by Eva Chase
My pulse was racing. I drew in a slow, shaky breath. This didn’t change anything. I hadn’t revealed anything about where my parents were, or about my brothers. He clearly didn’t know the rest of my siblings existed. All I had to do was get the hell out of here...
“I know one person in particular who’s going to be very interested to meet you,” Malcolm said. He straightened up again and pulled a gun from the pocket of his trench coat. A tranquilizer gun. “You don’t look capable of much of a fight, but I don’t believe in taking chances. Have a nice sleep.”
My body braced against the floor, a wave of adrenalin and energy rushing through me. Malcolm lifted the tranq gun to point it at me—and the guard by Grace lowered his pistol a couple inches. Not much, but just enough to give me the opening I’d needed.
Malcolm pulled the trigger. I shoved off the ground at the same time. With half of my focus, I caught the tranquilizer dart, spun it around, and flung it back at Malcolm. With the other half, I wrenched at Grace’s chair.
The dart jabbed Malcolm right in the base of the throat. His face formed the most incredible expression of shock for just a second before his features went slack. His body crumpled.
Grace and her chair flew across the room toward and around me. I sprang to my feet between her and the rest of our enemies. The guards with the guns were already swinging their weapons toward us. I grasped at the stacked crates with all the mental force I could summon and sent them slamming into the two men.
The guards collapsed, unconscious, amid the wreckage. Malcolm’s associate leapt for the tranq gun he’d dropped. I snatched it up first. She flung herself at me, not quite fast enough.
The gun flew into my hand, my finger already sliding around the trigger. I caught the woman with a dart in the chest. Her eyes rolled up as she fell.
“Jeremy!” Grace gasped out. I swiveled to see another guard charging in from the street. With a sweep of my arm, I whipped another crate straight at his head. It smacked his skull with a crack that made me wince. He toppled, his pistol dropping from his limp hand.
“Is that all of them?” I asked, not daring to take my eyes off the door to look at Grace.
“I think so. I was unconscious when they brought me in, but I haven’t seen anyone else.”
I waited several more seconds, my chest heaving with strained breaths. When no one else appeared, I turned and hurried to her. With a snap, I broke the ties around her wrists and ankles.
Grace threw her arms around me, burying her face against my shoulder. A sob broke from her throat. I held her to me tightly, hugging her back as if I never meant to let her go.
“I’ve got you now,” I said, my own throat choked up. “I’ve got you.”
“I thought you’d broken half the bones in your body,” she muttered. “Don’t you dare scare me like that ever again. Unless you have to in order to save my life. I guess that’s acceptable.”
A chuckle hitched out of me. I pulled back just long enough to cup her face and bring her lips to mine. We kissed, brief and desperate, trying to take everything we could from each other in the little time we had.
Then I made myself let go of her and walk toward the fallen bodies. I had to assume the tranquilizer would keep Malcolm and his associate out for a while, like they’d have wanted to knock me out. They wouldn’t have been taking any chances by preparing a weak drug for me. As for the guards...
The one who’d come in last was slumped with his neck at an unnatural angle. Blood was pooling under his head amid the pieces of the smashed crate. My legs locked as I came up on him, my stomach turning.
He looked dead. I didn’t want to touch him to confirm it.
Grace caught up with me and slipped her hand around my elbow. “He would have shot you,” she said. “Probably me too.”
“I know.” I swallowed hard. “I didn’t want things to go down like this.”
His pistol lay on the floor near my feet. I studied it, the queasiness spreading from my stomach up through my chest.
They’d seen what I could do, how much control I had, how quickly I could move things. We were going to get away, but Malcolm or his colleagues would report everything that had happened here back to their bosses at Alpha Project.
Unless I made sure they couldn’t.
The thought crossed through my head, and every particle in my body balked.
No. I wasn’t a murderer. They might call me one for what I’d done to that one guard, but I knew his death was an accident. If I picked up that gun and pulled the trigger, then I really would be a killer.
Grace’s hand tightened around my arm. Had she sensed my silent debate?
“I never expected you to risk everything for me, you know,” she said. “You could have just left. I wouldn’t have blamed you.”
I looked down at her. Her big brown eyes gazed back up at me, sure and steady. And in that moment, if only for a moment, my heart seemed to crack open with a glow of feeling that washed all the fear and guilt away. I brushed my hand over her cheek.
“No, I couldn’t have,” I said, understanding just how true that was as the words came out of my mouth. “And I don’t regret it, not even slightly.”
She leaned into my touch, her eyes closing. “Good,” she murmured.
As much as I wanted to linger in this moment with her, I knew that wasn’t a good idea. “We have to get going. They might have had reinforcements on the way.”
Grace nodded, and we hurried out of the warehouse together.
24
Grace
Neither of us said anything for the first ten minutes hustling away from the warehouse, but the unspoken truth blared in my head. This city wasn’t safe for Jeremy anymore. There was no way he could stay here. The sooner he left, the better.
The knowledge filled my chest with a gaping ache. Where did that fact leave me?
When Jeremy must have felt we’d gotten enough distance, he tugged me into an alley between two stores. He tossed aside a piece of tarp to uncover his bags. He must have stashed them here before he’d come to rescue me. He looked at them and then at me. His eyes had darkened.
“I think you should go to the police,” he said. “Call them right now, tell them you were kidnapped, have them come to the warehouse. You can make up a story about how someone saw what was going on and broke you out, then took off. Tell the cops you don’t know why you’re being targeted and you’re afraid it’ll happen again. Once they see what went down in that place, they should give you protection. Maybe even move you to a safe house for a while. But eventually you’d be able to go home.”
The ache in my chest dug deeper. “What about you?”
“I’m leaving the country,” he said. “It’s all I can do at this point. So... this has to be good-bye. If the Alpha Project people see any sign that we’re still in contact, it won’t matter what the police do. They’ll wait for their opening and try to use you against me. I can’t let that happen, Grace. I can’t let them hurt you again. I wish it were different.”
The anguish was plain in his voice. Hearing that depth of emotion made my throat close up. He’d sacrificed so much for me already, taken so many risks. I’d thought I had for him too, but in the end, where were we? With him fleeing the country like he’d meant to all along, only in so much more danger than before. And still, all he could think about was doing whatever he could to make sure I kept the life I’d already been living.
I thought of my house, still filled with ruined furniture. My job at the shelter—what really made me happy there other than the animals? I could find work like that anywhere. Was I still holding on to some distant hope that my mother might have a change of heart after all this time and come back to make a real family with me?
No. Not even a little bit.
I’d thought that kind of security was what I wanted—to build a life for myself here, full of people and warmth, to fill the hole that’d been left when Mom and then my grandmother had gone. To create a place that really felt l
ike a home, certain and safe. Everything in its place.
But none of those things seemed to matter very much now that I was faced with the certainty of losing Jeremy too.
I touched his arm. “Jeremy, I get what you’re trying to do for me. Maybe a week ago, that’s what I’d have wanted too. But now... There’s nothing here I want to hold on to as much as I want to hold on to you. I’d rather be scared and on the run with you than making some kind of a normal life here without you. I want to come with you, wherever you’re going... if you want me there. If you don’t think I’ll drag you down.”
The last words fell from my lips with a hitch of my pulse. What if he didn’t want me there? He might very well think I’d slow him down, trip him up, like I had here—and it might be true. No matter how much he liked me, in the end he had to think about himself first—
“Grace.” Jeremy’s voice was so awed it cut through my frantic thoughts. He tipped his face close to mine, our foreheads nearly touching. “Of course I want you with me. I never even thought— Are you sure? I can’t promise you... anything, really. Other than that I’ll be there with you the whole way. We might have to stay on the move for a while. We might never have anything that looks remotely like a normal life.”
I was already beaming. “I don’t care about a normal life. I had one of those already, and you know what? I don’t think I’ve ever felt like I was really living until I met you.”
He laughed hoarsely and pressed a kiss to my lips. I leaned into him, reveling in the tender heat of his mouth, the gentleness and strength combined in his arms around me. He drew back only an inch to say into the space between us, “Me neither, Grace. Me neither.”
I pulled him back to me again. We clung to each other, lost in the slide of our mouths and the heat of our breaths for a full minute or two before common sense kicked in. I stepped back, still grinning. “I guess we should save that for later.”
“That would probably be smart.” Jeremy hefted his bags. “If we’re going, we’d better go now. Do you need anything from your house?”
I shook my head. “No. There’s nothing there that’s really important anymore.”
He grasped my hand, his fingers twining with mine as he smiled back at me. “Then let’s get out of here, sweetheart. There’s a lot more I’ve got to tell you along the way.”
25
Jeremy
Three months later
The waters of the Seine rippled with the summer breeze. Grace lifted her face to the gust of warm air as it teased through the waves of her hair.
“You should get a sunset picture,” she said, pointing to where the sky was turning pink and purple over the spires of Notre Dame. “Or do you have enough of those in your portfolio already?”
I ducked my head to kiss her cheek. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned about stock photo customers, it’s that they can never get enough sunsets. But I’m not working tonight. I’m taking a romantic stroll with the love of my life.”
I was never going to get tired of seeing the way her face lit up at those words. She stopped, turning toward me, her hand rising to my face.
“I love you too,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. We kissed slowly but eagerly, enjoying the moment. Enjoying the thought of where moments like this would lead once we were back in our cramped fifth-story apartment on the other side of the river.
We ambled on toward one of Paris’s huge arched bridges, hand in hand. Grace paused to look at a jewelry vendor’s rack of wares, and her fingers abruptly clenched around mine.
My body tensed. “What?” I said, looking in the same direction she had. And then she didn’t need to answer the question.
A thin man with light, reddish hair had just passed us. He hadn’t given us a second glance as he headed toward one of the cobblestone streets. Because it wasn’t Malcolm, just a guy who looked a little like him at a glance.
“I’m sorry,” Grace muttered. She tugged at my arm for us to keep walking. “Sometimes, especially being here, I almost forget there’s anything to be worried about, and then something that reminds me just sneaks up on me...”
I squeezed her hand in what I hoped was a reassuring way. “It gets easier. Your reflexes will become more honed. But... we might never be able to relax completely.”
“Because the Alpha Project people are never going to stop looking for you. Or the rest of your family.”
“No.” I’d told her about my parents and my brothers after we’d left San Jose. If she was going all-in with me, I couldn’t hold anything back. “But we have all stayed ahead of them for a long time.” I glanced at her. My chest tightened, but I made myself say the next words anyway. “If it ever gets to be too much for you—you know we could find a way to let you set up a new life again, a proper one, without my presence making things—”
“Jeremy,” she said, firmly enough that I shut up. “This is a proper life. And it’s the only one I want. Don’t you ever doubt that.”
She looked so determined and fond at the same time that I had to smile. “All right. I won’t. Promise.”
Grace let go of my hand to sling her arm around my waist. Her hand dipped into my pocket, her smile turning sly. My breath quickened a little at the feel of her fingers tracing over my thigh. Three months of heaven and I still wanted her every second of every day.
Her hand slid lower and stopped. She tugged something out of my pocket. “Why are you carrying this?”
She’d pulled out that piece of car window glass, the shard I’d kept on me for nearly twenty years. I froze up for a second, looking at it. Somehow, despite all the family history I’d shared with her, I’d never mentioned the moment that had defined so much of my life afterward.
“That’s... a long story,” I said.
She raised an eyebrow at me. “I’m pretty sure we have time.”
I stopped and leaned against the railing along the river. When I held out my hand, Grace passed me the shard. I ran my thumb over one of the blunted points.
Was it a long story, really? Maybe it had only seemed like that when I’d poured so much meaning into it. I’d held onto this piece of glass out of habit, but I hadn’t really thought about it in the last three months. Now that I was thinking about it, the whole incident felt way too simple.
“When my abilities were first emerging, when I was a kid, I accidentally broke a car window,” I said, keeping my voice low. Grace propped herself against the railing next to me. “I got angry at my dad and threw something with my mind without really meaning too.”
“Oh no,” Grace murmured.
I nodded. “We’d just arrived in that town, and because I lost control like that, we had to move on again right away—all seven of us. I felt so guilty that I’d let my parents and my brothers down... I grabbed this piece thinking it’d help me remember not to get caught up too much in my own emotions. To always put the family first.”
Grace’s eyes had widened. “So when you stayed behind in San Jose instead of leaving right away—”
“I was breaking a protocol I’d been following for twenty years.” I turned the shard over in my hand. “But I’m glad I did. You’re part of my family now, Grace. It’s hard to even think about who I was before you. I let that one accident pin me down for too long. I don’t need to carry around a piece of garbage to trust myself.”
My fingers closed around the shard. Then, with a leap of my heart, I hurled it down into the river.
It hit with a splash almost too faint to hear. In an instant, it was gone. Just one little chunk of glass, but suddenly I felt ten times lighter.
Grace looped her arm around mine. We stayed joined that way the rest of the walk back to the apartment. After the long hike up the stairs, I sprawled on the narrow sofa. Grace went into our perfectly orderly if tiny kitchen to pour us some wine.
My phone buzzed—not the new one I’d bought for work clients, but the family burner. Grace’s hands twitched, recognizing the sound, the glasses she held clinking against
the counter.
“It’s probably just my parents checking in,” I called over to her as I pulled out the phone. “They’re about due to.”
But it wasn’t Mom and Dad. I read the message and then read it again, my stomach knotting. I was still staring at the phone when Grace poked her head out of the kitchen.
“What is it?” she said.
I closed my eyes and rubbed my hand over my face. “Nothing that affects us. Not yet. But my brother Nick thinks Alpha Project has just shown up in London. And they’re looking for him.”
* * *
Will Jeremy’s brother Nick keep his calm under pressure when he’s faced with an enemy with her own psychic powers—and with a vulnerability that tugs at his heart? Find out in Hidden Hearts, the second book in the Alpha Project Psychic Romance series. Click here to get it now!
Want to discover the history between Alpha Project and Jeremy’s parents? You can grab, Burning Hearts, the Alpha Project Psychic Romances prequel novella FREE here!
Next in the Alpha Project Psychic Romance series
Hidden Hearts (Alpha Project Psychic Romance #2)
A game of psychic cat and mouse. Lose your life or lose your heart?
Nick Keane walks a thin line between protecting his family's secrets and using his power to help people. When he bumps into a pretty young woman poking around his recent haunts, his skill at reading objects tells him she's talented like him—and there to hunt him down. He sets out to learn all he can about his enemies, but keeping her at a distance may be his trickiest balancing act yet.
The idea that someone could use powers like hers to cause death and destruction makes Carina Jones feel sick. She's not backing down from her mission until the Keane family is in custody. And she's definitely not going to get distracted by the swoonworthy hunk who she suspects knows more than he's letting on—even if he's making her question everything she believed about her world.
