isn’t in here with us. ”How did you get your medical file sealed, Blakeley? That wasn’t done cleanly.”
He’s good, I’ll give him that, but I’m watching him too closely to miss the way he stops breathing. “Medical files are confidential—“
I interrupt him, “They are but only a sealed file would be able to withstand the types of searching I’m talking about. It took the Coyote of Mounts Bay himself to find out what I needed to know.”
If I wasn’t already sure the room was clean, I am the moment he recovers enough to answer me. “Whatever that psychotic, rapist fuck Graves wants, I’ll never give to him. I’ll burn his business to the ground before I fall into line behind that man so you can leave, Miss Beaumont. Leave and tell him that.”
Huh.
I wasn’t expecting him to know much about his father. “Is that why he’s sending men to have you killed? It was a close call; you’re lucky I had eyes on you and got you out of there.”
His mouth turns down at the corners, as close to a sneer as I’ve seen on him so far. “I’ll admit my security obviously failed. It won’t next time. Please see yourself out, Miss Beaumont, I have no intention of ever selling my soul and certainly not to someone like you.”
Again, ouch. He’s really trying his hardest to get me to hate him, but I’m in this for the long game. I’m in this for Lips and for those little children out there who have a good father and need him to stay alive. “You have other siblings.”
Blakely shrugs. “I don’t care about biker brats, I just want to be left alone.”
It’s a gamble but one that I’d warned Lips I might have to take. “And the others? Do you care about the bastard children Grimm spawned all over the country? At what point would you be tempted into joining the family?”
His lip curls. “I have a family. I have parents, I have a wife, I have children—I don’t need little lost siblings who have their hands out for money.”
Right.
Clearly this relationship building exercise is going to take action not words. That’s perfectly fine, I have enough eyes on Blakeley now that we can just swoop in to save him again and again until he falls into line.
I really don’t want to own him.
I just want him breathing.
I stand up, taking a card out of my pocket and sliding it across the table. “That’s my contact number. I don’t want you in my pocket, Senator Blakeley, I want to keep you out of anyone else’s. You might not care about your lost siblings, but I do, and I’ll do anything to keep them safe. Keeping you out of danger means you can’t be held over anyone else’s head and that’s all I’m trying to do here.”
Blakeley’s hands tighten into fists, his lip curling, and finally he looks a little bit more like a Graves. Not a lot, but there’s that fire to him that I’m so used to seeing in Lips and Nate.
Colt has it too.
He leans back in his chair and slowly the fire slips away until he looks more like the senator he’s supposed to be in this room. I’m expecting a brush off dismissal but his words surprise me. “I will destroy that man and everything he’s built. If you get in my way then I’ll destroy you too. You’re everything that’s wrong with this country, Miss Beaumont, and I won’t stop until you and all of the other degenerate vultures peddling drugs, guns, and women are locked up on death row where you belong.”
Right.
I don’t like being threatened at the best of times, but the air of superiority is just a little too much for me today. Especially since I just saved his ass at Oakridge.
Time to leave before I have to explain to Lips that I murdered her brother but he totally deserved it.
I stand and walk to the door, opening it before pausing again. I can’t leave without knocking him down, just a little.
“You were very lucky, you know. Whatever sad little story you tell yourself about your start in life… you were the luckiest of the bunch. Two loving parents at home? I’m guessing they fed you, put a roof over your head, kissed your booboos, and told you how special you were? Sounds lovely. No one else got that. Not a single one of your siblings, and the things your sisters have survived?