Chapter 7 : Watching
Jessica
Mara was at her door early the next morning, her expression indifferent as she informed her that Mr. Greystone wanted her downstairs, and Jessica followed her out still groggy from a night that had given her very little rest, the nightmares having pulled her under twice and the second time she woke up she noticed the red lights blinking on the wall panel near the door and recognized them immediately, having seen enough of them in enough rooms over the years to know exactly what they were.
Mara took her to a room that looked like an office space and Michael was on a call when she walked in, standing by the window with his phone to his ear, already dressed like he had been up for hours. He gestured toward the chair across from his desk without breaking his conversation so she sat down and waited, her arms crossed over her chest, watching him and wondering what kind of man woke up this early and still looked like he owned everything in his line of sight.
When he finally ended the call he walked to his desk and turned the laptop around to face her without any greeting. She leaned forward to see a live feed of the street below the building where three men were positioned at different points along the block.
She gasped, her eyes widening at the sight of it. She had spent years learning to recognise them anywhere. It didn’t matter what they wore or how casually they stood, she had spent too many years around them to be fooled.
“They have been there since yesterday morning,” Michael said, watching her face as she stared at the screen, “rotating shifts, and they are not watching the building.” He paused. “They are watching for you.”
She sat back in the chair and said nothing, because what was there to say. Rivera knew she was alive and he knew where she was, and three of his men were on that street below prepared to wait for however long it took, which meant every exit she had been quietly mapping in her head since she woke up this morning had just become significantly more complicated.
Michael closed the laptop and leaned back in his chair, his eyes on her, saying nothing for a moment. “So what now,” she said, and it came out flatter than she intended.
“You stay here until it’s safe,” he replied.
She laughed, and even she was surprised by how little humour was in it. “And when exactly does it become safe, because from where I’m sitting that could be never and I have no intention of spending the rest of my life in your house, Mr. Greystone.”
“You’d rather take your chances out there with Rivera’s men waiting for you?” He grinned.
“Between you and them I do not yet know who’s the lesser evil,” she said.
“Don’t they say — the devil you know is better than the angel you do not know?”
His eyes didn’t leave her face and one corner of his mouth lifted slightly.
“I’ve been called many things,” he said, straightening up from his chair and buttoning his jacket, “but never an angel.”
“I wasn’t calling you one,” she replied, holding his gaze because she refused to be the first to look away.
He picked up his phone from the desk and walked toward the door, and she got the distinct impression that as far as he was concerned the conversation was over, which made something rise in her chest because she was not finished.
“I’m not staying here,” she said.
He stopped at the door without turning around. “Mara will bring your breakfast,” he said, and walked out.
She sat there staring at the empty doorway for a moment before getting up and going back to her room, turning everything over in her head as she walked because something about Michael Greystone had been bothering her since she woke up in his house and she couldn’t shake it no matter how hard she tried.
Men like him didn’t save women like her out of the goodness of their hearts. That was not how the world she came from worked and she doubted very much that his world was any different. He had pulled her out of that warehouse and brought her into his home and locked the door and called it protection, but protection always came with a price and she had learned that lesson too many times and too painfully to forget it now just because he had kind hands and an expensive house.
Rivera wanted her. That much was clear from the men standing outside. But what did Michael Greystone want, because a man did not go to these lengths for a stranger without wanting something in return, and whatever that something was she was not willing to find out.
She went to the balcony and opened the door and stepped out, gripping the railing as she looked down at the drop below her, and her breath caught a little because it was further than it had looked from inside. But when she scanned the side of the building there were no guards, just the ledge running along the floor below hers, narrow but solid enough to hold her weight if she was careful enough.
She stood there for a moment, her hands tight on the railing, thinking about Michael Greystone and his expensive house and his locked doors and his breakfast that Mara would bring, thinking about the way he had looked at her like she was a problem he had already solved, and then she thought about Rivera’s men on the street below and she realized that she was not willing to find out what either of them actually wanted from her.
She climbed over the railing slowly, wincing as her ribs protested, and gripped the bars behind her with both hands while her feet searched for the ledge below, and when she finally felt it solid beneath her right foot she exhaled and shifted her weight onto it carefully, her fingers wrapped around the railing above her so tightly she could feel her pulse in them.
“This is a bad idea,” she murmured.
