“It’s how a civilized man acts and civility is what separates us from them.”

Us from them, didn’t sound like they were going to war with an open mind. Sliding back in the seat, she tempered her reaction to what he was saying. “He wants to hold the world to ransom.”

“Game Time is only the first stage of his plan.” It was amazing to her how cool Grant was about saying something so shocking. “If our enemies do not take advantage of the warning, Game Time will be used and it will turn the spotlight on our cause, then we’ll start recruiting on a much larger scale, reaching beyond one small town in America. Our soldiers will come from all parts of the globe.”

Sutcliffe and Grant believed themselves to be righteous. They couldn’t see that they were simply rebranding terrorism the capitalist way. “Soldiers?” she asked.

Leaning on his forearms, he seemed almost excited, but decreased his volume. “He wants to take back control. To rebuild the former empires of our wonderful nations.”

Albert Sutcliffe was English, and the institution still held to old-world beliefs. It was no surprise that after being raised in privilege—surrounded by some of the oldest families in the world—that Sutcliffe had that sense of entitlement and the overblown ego displayed by the boys club types in his homeland.

Still, she kept herself composed, like she was intrigued and open to what he was saying, not displaying how horrified and angry she was. “What will that achieve?”

“When we ruled these unruly nations there was more peace in the world than there is now.”

There was more peace. It was unbelievable that any person could think that conquering and subduing a whole nation was a solution to any problem.

Talking in slow, soothing tones grew more difficult but she was getting information that would be useful to the Kindred. “So he wants to take over the world?”

His eyes closed and opened slowly. “He wants our citizens to be safe,” Grant said. “And I can’t say that I disagree with him. You should think about which side you’re on. You should be wary, I don’t know how much time you’ll have. Albert isn’t always a patient man.”

She couldn’t show anger, so she tried her best to show fear because she wanted Grant to believe she was malleable. “How can I possibly decide?” she asked exasperated, like she was at the end of her rope. “How can I win Sutcliffe’s trust if I choose his side?”

“I have reasoned with Albert. He understands, and as long as we deliver the devices—“

Her reins snapped and some of her regret seeped onto her expression, but she pulled it back. It was easy to talk about the consequences of Game Time in the abstract, but once it was out there, they wouldn’t be able to take it back and the reality would break Grant. Brodie had said that his brother didn’t have the stomach for murder, and here he was talking about being party to it on a grand scale.

“I’m scared that you’ll never forgive yourself when you see the carnage he’ll cause,” she murmured, feeling momentary pity for her boss. Grant wanted to make amends, not only because he wanted to save his bacon, but also because he still subscribed to Sutcliffe’s ideology. “How did you get him to relent on his desire to take revenge on you?”

Grant’s expression grew hard. “We’re going to work together.”

“On what?”

He didn’t enjoy being questioned and from the way his jaw worked, she guessed he was trying to subdue his anger. The conversation had taken a turn he didn’t appreciate. “Maybe we’ll work together to track down my brother.”

That was a threat that scared her, but it wouldn’t scare Brodie. Still, taking Brodie out of the equation wouldn’t resolve Sutcliffe’s resentment. It was funny how she was becoming accustomed to the idea of giving her life for the Kindred, but the thought of losing Brodie to it terrified her.

She drew her lips into her mouth to moisten them before she spoke. “You think that you can blame him for all of this?”

Bristling with his own anger, Grant wasn’t great at hiding his feelings. “Can’t I?” Grant asked, getting up to go to the water jug in the corner. “He was the one who destroyed Winter Chill, which limited my ability to provide for my client. He seduced you into taking on his cause… You know, you sneer at me for believing in Sutcliffe. But I would say I made my decision to support his politics with a clearer head than you did when taking up with Brodie. I wasn’t clouded by puerile fantasy and obsession. I made a deliberate decision.”

She wasn’t insulted by the truth. “And that’s what terrifies me,” she murmured and got his attention again. “If this were about money, I would be disappointed, but at least there would be a chance of reasoning with you… A man like you, taking up with a man like Sutcliffe… you could destroy the world, Grant.”

His optimism perplexed her. “Or rebuild it,” he said, putting his water glass down beside the pitcher before he turned to look at her. “We’re capable of greatness and if you were working with us—“

She shook her head and got up. “There’s no way in a million years that I could persuade Raven to take up your cause.”

“Pah!” he scoffed and marched over. “We don’t need him, Zara. Don’t you see? He’s holding us back. He’s holding you back. If you could just—“

“What?” she snapped when he snatched her shoulders. “Leave him and take up with you?”

“Why not? You left me for him… But I’d be willing to forgive that mistake, Zara. If you would just think about it. Just think about the possibilities… I don’t want you to be left behind.”

He grazed a hand down her jaw and she was ensnared by just how sincere he was, not only about the job, but in the way he looked at her. “I don’t want you to do this,” she said, hoping there was enough fondness left in their relationship that he might consider giving up on this for her. “If you work with us—“

Shoving away, he backed off. “I won’t ever work with him… How long has he been out of state? What is it he’s doing?”

“I don’t know,” she said because it was the truth.

“Taking life,” he said, facing her again. “That’s what he does. What he does is worse than anything I’ve done. Worse than anything Sutcliffe’s done.”

Maybe if they tallied up the body count today it would be, the same wouldn’t be said in a few months if Sutcliffe fulfilled his plan. “But for how long?” she asked.

If Sutcliffe got his army and took up arms to achieve his misguided ends, the world would burn and it would happen indiscriminately. Game Time didn’t know the women and children from the soldiers. Civilization would be dismantled, and she would know that she’d had the chance to end it and hadn’t.

“You can’t fight passion. Sutcliffe’s faith hasn’t wavered. He has made plans. The new world will arrive in our lifetime. You have to decide which side you want to be on.”

“It’s an impossible decision. I don’t want to be hurt. But if we join Sutcliffe together… Raven is not an enemy we want chasing us.”

She wasn’t afraid of Brodie, and she was sorry she had to make it seem that she was. But the fact was true, Grant didn’t want to make an enemy of Brodie. Taking his hand, she linked their fingers. “We shouldn’t be on opposing sides. It doesn’t feel right, does it?”

Grant sighed and his features relaxed enough that he appeared to feel sorry for her. “He hasn’t driven that sweetness out of you… yet. Don’t tread too deep into his world or that wonderful innocence that glows out of you will dim. He’ll take that away from you. He’ll use you and then he’ll abandon you.”

He might mean well, but his words proved to her how little he knew Brodie McCormack. She wished that the brothers hadn’t given up on each other so long ago. It was easy for her to decide Grant was wrong and fight against him. But the man was still Brodie’s brother, and Brodie had lost too many family members already.