Dare (BLOOD Brothers Book 5), page 28
She would have that view. She’d dreamed of it. Maybe she deserved more than that view. One by one, we carried them around to store in the temp shed, we’d set up under the deck. Now that they were here, we could cut through the wall, but we would need to do some more work to set up for that.
Once they were secured, she stepped back, rubbing her palms on her jeans, her eyes flicked from me to Bones to Lunchbox, and then over to Voodoo.
“So,” she said, casual—too casual. “I told Voodoo something today.”
Bones straightened, expression shifting into that heavy unreadable wall he used when preparing for something unpleasant.
Voodoo leaned a hip against one of the posts, arms crossed, waiting.
“Shoot,” Lunchbox said gently.
“I’m… thinking about going back to work.”
Grip going white-knuckled on the hammer he’d just picked back up, Bones went absolutely still. His jaw locked so hard I heard the grind from ten feet away.
“No,” he said flatly. “Absolutely not.”
Grace blinked. “Bones—”
“No.” He stabbed the hammer toward the ground like he was punctuating it. “You’ve been off the radar for a year. The second your face hits a billboard, we’ll have people up our asses.”
Lunchbox winced. “He’s not wrong. It would put you in the spotlight again. Cameras. Reporters. Schedules. Travel. Less control.”
Grace’s shoulders nipped inward, barely, the way they sometimes did when she was absorbing impact. But she didn’t back down.
“I miss it,” she said quietly. “I miss me. Or that part of me.”
Scrubbing a hand through his hair, Lunchbox shot me a look. The “are you going to say something?” look.
I didn’t. Not yet. Because every scenario was already firing behind my eyes—
Grace doing shoots in controlled environments?
Possible. High monitoring.
Grace traveling out of state?
Complicated. Risk spike.
Grace stepping out in public, photographed, tagged, tracked, discussed online?
At least twenty countermeasures needed upfront.
Bones pacing beside her, protective instincts spiking so hard he’d probably punch the nearest camera?
Guaranteed.
Grace seeing old colleagues, old friends, people who’d known her before?
Unpredictable. Could be healing. Could be a landmine.
Grace wanting her life back?
Necessary.
Grace being hunted again?
Unacceptable.
“Bones,” Grace said softly, stepping closer. “I’m not asking to sign a thousand endorsements tomorrow. I’m just… thinking. Maybe rebuilding. Maybe slowly.”
“Dollface…” Bones exhaled like she’d punched him in the lungs.
“I’m not fragile,” she whispered.
He closed his eyes.
Fuck if I didn’t feel that like a knife slipped right between my ribs.
“She’s not asking for permission,” Voodoo said gently. “She’s asking what it looks like.”
“We can build safeguards.” Lunchbox nodded, thoughtful. “Start small. Interviews with vetted people. Shoots on our terms. Maybe bring an agent on board who understands discretion.”
Grace’s eyes brightened a little. “Yes. Like that.”
Bones shot the three of us the dirtiest look imaginable. “I see how it is. Mutiny.”
“Collective problem-solving,” Voodoo corrected cheerfully.
“Same thing,” Bones muttered.
Grace stepped closer to him and slid her hand along his arm. “I just need parts of my life back.”
He sagged. Just a little. Then he covered her hand with his own.
“You’re asking me to let you walk into the open,” he said. “After everything.”
“I’m asking you,” she whispered, “to walk with me into it.”
Something kicked under my ribs. I finally spoke. “We can do it.”
All eyes snapped to me—including Grace’s soft, hopeful blue ones.
“We prep,” I continued. “We plan. We build a firewall around your name. We manage every appearance, every shoot, every digital trail. We vet your agent, your circles, the locations. We put buffers in place. We decide what level of anonymity you want and where.”
Her throat moved in a tight swallow. “You really think it could work?”
“I think,” I said, “that the only thing worse than risking letting you live your life… is asking you to keep hiding from it.”
She took a tiny step toward me. Goblin rose too, tail thumping once, like he was taking her side simply because she was Grace.
I let a little smile curve my mouth. “We’ll make it safe, Gracie. I’ll run the logistics. I’ll run the checks. I’ll run everything. But if something doesn’t look right? We pull you out.”
Her voice shook. “AB…”
“This is non-negotiable,” I said quietly. “I want you to be happy. I want you to have the life you want. But I want you alive more than any of that. If something doesn’t check out, then we extract—no arguments, no debates.”
Her breath caught. Her perfect white teeth scraped over her lower lip. She’d been worrying at it again, turning it redder and making it more plump.
The guys were not thrilled with the response, Bones least of all. I could practically read him running all the possible scenarios to keep her safe. We all were. This was not one time where he would just cave because she wanted it.
The threat was too real.
Grace wiped at her eyes and whispered, “So… that’s not a no?”
I shook my head slowly. “It’s a not yet. Until we’re ready. Not to mention we need to work out the story to cover your absence. I took care of a lot of your accounts, and handled everything I could remotely…”
Surprise flickered over her face.
“People do know you’re missing but they don’t have any information on it.” They’d filed a missing persons case, but the investigators hadn’t spent more than a week on it. The case had already been cold when her absence had been reported. No leads, no hints, and no evidence to follow.
Sinclair’s people had done too good a job scrubbing Amorette’s absence, so it was never tied to Grace’s. Since they didn’t have any family to report it, she was just… gone. In some ways, it was the safest outcome for Grace. No one knew where she was or who she was with. We could and would keep her safe.
Going back into the world would strip away one real layer of security. She exhaled in relief, trembling at the edges.
Bones sighed long and heavy. “Dollface, if you’re doing this, I’m escorting you everywhere until you’re eighty.”
“Deal.” Grace grinned, then hugged him. Over her head, Bones’ gaze fixed on mine. Taking her back out there would mean changes for all of us. The work we did required us to be ghosts. Ghosts couldn’t be in the sun with Gracie.
I nodded once. Guilt raked through me, because I really didn’t want her going back to that life. To being treated like a piece of meat put there for others to ogle and desire. The first time someone came on to her or propositioned her, they would disappear.
Lunchbox clapped his hands once. “Steaks are going on the grill in fifteen. Anyone planning to eat should wash off the sawdust.”
Bones grumbled, but he kissed her with such ferocity it silenced everyone. Then he headed inside with Voodoo to wash up and Goblin trotted after Lunchbox who followed.
Grace stepped toward me, slipping her arms around my torso. I hugged her back without hesitation. “Thank you,” she whispered into my chest.
“For what?”
“For trying. For everything.”
I rested my chin lightly on her hair. “I’m not done trying. Not even close.” I’ll find your sister. Somehow. Some way. I’ll find her…
A week later, my office was a cave of cold light and humming processors—every monitor running a different search, every encrypted channel blinking results that told me absolutely nothing new.
Nothing about Amorette.
Nothing that led toward Korkov.
Nothing that connected La Madrina to any recent movement.
Nothing on the Castillos or a half-dozen other South American operations I tracked. There had been a lot of takeovers, assassinations, infiltrations, and surprisingly enough—arrests—over the past few months. All of which promised a shifting power structure and landscape.
But there was nothing but silence on the other fronts. It was the wrong kind of silence. The kind that meant someone else was covering tracks better than I could uncover them.
We’d taken a huge chunk out of the trafficking side of their operations. We hadn’t eliminated it. That would be pure arrogance to think we had, but we’d definitely hurt them.
Goblin lay stretched out at my feet, chin on his paws, tail thumping once every so often like he knew I needed reminding I wasn’t alone. He did that. Chose his moments.
I leaned back in the chair, left ankle propped over the right prosthetic on the desk. An open notebook sat on my lap where I’d been writing out the contingencies for Grace’s potential return to modeling.
Potential.
I hated that word more today than I had last week.
“I told Voodoo something today.”
“I’m thinking about going back to work.”
I replayed it more often than I wanted to admit. Not because I was angry. I wasn’t. Worried? Absolutely.
No, it was on a constant loop in my head because the quiet, certainty in her voice had been hers again. The Grace from before everything fell apart. Before monsters peeled back the world and showed her its teeth.
That part mattered more to me than all the risks I could list.
But holy shit, I could list a lot. I dragged a hand down my face and forced myself to keep looking at the screens.
On the left: The remains of Eleanor’s agency—Drake Talent & Management. I’d traced the transition of power after her death, which was listed as a “freak accident,” something vague and insulting. Two junior partners picked up the reins. Neither had her instincts. Neither had her spine. Both had taken on new investors.
Investors whose names were… interesting.
On the right: A scroll of every photographer, designer, stylist, and brand Grace had worked with over the last five years. Fifty-seven names total. Thirty-four still active. Twenty reachable. Ten with questionable ties. Three with direct connections to Rachel Manning—the photographer who’d lent us her Paris apartment.
I flagged every connection, every oddity, every overlap.
Rachel herself? Clean. Too clean. We owed her, but she wasn’t stupid. She’d noticed the inconsistencies in the story Grace had told her, and she’d asked questions. Not many questions and even though she accepted it when Grace said she couldn’t answer her, I didn’t like it.
I didn’t like it enough to put her back on the board as someone to just keep an eye on. If I was suspicious of everyone then there was a strong chance no one would surprise me.
Hopefully.
On the screen: A projected security plan. Preliminary. Brutal. Necessary.
Because no matter how I organized it, no matter how much I prepared—every scenario where Gracie stepped back into the public eye put her at risk.
And the worst part? I couldn’t escape the idea that this was the absolute wrong call.
Not because she couldn’t handle it—she could.
Not because she wasn’t strong enough—she was stronger than even she knew.
But because the second Grace Black walked back into the world and her face resurfaced, someone—Korkov’s people, La Madrina’s people, one of the syndicates, hell, even someone we didn’t know about yet—would see it.
And then they’d start looking for her again.
A ping hit one of the screens. Goblin’s ears perked.
I rolled closer, scanning the notification:
A contact in Barcelona. One I rarely tapped. A quiet favor. Just a breadcrumb.
They’d traced a rumor—just a rumor—of a woman matching Amorette’s description in Rio de Janeiro three months earlier. A photograph accompanied it, pixelated to hell and back. Dark hair, right build but so fucking blurry it could have been a mannequin for all the detail visible.
Old. Unverified. Maybe bullshit.
Maybe hope.
I flagged it, coded it, shoved it into the “pursue immediately” file.
Goblin nudged my thigh, sensing the shift. “Yeah, buddy,” I murmured. “I know. It’s something.”
My phone buzzed on the desk.
Lunchbox
Fish ready in 20. Grace wants you to taste-test the garlic butter because she says yours is better than mine. Lying, obviously, but come eat anyway.
Despite everything, I snorted. I didn’t cook, something Gracie knew well, and the closest I came to making garlic butter was just stirring up Lunchbox’s.
Then another message came in.
Grace
AB? Come out when you can? No rush. Just… want to see you.
My heart hit the brakes. That was the thing with her—she didn’t ask repeatedly. Didn’t demand. Didn’t push.
But she was getting so much better about asking for what she needed and wanted, when she needed or wanted it. She’d also held to our promise to each other to always say the truth.
And all I could think about was how the hell I was supposed to tell her—
That her going back to work was dangerous. That it risked everything we’d built. That even with all our preparation, all our training, all my surveillance and contingency plans—it still felt like walking her straight into a sniper scope.
I leaned back in my chair, staring at the screens—at every lead I’d chased for her sister, every dead end, every open thread.
At all the ways the world could hurt her again.
Goblin nudged me once more, harder. Like he was telling me to get my ass moving.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “Alright.”
I shut down nothing—left every search running—locked the screens with a command, and reached down to scratch behind Goblin’s ears before pushing to my feet.
Chapter
Thirty
GRACE
Two more months passed, and somehow life had settled into something that felt dangerously close to normal.
Not the kind of normal I used to have—bright lights, cameras, runway chaos, schedules planned down to the minute.
This was a different kind.
A better kind.
The deck was finished—broad and warm under bare feet, with a view that stole my breath every sunrise. The garden boxes were planted—herbs, tomatoes, peppers, strawberries—all things the guys pretended they didn’t care about but absolutely fussed over when they thought I wasn’t watching.
As for our French doors… God, they were beautiful.
Walnut frames, glass panels so clear it looked like the mountains were stepping straight inside. When the morning light hit just right, the whole suite glowed like some kind of daydream.
This place didn’t just feel like home. It was home.
Life was good. Really, really good.
The guys had taken two missions in the last couple of months—short ones, clean ones. The first was a forty-eight-hour in-and-out that only needed Bones, Legend, and Voodoo. The second required all of them—and me.
I still didn’t know how to fully articulate what it meant to be included. Not just tolerated. Not protected into uselessness.
Included.
It reminded me that I wasn’t broken. That I could still be capable. That I could want my life back, and while I did, I also valued the life I had now.
I’d slowly, carefully reached out to a handful of contacts—people I trusted, or trusted enough with boundaries and encrypted channels. Rachel Manning was one of them.
She was loud, brilliant, sarcastic, and had an uncanny ability to read between every line of every silence.
Which made it all the more alarming when my phone buzzed one late evening with her name lighting up an encrypted app we used because it made the guys happier and me safer while also protecting Rachel too.
We were out on the deck, roasting s’mores over the fire pit. The night air smelled like pine and toasted sugar. I was tucked between Voodoo’s legs in one of the oversized deck chairs, Bones and Legend were arguing about the structural integrity of marshmallows, and AB was sprawled on a blanket with Goblin curled at his side.
My phone buzzed again.
I glanced down.
Rachel (Secure Line)
You awake? Need to talk?
My heart slipped a beat.
Rachel didn’t do careful punctuation or even more careful questions. Or at least she hadn’t since we’d reconnected after AB cleared her as “safe.”
I sat up straighter.
“Gracie?” Legend asked immediately.
“I’m fine,” I said automatically—too fast for it to sound believable.
The guys went still. Not grabbing, not crowding—just… ready. Every one of them.
I swiped to accept the call and brought the phone to my ear.
“Rach? What’s going on?”
A breath, then a familiar voice, husky, low, and tight. “Okay, so, full disclosure? I debated not passing this on.”
My stomach dropped. “Why?”
“Because it’s weird,” she said. “It felt… I don’t know. Loaded? I’ve been sitting on it for a couple days, trying to decide if I should even tell you.” A pause. “But then I asked myself what I’d want done if the situation were reversed.”
Behind me, Voodoo’s hands tightened on my hips. Bones stood up like a shadow congealing into a man. AB was suddenly sitting upright, eyes already on my phone. Legend froze mid-reach for a graham cracker.
Swapping us to speaker, I swallowed. “Rachel… what message?”
