Page 11 of The Warlord

“Okay,” she whispered. “Love you, Gray.”

“Love you, Fallon,” I replied gruffly. I hung up, then glanced up to see Sloane staring at me.

FOUR

SLOANE

“Was that your girlfriend?”I asked stiffly, smoothing the t-shirt over my legs.

Grayson didn’t answer me.

Instead, he sat forward in his chair and spoke to Torin in a language I didn’t understand.

“What did you say to him?” I demanded when he sat back.

A smug smile flexed into existence on his face, and my ovaries started to applaud. “Nothing that concerns you, lass.”

“What language were you speaking to one another?”

“Gaelic.”

“You know it’s rude to speak another language in front of a person who doesn’t understand it.”

His smile brightened. “I guess you’ll have to rectify that then.”

Glowering at him, I let that comment go and stared back out the window. It wasn’t just a sea of endless black now. There were more lights flickering into existence, but they were still far away. It wasn’t long before houses appeared sporadically then as we got closer to Galway, more industrial buildings appeared.

The rain had yet to stop, leaving the road and building roofs slick. Eventually, Torin drove into what I assumed was the center of the city. The buildings here looked commercial, with a few stores and restaurants dotted throughout. He turned onto a street where buildings hugged one side, and a flood-lit harbor took up residence on the other.

Concrete bollards joined together with chunky, heavy, weather-worn chains kept the pedestrians walking along the harbor-side of the street from stepping out on the road. I wondered whether the air would smell of salt or whether the pervasive scent of fish had taken over.

As if reading my mind, Grayson wound down his window. Salt spray with an undertone of fishiness hit me in the face, but I breathed deep. I felt like I hadn’t had fresh air in an age.

“You like the water?” Grayson asked, his rasping voice like some sort of audible caress in the darkness of the car.

I nodded. “My father has a house on Macatawa Bay back home.”

“It’s just your father’s house? Not yours?”

“I never thought of it as mine. It’s just a house. Never a home for me.”

He gestured to what I assumed was Galway’s harbor and asked, “It’s like this?”

“No, but the smell is the same. Ever notice that?”

Grayson grunted and wound the window back up again.

I cocked an eyebrow at him.

“Bulletproof glass isn’t bulletproof if the window is open,” he said by way of explanation.

Torin slowed the car, pulling into an underground parking lot. Concrete soared on all sides of the car as we descended the ramps until we finally pulled to a stop. Peering out the windshield, I saw we’d come to a security gate with thick vertical bars. Torin pulled down the driver’s side visor and hit a button on a remote, and the door trundled open.

As we eased through the gate, I saw there were enough parking spaces for another ten cars. Torin pulled into the one closest to the elevator and shut off the engine.

I reached for the door latch but stopped when Grayson said, “Don’t get out until Torin is outside your door.”

“Why not?”

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