Page 37

Outside my window, skyscrapers and chrome buildings get further and further apart. When I hit the suburbs, I take a sharp right to the gated community where Anya’s parents reside.
The gate operator stops me. “Sorry, Mr. Bolton. I can’t let you in.”
“What?” I scowl. “Antonio, I’ve been driving through this gate for years.” When he still looks unmoved, I rummage through my dash until I find a permit. “I have a twenty-four hour pass.”
“I’m aware.” His cheeks redden. “I’ll have to get the resident’s permission first.”
My temperature climbs while I watch him make the call.
Putting up this much of a fuss is unnecessary, but I’m not surprised Genevieve gave the order. She’s a pro at mind games. Probably spent days thinking of ways to knock me down a peg.
“Okay, you can go in now.” Antonio lifts the barricade.
My fingers tighten over the steering wheel. As I draw near to Genevieve’s house, a mixture of frustration and helplessness twines inside me.
I’m a soldier.
Slap a gun in my hands, point me in a direction and I’ll shoot.
Stick me in a ring, point out my opponent and I’ll punch.
Saddle me with a mission and point out the target, I’ll strategize, tiptoe past enemy lines and complete the task without raising so much as a hiccup of alarm.
But throw me in a room with my late wife’s mother, her feral cat, and the dying man she married to acquire her fortune and I’m more pathetic than a new recruit on his first drill.
How do I fight a war where the battlefield is inside the head?
“Clay!” Genevieve springs down her lavish staircase with hands outstretched. Her hair is perfectly coiffed and pearls glimmer in her ears. “What a lovely surprise. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“You can’t be that surprised, Miss Gen, since you had a heads-up at the gate.” My tone is wry. My eyes flat.
She twitters innocently. “Oh that? Policies have changed, dear. It wasn’t my idea. I hope you’re not offended.”
She whirls around in a spray of expensive perfume and tucks herself into a chair. Her hairless cat, a hideous thing with more gold chains around his neck than a modern rapper, hops into the sofa next to her.
I ignore the evil eyes the cat is sending me and keep a stern face. “I heard you paid Abe a visit yesterday.”
“Yes, I did.” She blinks brazenly. “What about it?”
“My son doesn’t have permission to leave the school compound with just anyone.”
“He wasn’t with ‘just anyone’. He was with his nan.”
“It doesn’t matter. You should have let me know that you were taking my son off campus.”
“It’s really not a big deal.” As she’s speaking, a housekeeper waddles into the room with a tea tray and sets it before Genevieve. She reaches out, snags one of the cubed sandwiches and pops it into her mouth. “Besides, Abraham called me, so excited about scoring a role in the play. Ihadto whisk him away for a quick celebration.”
My throat closes up and it feels like a bullet just tore through my lungs.
Did Abe call his gran with the news rather than me? If Regan didn’t spill the beans, when would he have mentioned it? Was he planning to inform me at all?
I control my emotions and keep my expression blank. “In the future, I’d appreciate if you didn’t take my son anywhere without telling me.”
“Speaking of the future,” she folds one leg over the other, “I see you still haven’t signed the papers.”
My nostrils flare. “You’re not taking my kids.”
She lifts a hand. “Relax, Clay. I don’t want to take them. I want you to give them to me.”