Page 103 of Paths
“You stay right there, baby,” Grady says to me without taking his eyes off Weston. When he starts to move efficiently, stepping sideways toward the middle of the room, he keeps talking. “I just got an interesting call, Wes. Your dad and most of your cronies were taken down this morning. They’re being interrogated as we speak.”
Weston processes that bit of information for two beats before he looks back to me. “You’re coming with me!”
Miss Lillian Rose screams, “You let Foxy go!”
I move quickly and wrap my arm around her. Her old hand grasps mine as tight as she can, and I feel her body shake with fear.
Grady holds steady and speaks without hesitation. “Guess what else? I hear they have an eye witness as to who killed your buddy, Murray.” Grady moves two more steps, but I can still see Weston, and his face falls just a touch, but I caught it. Grady keeps talking. “That’s right. It’s over, Wes. Let the man go.”
“No,” Weston breathes and his hold on Foxy tightens.
“Yes,” Grady confirms. I have no idea what they’re talking about.
“Let me go, you damn little bugger.” Foxy tries with all his might to get away, but it doesn’t help.
“Please, Weston,” I cry. “You’re going to hurt him. Let him go.”
He doesn’t let Foxy go, but he shakes his head and looks straight into my eyes. “I can’t lose you.”
“Weston.” I lower my voice. “You haven’t had me for a long time. I’ll never come back to you. Now please,” I feel my voice crack with emotion and tears fill my eyes, “you’re going to hurt him. He’s done nothing to you, let him go.”
“Don’t make me kill you,” Grady says, his voice low. “I can, I will, and I’ll do it gladly.”
“Maya,” Weston calls for me one more time, but before he has the chance to say anything else, I see movement in front of me.
Betty is sitting next to where Weston is standing with Foxy, and by the look on her face, she’s determined. She doesn’t take her eye off Weston as she slowly brings her cane up, then all of a sudden, stabs him right in the crotch.
I have to hand it to her, she got him pretty hard for as frail as she is.
Weston buckles at the waist from the jab, loosening his hold just enough for Foxy to twist away. Weston tries to reach for him, but Foxy moves fast enough to escape his grasp. That’s when we hear scurrying in the hall.
But Weston, even keeling over in pain, lifts his arm enough to point his gun right at Grady. “She’s not yours!”
“Grady!” I scream.
Grady’s prepared, but his whole-body tenses right when someone from behind Weston clocks him on the side of his head. Weston’s wrist is lifted, his gun pointed to the ceiling before being twisted out of his hand. Weston instantly collapses to the ground on his hands and knees.
More men come rushing in, and I scream, “Grady, it’s him!”
It’s the man who grabbed me at the Buffalo airport, the man with Byron Murray who attacked us. This is the same man who just basically knocked Weston out and disarmed him.
“FBI, get your hands up!”
FBI?
A team of men file into the room, but I can’t take my eyes off the one who had me on the tarmac in Buffalo. Trevor, I think? He looks the same, yet still, very different.
He’s tall with thick, dark hair and a trim body with a muscular frame. He’s bulky, wearing a bulletproof vest with FBI printed across the front and black utility cargos. If the bulletproof vest wasn’t enough to give it away, the badge clipped onto his belt loop is.
Trevor, the guy who tried to kidnap me, isn’t a bad guy?
He’s an FBI agent?
Miss Lillian Rose exclaims, “It’s the FBI! My stars, it’s just like my evening shows.”
Grady, who’s between the action and me, quickly pulls his hands back, pointing his gun toward the ceiling. “I’ve got a C and C.”
“Cain,” Trevor calls to Grady. “We know who you are and were expecting you to be close. You can holster your weapon—we’ve got it from here.”
