Page 73 of Saving Grace

I was rutting like an animal, each grunt deeper than the last. I heard Grace begging me to stop. That it hurt too much. Bitch! She wouldn’t feel pain until I cut her child from her womb.

I roared as my climax hit me. My hands tightened on the limbs I was gripping as I emptied my frustration into the vessel that was supposed to be Grace.

Kyra.

“You yelled her name, you bastard,” she bucked her hips. “Get off me! Oh, God, get off me.”

“You wanted me to be Matt and Matt only wants Grace. Get that through your head,” I sneered, too angry to continue playing these mind games. Maybe I wasn’t better than Foster and was as obsessed with Grace Levinson as he was.

“Get out! Get out!”

I got off the bed, leaving my pants hanging and my cock still sheathed in the condom. I’d have to be careful not to leave any DNA. I’d have to wash Kyra later, but right now I couldn’t bear to be near her.

She was a reminder that I didn’t have Grace yet.

But soon. I’d have her soon.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Grace

“She needs help, Millie.”

I told the diner owner what I suspected was going on with Kyra. She listened intently to my version of events. To others, Kyra might have appeared just like a drunken woman scorned, but to me, who had seen how drugs could change people, I saw a woman who was crying for help. I couldn’t get Matt to see this. After he figuratively locked me in the loft, he stormed off in search of Kyra. I had begged him to calm down first but to no avail.

Roger shook his head when he saw me come down the stairs from the apartment. Matt had chewed him out for no apparent reason. It wasn’t his friend’s fault. I was getting more and more pissed off at Matt by the second.

“I wouldn’t leave the garage until the boss returns,” Axe said, clearly indicating he’d been tasked with looking after me.

“Am I a prisoner here?”

“No, but I’d think you’d have more self-preservation after having had a gun pulled on you,” Axe replied.

“I am walking no more than twenty paces across the street to see Millie,” I said. “Something is not right with Kyra.” I turned to the other mechanic. “Tell him, Roger.”

“I’d hate to agree about letting her out of the garage, but she’s right,” Roger concurred. “You should have seen her, man. The woman who pointed a gun at Grace was not Kyra.”

“Shit. Okay,” Axe grumbled, relenting. “But I’m going to stick to you like white on rice. Everything you say to Millie, I’m gonna hear, okay?”

So there I was talking to a concerned Millie. She tried calling Kyra. “You said Matt went to see her?”

“That’s what I was led to believe.”

“She’s not answering,” Millie said, swiping the end-call and laying her phone on the counter.“I keep getting her voicemail.”

“When was the last time you spoke to her?”

“Last Saturday, when I told her to take some time off. I gave her some money to offset any income she may have lost, although you know that’s not necessary.”

I knew that. Matt had explained to me that the ex-agency assets who’d been victims of a corrupt CIA official were receiving a stipend from a fund set aside by Admiral Porter. The money had come from the rigged sale of weaponized plutonium. The plutonium never left the agency hands, but they were able to apprehend agents from rogue nations who’d paid for them. A portion of the money was set aside to take care of CIA veterans who’d been disavowed unfairly so as to prevent blowback to the U.S. government. Thank God for people like the admiral who made sure no one under his watch was abandoned—from agents to analysts to informants like Kyra.

There was some disturbance at the front of the diner and then the door flew open with Matt charging through. Rage darkened his eyes into an inky blue. Apparently, he hadn’t calmed down yet.

Thankfully, it was past dinner time and the few patrons left in the diner were folks who work at the general store, the garage, and the salon a few blocks over.

Matt cupped my elbow and steered me to him. His other hand closed over my nape, with his thumb forcing me to look at him.

“I told you not to leave the goddamned loft!” he barked. “That was one simple request, Grace.”

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