GRACE
I’m not a fan of their little plan to keep me safe here at their compound while they go do what I should be doing. If something were to happen to anyone on his team, I’d never forgive myself. I can’t believe they’re willing to jump into all of this without even knowing me. I get that they’ve done their research on me, but that doesn’t really tell them what kind of person I am.
“Do you want me to take you to my house for the night?” Trevor follows closely behind me as I leave the meeting. There’s no need for me to stay behind, since they’ve made it very clear that they won’t be including me on their plan.
“No, I would much rather be at home. There are things I can do there to keep my mind occupied.” I know he’ll either take me or have someone else do it. What he doesn’t know is, I’ll be going home only to turn around and leave again. I’m going to book the first flight out of St. Louis to Baghdad I can find. He thinks I’m this fragile person he can order around, but what he needs to remember is, I’ve lived in that country for years. I know that area and I know the people better than any of them. I’ve seen things in my life that would crush most people, and I refuse to be ordered around as if my own voice isn’t important.
“I have to work the intel with Kaleb so I can make sure nothing is missed. I’ll have someone take you.” He moves close to me, pulling me against his chest once again. I allow myself to inhale his scent, knowing I may never have this chance again once he realizes what I’m about to do. My mind is already working on a plan; I’ll need to get a flight booked on the way. I should grab a few things at the house before I go. If I end up having to slip out the back door to get away from Ivy, then that’s what I’ll do.
“That’s fine.”
“You know I want to fight you on this and tell you I would feel more comfortable if you were here. I’m letting you go against my better judgment. Don’t leave your house alone.” I’m not sure if that was a warning, a threat, or him giving in. Either way I know this could be the end of us when he realizes I’ve left the country when he ordered me to not even leave my home alone.
His soft kiss on my forehead almost has me tempted to change my mind and stay with him until he leaves, but if I’m going to have a chance to get out of here on my own, I need to do this now while he’s distracted and their plan isn’t exactly set in stone. At the risk of pissing these great people off, I know I have to do this.
“Trevor. Thank you for everything.” I speak around the lump in my throat. Tears surface in my eyes, and he wipes them from my cheek the second they begin to fall.
“No tears. I’m doing this for you and your friends. It’s the right thing to do. We’ll have as long as we want to spend time together. I’m due for some serious time off, and something tells me Kaleb will be happy to let me have as much as I need once this is over.” I want nothing more than to think that will be an option, but I’m not about to make any plans until this is all over. He may not want to see me again after this.
He pulls my face toward his and begins kissing me softly at first, then switching as if he has to have a desperate grasp on me just to breathe. I only join him in hopes of keeping him satisfied and not making him suspicious of what I’m about to do. There’s one thing I’m sure of, Trevor isn’t beneath doing whatever it takes to keep me here. I can see him taking drastic measures to make it happen.
“We can head back to the ranch or anywhere else when I return.” He places his hands on my cheeks, kisses my forehead, and I sigh, holding in my breaths until my lungs begin to burn.
“Sounds like a perfect plan to me,” I say on an exhale.
And with a final kiss, he opens the door to the room full of his team and asks Jade to drive me to St. Louis. Her quick response to say yes both surprises and disappoints me. I don’t want to get on her bad side, but I’m afraid that’s inevitable at this point.
“Jade will take you. Maybe this will be a great chance for you two to see what you have in common. She’s an amazing woman, just like you are, so I can only imagine you two will get along great.” She rushes out, her blond hair blowing in the wind the second she steps outside.
“Road trip sounds perfect. I’ve had my fill of you alpha personalities lately.” I laugh at her witty response and can tell she and I would get along great if ever given the chance under different circumstances. “Follow me, and I promise not to grunt once on this trip.”
“I don't grunt.” Trevor smiles at Jade then reaches out to pull me against him for one last single-armed hug before I leave him.
“You’d be the only one then. And I do believe I've heard you at least once, you barbaric ass. Come with me, Grace.” With one last squeeze of Trevor’s arm, I walk away not sure if he’ll ever talk to me again after this night.
“Let me just grab my wallet, then we can get your bag. Jump in.” She points to another giant truck, this one also black and just as loud when she starts it up.
“So, tell me about yourself,” she leads the conversation the second we start moving.
“I figured you already knew everything about me.” She starts laughing before I can finish.
“Oh, I recognize that flare in your eyes. Let's just say I'm the queen of feisty around here, so I get it. I could see how pissed you were the second you found out my fiancé investigated your background.” She shifts gears a few times before she turns us out of the compound and onto the road. “Don't be too hard on them. They mean well; sometimes they're just a little tunnel focused when it comes to something they care about being threatened.”
“And do you think I should be staying here while you all go?” I have to ask her opinion.
“Absolutely. Let us do what we do best.” I quickly see she won't be easily convinced to get them to let me go, so I decide to avoid this conversation any further. It’s also obvious how strong this woman is just from talking with her. I can’t give her a single clue of my plans. If she finds out what I’m doing, she’ll likely knock me on my ass.
“It's just hard, you know,” I speak truthfully.
“Yes, I know better than you can imagine. It wasn't that long ago that I was in your shoes myself. I had to go head-to-head with my stubborn man over and over.”
“I hope you won.” I pick up my phone from the center console.
Jade sits quietly while I search out flights. It appears as if it will take me forever to get over there with three different connections. I leave the browser open, start to text Ivy, and then stop. She doesn’t need to worry about what I’m doing. I toss the phone back into my purse then turn to Jade.
“Are you excited about your wedding?” I ask to keep the conversation going. I do want to hear all about it, though. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to an American wedding.
Iraqi weddings are similar to ours in many ways, yet different. I’ve seen them from the rich, where they party for days before the wedding, to the dirt poor, where they stay true to the old Arabic ways.
“I am. It’s small. Family and close friends. The way we both want it. I’m not a frilly girl. Although Kaleb is going to shit himself when he sees my dress.” Her face lights up as she starts to tell me about her all backless cream-colored dress with a slit all the way up her thigh.
“My mom loves it, my dad not so much.” I know she didn’t mean to hurt me, but I can’t help but feel that jealous ping in my heart from her words.
I’ll never experience anything remotely close to what Jade does right now. No mother to help me pick out my dress, to cry happy tears with me when my special day comes. No father to look at his daughter as if I’m still his little girl when he sees me and takes me by his arm to give me away. He hurts. Everything hurts.
“Hey, are you okay?” Jade asks, turning her head my way. “Oh, shit. I’m sorry, Grace. I should have never said that.”
“You should be able to talk about your special day, Jade. I’m fine,” I tell her as I swipe the lone tear that somehow escaped.
“I may come off as a hardass at ti
mes, and you may be able to fool the guys back there, but I’m a woman, too, you know. Our intuition picks up on things. You're hurting. You we’re home for what, two weeks before you took off with Steele? And now all of this is happening. You haven’t had time to grieve. Can I tell you something?” The way she talks has me feeling as if she’s experienced something similar, something that cut her deep.
“Of course,” I reply.
“First, I want you to know that this conversation…it isn’t about me. It’s about you. A few years ago, I lost a brother. It tore my family apart.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell her.
“Thank you. I loved him more than anything, and I don’t mean this to come off in the wrong way, but his death was nothing compared to losing my best friend. She was shot and killed by a man out for revenge. He killed her and her unborn child right in front of her fiancé. Her fiancé was Harris.” I gasp. My hand flies up to my chest. Everyone was thrilled when amongst all the chaos going down back at the compound that Jade had received a phone call from this Harris to let her know he was all cleared to go back to work. I thought little about it until Kaleb got on the phone and proceeded to tell him what was going on in Iraq. The next thing we all knew, Harris was getting his clearance to leave the country to go with them.
“Oh, my god. I can’t even begin to imagine how you dealt with something like that.”
“It was the worst time of my life. Every day, getting out of bed was a struggle. I still don’t like to talk about it. My point is, Mallory should be standing up with me. She should be by my side. My brother should be there sitting with my family. Neither one of them will be, but I’ll have them in my heart, my head.” I know she’s trying to make me feel better, and I appreciate her more for it. I also know how they say time heals all wounds. I’ve never believed in that saying. Not after the things I’ve seen, experienced, or even heard. Time doesn’t heal; it’s simply a passage. It’s what you do with your time that helps you heal.
We’re both quiet for a short time after that. Lost in our own thoughts. I hold back from allowing everything that has happened to me to burst out of me like it want it to. Afraid that if I lose it, she’ll turn around and take me back.
It’s in that moment that my phone pings with an incoming text. I lean down, retrieve my phone out of my bag, thinking it’s Ivy only to see it’s from Trevor telling me he misses me. My heart zaps to life, then quickly falls to the floor knowing I’m about to defy him in more ways than one.
“Is that Steele?” she asks with a smile on her face.
“Yes.” I smile back. It’s a genuine one. One that no matter what happens between the two of us, I know time will never erase Steele from my heart or my mind.
I reply with the same thing. Bring up the search browser and refresh. Damn it, the price is ridiculous. I quickly book it, thankful I remember my debit card information and even more grateful that my parents drilled the importance of memorizing numbers in my head. My father told me time and time again how significant numbers are in many ways in the medical field. Prescriptions, scans, X-rays. Numbers are used in abundance. There were times I hated to learn, and now as I close the browser and shove my phone in my purse, I’m hit with a sudden warmth of happiness over all the things they taught me.
Jade and I carry on several different conversations the rest of the way to my house. The closer we get, the more I feel as if I should invite her in. I’m saved when she pulls up to the curb and tells me she feels she should head right back in case they need her.
She introduces me to the two men parked outside the house, and I manage to remain normal enough that they don’t suspect I’d flee the country. “This is Brett and Greg. They help us monitor here in the States when we need them. They just happened to be close to here already.”
“What we need for you to do is go inside, set the alarm, and then keep us posted if anyone tries to call you.” The one in the driver’s seat, Brett, seems to be in charge, but they’re both making eye contact and observing me. “Here is the phone that you’ll use to reach us.” He hands me a cheap phone just before Jade starts to speak.
“You boys take care of this one. I expect to see her at my wedding on Mr. Steele’s arm.” She smiles at me as she walks off, running a hand through her gorgeous hair. I can see how she softened the hard man who leads Trevor’s team. She makes a perfect balance for the guys, and it’s obvious that it works for them. “See you soon, Ms. Grace. It’s been a pleasure watching you get to our Steele.”
“Ivy,” I holler the minute I walk in the door, slamming it a little too hard behind me. I have three hours before my first flight. I need to pack quickly and make it look like I’m headed to bed. They’ll need to think everything is clear so they’ll let their guard down.
When there is no answer from the back of the house, I run up the stairs to check her room only to find it empty.
I don’t have time to wonder where she is. I quickly pack as much stuff as I can in a smaller suitcase, tossing in only a few of the long cloaks I never wanted to wear again now that I’m back home and comfortable in my new clothes and skin. I grab my bag of personal items and toss them in, too. It takes me no time to zip it up and retrieve my passport and some extra cash from my dad’s safe before I call a cab to meet me a few streets behind the house. I do all of this in less than a half hour. The guilt and shame hit me in the head as if I’ve been slapped. I’m deceiving everyone who is helping me. Not a one of them is going to forgive me, but that’s something I’ll have to deal with.
I slip out the back door and walk through the alley to reach the cab that’s waiting for me. It was a little too easy for me to do that, and I should feel guilty that those nice guys are going to have hell to pay the second Trevor finds out I managed to slip away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
STEELE
“Let’s do this,” Jackson says as we all take our seats on the plane. I’m so damn tired that I don’t give a shit that someone else is flying us over there instead of me. All I want to do is close my eyes and rest. Hell, we all need to. We have no idea what kind of mess we may be walking into once we get over there.
“You motherfuckers planning on leaving without me?” Harris steps onto the plane with a huge smile on his face.
“It’s about damn time, brother. You had about five minutes until we were leaving your ass here,” I tell him while sticking my hand out for him to shake.
“Right. I suppose you were going to communicate to them in Spanish, too. How the hell are you, man? Rumor has it this mission is about your new girl. I’m glad to be back and that my first mission is to help your big ass out.”
“It’s good to have you back. I appreciate it. Grace will, too.”
“Looking forward to meeting her,” he says before he passes by and drops his bag to the side so he can properly hug his best friend, Jade.
“I missed your ass!” She squeezes his waist, and he shakes Kaleb’s hand over her shoulder before he pulls her tight.
“Ehh. I’ve been enjoying the quiet.” Jade pulls back quickly before she punches his shoulder in a teasing way. I think it’s been two weeks since we’ve all seen each other, but to them it seems like forever. That’s what happens when you do everything with someone for years, then suddenly they’re no longer a part of your everyday routine.
“You all ready to take off?” the pilots call back to us. We’ve all made this trip many times in our careers. It gets old as fuck, but I’ll go a million times if it’s what I must do to keep Grace safe.
We make a stop at an airport where our large plane is waiting. We worked out all the details last night. It’s times like these when I wish I had a Boeing and a runway large enough for it. That’s something I want to work on in the future. The land to the west of our compound could be purchased, giving me the length I’d need.
“Alright, everyone, get in your seats and listen up.” Kaleb takes over briefing everyone on what we learned last night. We have an address where we think the k
idnappers are. Vice has been watching the house, with orders not to do anything until we all arrive. Now, all we have to do is go in and get the job done. This should be an easy mission.
I check my phone for a reply from Grace only to be left disappointed. Shooting off a quick message to the guys I have running security for her first, I then move my attention back to Kaleb as I wait. My phone vibrates quickly, and my stomach drops when I read the message.
“Hold the fuck up. Don’t take off yet.” Everyone stops talking and looks at me as I try not to lose my shit. I dial Brett’s number, ready to tear his fucking head off if his message is legit. The second he answers, I roar out without giving him the chance to say hello. “What the fuck do you mean, she’s not in the house?”
“She must’ve snuck out in the night. You didn’t tell me we had to make sure she didn’t run.” I can’t even listen to him any longer. I throw my phone into the couch, where Jade picks it up to take over the call.
My anger is running rampant through my body as I pace the tiny space available. “I’m tracing her phone. Give me a few minutes.” Pierce’s voice is loud and serious as he types on his laptop. I run my hands through my hair and try to think where the fuck she’d go. I can’t comprehend that she’d go to Baghdad without us after everything we said yesterday.
“The last signal her phone gave off was in Turkey.”
“Fuckkkkkk!” My yelling echoes through the cabin as I process what she’s done. She has to be in the air, on her fucking way to Iraq.
“Let’s go now. Fuck.” I rush to sit back down, impatiently wishing I could take over the cockpit and get us there in record time, even though my mind is in no condition to fly right now. At least then I’d be focused on something instead of worrying about the unknown.
I can’t believe she fucking went without anyone to help her. If I ever get the chance to see her again, I’m going to bend her ass over for this one. Shit like this is how people get killed. We would call that a suicide mission and avoid it at all costs.
Steele (The Elite Forces Book 4) Page 15