Duplass grins nastily. He can’t believe his good fortune. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
Duplass mulls it over for a second. Then he slaps a pen and a piece of paper in front of Grant. “It’s a deal. Except I have a condition of my own.”
“What?”
Duplass points at me. “If I agree to your terms, then she stops the document dump.”
“Not a chance in hell,” I snap.
“Eve,” Grant says calmly. “If he lets you go, then scrap the document dump.”
I look at Grant in despair. We were so close to clawing our way out, and then he goes and does a stupid thing like this.
Grant gives me a look like Quit screwing around. “Please.”
“…fine,” I mutter.
“Thank you,” Grant says, and begins writing on the piece of paper.
“I want the files erased,” Duplass demands. “I want the location of the server, and we’ll do the erasing – ”
“No way,” I butt in. “As soon as I give you that, you’ll just re-arrest me.”
“You don’t get the files, Duplass,” Grant says as he writes out name after name. “That’s our insurance policy that you abide by the agreement.”
“There’s no way I’m trusting her!” Duplass scowls.
“Well, since we have to trust you, you’ll have to trust us a little, too.”
“What’s to stop her from blackmailing us?”
“There won’t be anything to gain,” Grant says. “I’ll already be in jail. She’d just be making herself into a target.”
Grant slides the piece of paper across the desk.
Duplass grabs the list like a hyena scrabbling for a bone. As soon as he looks at the names, though, his eyes go wide. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Grant leans back in his chair again. “I kid you not.”
“There aren’t any museums on here!”
“That’s because I never stole from any museums. Just private ‘collections.’”
“There’s a sitting United States Senator on here!” Duplass says angrily. “One of the most powerful men in the United States!”
“Yup,” Grant agrees. “I designed his house. He had ‘Storm of the Sea of Galilee’ by Rembrandt, if I recall. Stolen in 1990 from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum – same heist as ‘The Concert.’ But it was the second guy on the list who had the Vermeer.”
“What?! No, that can’t be right – ”
“Yup. I doubt he’s the same presidential candidate Epicurus gave ten million dollars to – my guy already had hundreds of millions of his own – though you never know.”
Mailin is curious. He leans over to sneak a look, but Duplass angrily snatches the paper away.
Grant puts his feet up on the desk and folds his hands behind his head. “There’s three of the richest men in the United States on that list, plus six other garden-variety almost-billionaires. Anyway, like I said, you’re going to need at least one of them to back me up. You might want to call them now so you don’t get embarrassed when you subpoena them in front of the grand jury and they tell you, ‘No, nothing was stolen from me in the last three years.’”
Duplass is almost as white as the paper the list is written on.
“Oh – one last thing: two of those guys are best buds with the President, so, you know… you might want to mention that when you call the White House about Eve’s demands, too. In case you’re thinking of not honoring our deal.”
Duplass looks like he’s going to blow a gasket, but he doesn’t say another word. He just walks out of the room, apparently to go make some phone calls.
We get released from FBI headquarters fifty-five minutes later.
102
Duplass doesn’t even see us off; he’s probably too ashamed to show his face.
Mailin gets the honors instead. “Oh man, you should’ve seen him standing in front of the Assistant Director while she was on the phone with the Attorney General and the White House. I’ve never seen Duplass that scared in my life. He probably had to change his underwear afterward.”
We’re in a private room off the main lobby of the FBI building. Grant is wearing a grey warm-up suit with ‘FBI’ emblazoned on the back; it was the only thing they could find for him to wear when they took the orange prison jumpsuit back.
Mailan hands each of us a thick sheaf of documents to sign.
“What is this?” Dominique asks.
“Standard NDA’s,” Mailin replies.
“En… Dee… A’s…?”
“Nondisclosure agreements. You promise you won’t tell anybody anything about what happened at the house in Marin County. EVER.”
“Where’s our promises from you?” Grant asks facetiously.
“You get to walk out the door. That’s all the promises they’re willing to give you.” Mailin turns to me. “By the way, exactly when are you planning on stopping the document dump?”
“As soon as we leave.”
“Because all bets are off if even one of those files gets out.”
“Then I guess you better let me get out of here, huh?”
“You’re cutting it kind of close.”
“I have two hours, Mailin. It’ll be fine.”
“Did you take into account time zones when you programmed it?” he asks quite seriously.
A dawning look of horror spreads across my face. “Oh shit…”
“EVE – ” Mailin starts in a panic, and then realizes from my barely suppressed smile that I’m pulling his leg. “SO not cool.”
Grant laughs.
“She loves to do that,” JP chimes in.
“Don’t fuck around with those documents,” Mailin warns me.
“I won’t, I won’t.”
“Any chance you’d like to borrow one of our computers?” he asks with a sly little grin.
“Ha. No.”
The FBI would just track my movements online, find the server, and then I wouldn’t have any leverage on them at all. No, I’m going to have to get a computer as soon as I get out of here.
Mailin watches as we all start reading and signing. “By the way… as far as your plans after you walk out of here…”
Grant looks up. “Yes?”
“The FBI is requesting you lay low for a while.”
I frown. “Lay low?”
“In other words, no press conferences,” Grant translates.
“Actually, no press conferences, no statements to the press, no talking to the press, minimal contact with your company, no contact with anyone but your immediate families, no public appearances including restaurants, theaters, airports, railways…”
Now it’s Grant’s turn to look surprised. “What?!”
“Public relations needs to handle this just right. After all, our guys shot and killed a billionaire, who was also a serial killer, who did consulting work for the NSA. The FBI’s going to be in damage control over this for a while.”
“Why no contact with anyone but our families?” I ask.
“Because the press is going to be calling everybody you know, trying to get to you. And when they can’t get to you, they’ll want a comment from your friends. We’d rather not have to deal with dozens of different ‘off-the-record’ statements, not to mention opportunists spinning conspiracy theories, while we’re handling this in the press.”
“My friends are CEO’s and billionaires. They’re press-savvy enough not to give you any problems,” Grant says.
“What, and mine aren’t?” I ask, annoyed.
“I’m just sayin’ – CEO’s and billionaires – ”
I point at JP and Dominique. “And cat burglars and thieves.”
Both JP and Dominique make indignant comments in French.
Mailin shakes his head. “You see? To keep it fair, I’m going to have to insist: no talking to anybody but your immediate families.”
Grant looks pissed. He’s obviously not used to being dictated to. “So what are we supposed t
o do, then?”
“The President suggested disappearing somewhere in Europe for a couple of weeks.”
Grant’s eyes widen. “The President suggested that?”
“Well… not officially.” Mailin grins. “However, I did overhear somebody on the phone say, ‘That’s what he’s good at, right? Disappearing?’”
Grant grunts in exasperation, but he’s clearly impressed that the leader of the free world knows all about our exploits overseas. “How am I supposed to get out of the country if I can’t talk to my people?”
“I said minimal contact with your company. We expect you’ll need to arrange a private jet and make accommodations, so…”
Mailin pulls the blue backpack out from a desk.
Grant unzips it. Inside I can see all his credit cards, the cell phone without the battery, and the stack of $10,000 cash.
“Huh,” I say. “I thought for sure you guys were going to impound everything in there as evidence.”
“Well, you’ve never been convicted of a crime, and you’re not being charged with one now, so…” Mailin says, trailing off with a smile.
Grant looks at him askance. “Speaking of which, your bosses are going to clear my name, right?”
“Yes. They’ll do it as part of the press announcement tomorrow morning.”
“And they’re going to say that Epicurus planting the paintings, right?”
“Yes. That’ll be in the announcement.”
“It better,” Grant says darkly. Then his mood lightens. “I’m curious… how’d my list of names go over?”
“They called everybody on it. Not a single person had anything to say.”
“Yeah,” Grant chuckles. “I figured.”
“Well played.”
“Thank you,” Grant says, and he and Mailin exchange a look that seems to indicate everything is cool between them.
“What’s this?” I ask, holding up a piece of paper from my pile.
Mailin peers closer at it. “An agreement that you won’t leak any of the digital files to the press, any foreign countries, or anyone else.”
I sign it, but add the words ‘UNLESS YOU BASTARDS FORCE ME TO’ at the bottom. Then I hold up another piece of paper with a questioning look.
“That’s an agreement that you’ll destroy the digital files from Epicurus’s house and give us the location of the server.”
I rip the piece of paper in two.
“I’m not supposed to let you out of here unless you sign that,” Mailin says.
“Too damn bad.”
“Eve – ”
“If they have a problem, Mailin, I’m more than happy to wait around here for two hours twiddling my thumbs. We can all watch the news together when CNN breaks it live.”
Mailin sighs. “You know the NSA is just going to hunt you down like a dog until they find it.”
“Fine. I’m not doing anything illegal ever again, so they’re free to shadow me all they like.”
Mailin grins. “Right.”
“Right, what?”
“Like you’re really going to get on the straight and narrow after this.”
“I am,” I insist.
“Yeah, okay,” Mailin says, and makes an obnoxious face like, Suuuuure you will.
It’s even worse when Grant starts grinning, too. I smack him in the arm with my giant sheaf of papers.
Mailin starts to gather everybody’s legal agreements. “Um… there’s one tiny wrinkle concerning Jean-Paul and Dominique.”
Grant holds back his signed papers. “What?”
“We can’t officially admit that they’re in the country, since we never… ‘officially’ brought them over. So, basically, we can’t let them leave on a commercial flight. No visas, no passports – ”
“That’s fine,” Grant says, and hands over his pages. “I’ll fly them back in one of my own jets.”
“We are okay with the French government, yes?” JP asks worriedly.
“Yes,” Mailin says.
JP raises an eyebrow.
“They assured us they wouldn’t make a fuss,” Mailin promises.
Dominique makes a clucking sound like she doesn’t believe him.
“Don’t worry, I’ll fly you to Switzerland and get you a limo back to Paris,” Grant promises.
“Damn,” Mailin mutters. “Kind of makes me wish I was an international fugitive.”
“There’s room on the plane.”
Mailin grins. “I’ll think about it.”
I’m the last one to turn over my signed documents. Once I do, Mailin and I stand there looking at each other.
“Well,” he says.
“Well,” I say awkwardly.
“I guess this is it.”
“I guess so.” I stand on tiptoe and give him a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks – for everything.”
He blushes and smiles. “You’re welcome.”
Grant is a little jealous. “We good to go?” he asks brusquely.
Mailin looks from me to him, then back to me. “Yeah. You’re good.”
“Great. Thanks again,” Grant says, then takes me by the arm and leads me towards the door.
“Hey Eve,” Mailin calls out. “Maybe I’ll… see you around online sometime?”
I smile over my shoulder at him. “You know where to find me,” I say as I walk through the lobby, arm in arm with Grant.
“Hasta la vista, baby,” Mailin calls out in a thick German accent.
“Jesus, do not tell me you actually had a thing for that guy,” Grant mutters.
“Shhh,” I whisper and giggle as we walk out the glass doors into the night.
103
JP, Dominique, Grant, and I are all free.
The first thing we do as soon as we step out of FBI headquarters is to look at each other and cheer. Hugs, kisses, and joyous shouts all around.
Second is Grant calls his company. They’re a little freaked out to hear from their on-the-lam boss, but after they check with the FBI, they send us a limo – with a laptop.
Third thing on the list is I stop the document dump. And backup all the files to a half-dozen other servers… just in case.
Fourth is we book the penthouse at the Fairmont Hotel on Nob Hill. Actually, Grant’s company books it; we just get smuggled in through the back door. Once we’re up there, Grant orders the entire menu from the nearest pricey restaurant, plus six bottles of Dom Perignon from room service.
“To a job well done,” Grant toasts us.
“To ten million dollars,” JP adds cheekily.
104
We tell and retell our versions of the rescue over dinner. After all, Grant has no idea what happened on our end after he jumped out of the boat and into the Seine.
“What were you thinking?!” I exclaim.
He shrugs. “They were going to chase us. I could either give myself up and make sure you got away, or we could both be captured. I chose the first option.”
“What if something had gone wrong?!”
“It didn’t.”
“But what if – ”
“I trusted you,” he says, looking deep into my eyes. “I knew you’d come for me.”
I melt into his arms after that.
After we drink and eat our fill, JP and Dominique retire to their separate rooms for the night. JP is the happiest I’ve ever seen him. Dominique? Not so much.
She pauses at the door and looks at both of us… then looks at Grant… and kisses him on the cheek. She whispers something in his ear, then leaves the penthouse.
“What’d she say?” I ask, a little bit jealous.
“She said, ‘She’s a lucky girl,’” Grant says.
One corner of my mouth turns up into a half-smile. “I am.”
“And I’m a lucky man,” Grant says as he takes me into his arms and kisses me.
105
Have you ever had a really bad fight? The kind where everything spirals out of control? There’s shouting, you cry, doors slam, and you think, It’s over.
And then – two hours later, or 24 hours later – you see each other again, and all you can do is say I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, and you can’t keep your hands off each other? Because the only way you can feel closer at that moment is to have him inside you?
Make-up sex is amazing.
Well, ‘reunion sex after a near-death experience’ is ten times better.
Imagine that you thought the person you loved most in the world is gone. You’ll never, ever see them again. Imagine all that grief, all that pain. Imagine all the things you wish you’d told them. Imagine all the times you would have made love, but never got the chance.
And then suddenly… they’re back. They’re alive. And they’re in your arms again.
Think of the flood of emotions. The gratitude, the love, the joy.
Think about how you thought you would never make love to them again… and now they’re right there in front of you, both of you naked, skin on bare skin?
They say that all great literature is about sex and death.
I can tell you this: impossibly great sex comes when you stare down death, and love wins.
106
We kiss tenderly at first, then feverishly. I can’t get enough of the taste of his mouth. The smell of him. The feel of his skin under my fingers. All the tiny details I’d taken for granted, and now I’ve been given another chance to be grateful for them again.
His hands touch every part of my body – over my clothes, then under them. I unzip his sweatshirt and run my fingers over his skin, feeling every muscle he has, from his arms, to his chest, to his abs, to his back.
Then I go lower. I stroke him through the flimsy material of his warm-up pants, running my fingers up and down his shaft as we passionately kiss. At first he is soft, but still thick and firm; within 60 seconds, he is pressing insistently against the cloth, his cock straining in my hand.
Finally I can’t stand it anymore, and I sink to my knees. I ease the waistband over that beautiful pink head, then pull his pants down to the floor. As he steps out of them, I hold his shaft in my hand, lovingly appraising the weight of it, the girth. I kiss all the way up from his balls to the crown, and then I take him in my mouth.
The Billionaire's Redemption (The Billionaire's Kiss, Book Five): (A Billionaire Alpha Romance) Page 28