Page 8 of The Tower (Billionaire Brothers Grimm #1)

Six

Devil’s Bargain

A s Grimm expertly maneuvers through the dense Manhattan traffic, I sit rigidly in the passenger seat, trying to ignore the way the oncoming headlights sting my eyes.

I look down, keeping the layers of my dress wrapped around me like a security blanket as I try not to think about the enormity of what I’ve done.

What Father will do if he finds me. When he finds me.

He’ll kill me.

Except he won’t. I’ll be punished, yes. Locked up. My privileges ripped away. No more painting or sketching. No more time on a computer.

No more Elysium.

Death would be more kind.

Oh, god, what have I done?

“You’re very quiet,” Grimm says, interrupting my mental spin-out. “Having regrets or basking in your victory?”

“No regrets,” I say, the words true despite my fears. “But no victory, either.”

“No?” He turns and rakes his eyes over me, the slow, heated gaze leaving me more than a little unsettled. Like my father, Liam Grimm radiates power and control. But where my father’s control feels suffocating, Grimm’s feels … magnetic.

And that’s what makes him dangerous.

I lift my chin. “I’ll claim victory when I’m free. But I’m not, am I?”

“No. You’re not.”

Everything.

A shiver runs up my spine, but I’m not cold. On the contrary, I feel an unwelcome heat spreading through me as I think about that one and only condition for his help. A condition that teases uncomfortably close to fantasies I don’t want to admit.

Unsettled, I turn toward the side window, as if another view might somehow increase the distance between us.

“Where are we going?” I ask again, but I get only silence in response.

I want to shout the question, but why waste my breath?

When I fled with no plan and no resources, I’d placed myself at the mercy of the devil himself.

My hands shake with what can only be nerves. All things considered, it’s possible I was too hasty.

Then again, between the devil and Desmond Bane, I’ll take the devil. Especially if he can protect me from my father.

I close my eyes, letting myself drift as the events of this very crazy day settle in my mind.

I’d assumed he would take me to Grimm Tower, but we’ve been driving in the wrong direction for at least half an hour.

I’m sure he expects me to beg him to tell me where we’re going—and I do desperately want to know.

Just not enough to give him the satisfaction of asking.

Then again, as far as tonight’s events are concerned, I think Grimm wins any competition that might exist between us.

But I don’t care. All I care about is that he’s taking me away from my father and Desmond.

And despite my doubts and fears, I’m more than happy to simply sit here and bask in that lovely new reality.

I only realize I must have dozed off when he brakes hard, and my eyes fly open, my heart pounding. I see a dog racing off into the dark and Grimm gripping the steering wheel like a vise. “Sorry. It bolted right out in front of me.”

“Nothing to apologize for,” I say, oddly reassured that he didn’t hit the dog. Considering what I know of his family, I wouldn’t expect any of that clan to go out of their way to avoid a toddler, much less an animal.

I shift to look in the direction the dog bolted and find myself staring at Grimm Tower, its dark presence both threatening and compelling.

Whereas Reed Tower has an Art Deco vibe—sleek lines, geometric patterns, and gleaming metal—Grimm Tower is Gothic, with towering spires, shadowed archways, and carved stone gargoyles.

Both sit on the Central Park perimeter, with my father’s lair dominating the east and Grimm Tower looming over the west side near Columbus Circle.

“One of the first skyscrapers in Manhattan,” Liam says, and I recall that Grimm Tower was built about a decade before my family’s home. “My great-grandfather commissioned it when the family publishing business expanded.”

“It’s beautiful.” I don’t begrudge the Grimm family the admission.

There’s an elegance to Grimm Tower that has always drawn me in.

I’ve even battled my own fears and curled up in the window seat on the west side of my suite for the pleasure of admiring the way the sun gleams off the copper-green of the spires.

I shift to look at Grimm more directly. “We could have walked here from The Pershing in less than twenty minutes. Why on earth have we been driving around for an hour just to end up— oh .” It’s like a cartoon lightbulb brightens above my head. “If they were following, you wanted to lose them.”

“And I wanted them to see me heading out of the city. I have property in Connecticut. Let them try and get past that security.”

He looks so amused by the idea that I almost laugh, my humor bolstered by another cartoon image. This one of my father electrified on a protective fence like some vile version of Wile E. Coyote.

“Something funny?” he asks, but I just shake my head and bite back a tiny smile, feeling more relaxed than I have all evening.

That feeling of comfort lingers only for a few more minutes.

That’s when Grimm turns off the road and navigates the car into the Tower’s underground garage.

He doesn’t slow as he expertly steers the Aston Martin down the winding driveway to the lowest level—one with a second gate, more cameras, and who knows what other security measures.

Clearly, this is the area where the family parks.

“Do you live here?” I ask as we head for the elevator.

“When it suits me,” he says, in a tone that makes clear I won’t be getting more specifics.

Like the penthouse level at home, this elevator requires both a key card and a fingerprint scan. Unlike Reed Tower, it also requires an optical scan. The technology is sleek, expensive, and speaks of serious security concerns.

I don’t know why I’m surprised. I’ve known for years that many of the Grimm family ventures aren’t exactly squeaky clean. Seeing this level of security, I’m thinking those mysterious ventures are positively caked in mud.

I don’t look at Grimm as the elevator sweeps us up into the sky. He’s my savior, yes. But I’m savvy enough to understand that he’s my captor, too. For all intents and purposes, he now owns me.

Everything.

The word echoes in my mind, both ominous and enticing in a way I don’t want to think about. But I still don’t know what he means by that. Does he want sex? Information? Or does he have some darker plan to hurt my father, and I’m nothing more than a pawn he’s willing to destroy?

I shudder, my hands shaking. What the hell have I done?

When the doors slide open onto the fifty-seventh-floor apartment’s opulent entryway, I can’t seem to move. He’s been standing behind me, but now steps around and faces me. He extends a hand.

I don’t take it.

“It’s okay, Sasha,” he says in a voice designed to coax a kitten. “I won’t let him hurt you.”

I believe him. I do. And yet …

“Will you?”

His eyes lock on mine, and I see a glimmer of something dangerous. “Perhaps.”

My body goes strangely warm as he takes one long step toward me so that he’s standing right in front of me. He slides one hand against my waist as he moves in even closer. “If I do,” he murmurs, his breath hot on my ear, “I have a feeling that you’ll like it.”

Then he turns his back to me and continues across the entry toward the living area, where floor-to-ceiling windows showcase Manhattan spread out below, the city lights glittering like stars beckoning me to come fall with them.

I tense as that familiar tightness presses against my neck, like an invisible hand threatening to cut off my air.

The doors begin to close, and I reach over, jabbing the button to open them again.

Then I close my eyes and step into the entryway, my heart pounding against my ribs as I trade the captivity of one tower for the possibilities of another.

I miss the safe, close walls of the elevator, but I couldn’t let it descend, taking me alone into the world of Elias Grimm and the family that has been my lifelong enemy.

And even if I reached the lobby safely—even if I bolted out into the night—what good would that do? I’d be alone with my father’s men hunting me, ready to trap me and toss me into that horrible maw that is Desmond.

Everything.

The word whispers through me, and once again, I feel that shiver up my spine. That’s what awaits me if I catch up with Grimm. Everything.

I tell myself that while the thought of Liam Grimm touching me is vile, it’s less vile than the thought of Desmond’s hands on me.

And that’s true. So very, very true.

But it’s also a lie.

Because even though it terrifies me—even though I would shout from the rooftops that Liam Grimm is horrible—my dark, terrible secret is that despite the odious things he said to me at that charity gala three years ago, when I slid my hand between my legs that night, it was his fingers I imagined stroking me. His lips breathing life into mine.

And the thing that I most hate about him now?

That despite his cruel taunts and insults, he still has a starring role in my dreams.

“Would you like me to block the windows?”

I’ve taken one step out of the elevator and am looking at the floor when his voice washes over me, so low and gentle that I almost wonder if the speaker is someone other than Grimm.

I know better, of course, and yet that tiny show of compassion settles inside me, warm and comforting. I hold onto it as I look up, then focus on his face and not the floor-to-ceiling windows beyond.

“I—” I press my lips together, uncertain what I’d intended to say. Part of me wants to lift my chin and tell him that I’m not nearly as weak as he thinks I am. The other part wants to crawl back into the elevator and hide in the corner. Because yes, I truly am that weak.

He studies me with those eyes that somehow see all my secrets. Then he lifts his arm, taps something on his smartwatch, and the windows instantly turn opaque.

“Oh,” I say, the word hanging foolishly in the air. “Thank you.”