Page 59 of Guarding Grace

Then Zane looked around. He focused on Peyton’s empty desk.

I waited patiently for Grace to finish with her customers before I approached her. “I’m back.”

“I see that.” She nodded.

“Zane, the boss wants you back at home base to interrogate our guests.”

“Copy that.” After another glance toward Peyton’s desk, he turned.

Marci watched him leave.

“How did it go?” I asked Grace. “Your customer meeting?”

“Rambo here wanted to barge in, but I tackled him,” Marci interjected.

“Thank you.” Grace wheeled on me. “I get that you want to build a wall around me, but we agreed I get to run my business. An interruption would have been terrible.” She breathed in deeply. “I appreciate that you didn’t barge in.”

I raised a hand to my ear. “Is that a thank you I hear?”

Marci smirked.

“Don’t let it go to your head.” She marched off.

I followed her through the cubicles.

She spent a few minutes with each of her employees, asking about their progress on this or that. Based on her questions, she clearly had an excellent memory and grasp of everybody’s work. Several times, she was asked about the disturbance and why we didn’t want to call the police.

I followed the training-exercise script we’d prepared for this kind of problem. “It was a training exercise, run by an outfit that rates the preparedness of security firms like ours,” I explained. “The police don’t generally approve of how realistic we are. Actually, they always tell us to do it in another city.”

I went on to say that the scenario had to look and feel realistic to be valuable. No blood was spilled, and beyond what they’d witnessed, the fake assailants would also try to escape on their ride to our facilities.

That almost worked, until a fellow named Paul noted that Grace’s bruises looked real.

“They are,” she had to admit. “I was mugged last night. Terry and his company are looking after me until we catch the muggers.”

After Paul, we had the explanation down pat, and each employee seemed genuinely relieved when Grace assured them that her issue would be resolved soon.

I hoped that was true.

As we continued through cubicle after cubicle, I liked that it seemed Grace had put our previous argument behind us. This was a chance for a fresh start.

Clearly, her employees loved her and the projects they were working on. She’d built a good work environment.

When she finished her rounds with the employees, I followed her back to her office.

“Do you have to hover all the time?” she asked. “Can’t you maybe clear the space—isn’t that the lingo?—and then guard the door?”

“Does the Secret Service operate that way, or do they go where the president goes?” I sat down in her office.

Two hours later,Zane returned and took me aside. “We’re fucked. We’ve confirmed that the woman is Maria Torelli, and she is Tony Russo’s niece.”

“And we’re still holding her, right?”

“Lucas says she’s the leverage to get a meeting with Tony himself. High risk, if you ask me.”

“Nobody asked you,” I bit out. He was right about the risk. Holding the niece of a mafia don was a ballsy play, but that was Lucas’s call to make.

Zane had been a SEAL and a tier-one operator, among the best of the best, and Duke had vouched for him. But on our team he was still the newguy, and it wasn’t his place to be second-guessing Lucas on command decisions.