When it’s over, she collapses on top of me and for long seconds, a minute or two even, we just hold each other. “I don’t know what to do, Adrian,” she whispers.
I cup her head. “I know, baby, but we’ll figure it out.” I shift, help her up, and then stand up myself.
We end up in the bathroom, with her draped in a robe and sitting on the bathroom sink in front of me, my hands on either side of her. “Talk to me,” I urge because I don’t think right now is the time to tell her what I feel or what I want.
“I think Waters is winning, Adrian.”
And she’s right, I think. He is winning, but not for long.
“I think everything that happened tonight is for my benefit,” she adds. “I mean, obviously it was since the endgame is for me to drop out. But I don’t think Waters is threatening to take my parents down by way of exposing money laundering. I think he’s letting me know how easily he can get close to them. How easily he can hurt them. How easily he can kill them.”
And she’s not wrong, I think again.
Waters has made his point. He’s about to start filling body bags. Not that he hasn’t already, but this time, they’ll be people close to Pri.Chapter FortyADRIAN
Pri and I remain in the bathroom, riding the high of sex, while the reality of choices that might mean life and death won’t let us go. “We’ll figure it out,” I promise.
“I listened to the recording my mother gave me,” she says. “It’s in my purse, wherever it is. I think I dropped it by the bedroom door. It said just what she said. It was a quid pro quo. Get me off the case or else. I’d hoped I’d recognize the voice of the man threatening my father but I didn’t. Maybe you will.” She hops off the counter before I can help her and dashes around me and out of the bathroom. I follow her to find her at the desk, her purse on top as she digs through it.
“Bingo,” she murmurs, holding up the recorder to show me before she sets it on the desk and presses play. I listen to the exchange between her father and this other man. The conversation goes as Pri and her mother led me to believe it would.
Pri watches me, hope in her face that I’ll recognize the voice, I offer a negative shake of my head.
“Damn,” she murmurs. “Damn it.”
I close the space between us and grab the recorder. “Let me take this to Blake. Did you bring home food?”
“Oh yes. The food. I brought us food. I left it in the vehicle. Are you hungry?”
“Starving. I’ll grab the food while I’m upstairs.”
“And wine. There’s wine. I thought we might need it and it’s my favorite, actually. I wanted you to try it.”
Because she is always thinking of me, and the truth is, she’s risking a lot for me. It’s not something I take for granted or take lightly. I stroke a strand of hair behind her ear. “Wine is good,” I say softly, my heart so damn lost to her. She owns me and I don’t even care. “I’ll stop by the downstairs kitchen to heat up the food on my way back here.”
“Sounds good,” she says.
I kiss her forehead—I’m not sure I’ve ever kissed a woman’s forehead, but then nothing is the same with Pri—and then head upstairs. I locate Blake at the kitchen island talking with Mason, who is a tall, muscular dude with lots of tats, dark hair, and a never-shaven jaw. He’s about as new to Walker as I am but we’ve only crossed paths a few times. But I don’t have to ask why he’s here. I can guess. He’s ex-FBI, and out of an East Texas office apparently, which makes him an asset. “Anything?” I ask.
“Nothing yet,” Mason says, pointing at the bag of food and bottle of wine. “Except that, which smells damn good. You better take it and run or I will eat it.”
“I’m still weeding through the security feed,” Blake interjects, glancing up from the feed. “How is Pri?”
“Confused,” I say. “And I don’t really blame her. Right and wrong get real damn confusing right about now.”
He arches a brow. “Are we leaving in the morning?”
“I’m not sure we know yet,” I say. “Anything from the field?”
“Mason followed Pri’s mother home after handing Pri off to Adam. She went straight there, no stops. He’s headed back and we still have a man watching the house. Savage is following Cindy. He has some weird vibe about her.”
“And Lucifer called,” Mason adds, smirking. “Grace asked him to dinner.”
Now my brows dip. “I’m confused. Isn’t she dating Josh?”
“Apparently she needs to confide in Lucifer,” Mason says sarcastically. “Lucifer’s a lady magnet. I wouldn’t count on that amounting to anything.”