“That’s because she doesn’t keep the money. Or doesn’t keep most of it. She has another account with a few million in it that she appears to use when she needs to disappear again.”
“So what’s she doing with the rest of the money?”
“Giving it to various charitable organizations.”
“Say that again.”
“You heard me.”
“She’s stolen a billion dollars to give it all away?” Finn’s incredulity wasn’t surprising. The only thing keeping him on the straight and narrow was Genevieve. Without her, Gray’s friend would be just as crooked as his sister might be.
“Not only that, but she’s managed to keep the thefts out of the media because she’s targeted people who can’t afford to report the crimes.”
“Because the money is dirty.”
“Exactly. She’s targeted some of the biggest crime syndicates in the world—Russian, Chinese, American, Central and South American. If the money came from human trafficking, selling drugs or trading in weapons, she’s taken it.”
No wonder Joker was verging on idolizing his sister.
“Let me see if I’m getting this right. My sister, a genius hacker, disappeared eight years ago after framing me for embezzling money from my family’s company. She took that money, placed it in an account and hasn’t touched it the entire time.”
“No, she’s touched it, but she treats it like a loan and always pays it back. With interest.”
Right, because most criminals worried about interest when they committed a crime like stealing.
“She’s spent those eight years targeting and stealing money from criminals around the world and donating the proceeds to charities.”
“Most of it. She keeps some money, but not a lot. Not nearly as much as she could. And almost in every instance, the money she does keep funds the next target.”
Gray stared at Joker, not really seeing him. Part of him had expected this endeavor would uncover things he might not want to know. Being targeted as a patsy for embezzlement didn’t normally happen to people with squeaky clean lives. And he’d hardly been a saint.
But never in a million years had he expected to discover he’d been living a lie and his mother wasn’t really his. Or that he had a sister. Who’d framed him, but now operated as the Robin Hood of hackers.
Honestly, he had no idea what to do with this information or how to feel about it all. The hits just kept coming. Like he’d been in the worst fight of his life and was losing, something he wasn’t used to and didn’t particularly like.
“Where is she now?” Blakely’s soft voice filled the silence at the table, asking the question he was too numb to ask.
“Bali. She’s been there ever since you were released. It’s the longest she’s stayed in one place since Vegas.”
Gray was too stunned to wonder what that was supposed to mean.
“But there’s more.”
He wasn’t certain he could handle more right now.
“She’s been watching you.”
That got Stone’s attention. Before Gray could even react, his friend’s elbows were on the table and he was leaning hard toward Joker. “What do you mean she’s been watching him?”
“She has a back door into all of his electronics. She’s been monitoring his email and internet traffic. My guess is she’s also been listening in and watching through those same devices.”
Which explained why Joker had told them to leave their cell phones and electronic devices outside before coming into the conference room. Gray had initially chalked it up to his friend’s paranoia.
“You could have told us.”
“I wanted to explain before you jumped to conclusions.”
“What conclusions would those be? That my sister has been tracking my every movement since I got out of prison? For what purpose? To frame me again? Steal from me again?”
Blakely’s hand moved to his arm, tugging. He hadn’t realized he’d stood up until he looked down and discovered she was looking up. Slowly, Gray let his legs fold beneath him and he sat back down into his chair.
“I really don’t think that’s it, man. I think she’s been saving the money and is trying to figure out how to give it back to you.”
Wonderful. His sister had grown a conscience and was spying on him so she could make amends.
“Why didn’t she just send a certified check?” Gray could hear the petty sarcasm in his voice, but couldn’t stop it. He was pissed and she was the easiest target right now. Even if his brain told him she might not deserve it.
“Gray,” Blakely said, her voice calm and soothing. “That’s not going to accomplish anything.”
Of course it wouldn’t, but it had felt good. At least for a second.
But that feeling was fleeting. Logic, that’s what he needed right now. And he knew just who would give it to him.
Turning, he focused squarely on Blakely. “What now?”
Her lips turned up at the corners into a sad, understanding smile that somehow managed to start unknotting the ropes in his belly.
“We go find her. I have a feeling she’s waiting for you.”
Was she? Gray wasn’t sure he was ready for that encounter. But Blakely was right. It’s what he needed to do.
* * *
This plane ride was much different from the last one. The flight was longer, but it hadn’t felt that way.
The moment they soared into the air, Gray unbuckled his seat belt. Reaching across her, he did the same for hers. The metal edges clanged loudly against the seat as they dropped open.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking advantage of the time we have.”
Grasping her hands, Gray urged her out of her seat and into the narrow aisle. He led them toward the back of the plane, past a small galley and through a doorway that she’d missed the first time they were on board.
Stepping into the room tucked away, Blakely thought, Of course it has a full bedroom.
Gray tugged her inside. And immediately found her mouth with his. The kiss was explosive, going from nothing to red-hot in mere seconds. It was easy to let herself sink into the craving that was always present when he touched her. But tonight, Gray seemed to need more.
Pulling back, he looked down at her, his evergreen eyes filled with passion, but something stronger. Something softer and more enduring.
Something that had hope and uneasiness twisting in her gut.
Slowly, he led her over to the bed. Without saying a word, Gray reached for the hem of her shirt and pulled it up and over. The rest of her clothes quickly followed until she was standing before him entirely naked.
Any other time, she would have felt vulnerable, but not now. Not with a look of such awe and need stamped across his face.
She needed to touch him. To feel him. Now.
Blakely quickly added his clothes to the pile at their feet. An arm wrapped around her back, and Gray urged her to the bed. The coverlet beneath her skin was soft and cool, inviting. But that thought lasted a nanosecond before the blazing heat of his body joined hers.
The drag and pull of his skin against hers made Blakely arch up, searching for more. Always more with him. She could never get enough.
His mouth found her, raining kisses across her entire body. He lingered here and there, nipping and laving, worshipping and teasing. Blakely did the same, letting her mouth and hands explore him with a languid urgency that was both breathtaking and compelling.
Words were unnecessary, but he whispered them, anyway. How beautiful she was. What he planned to do to her body. How he intended to make her writhe with desire, pleasure and passion.
And he was true to each promise.
Blakely’s breath caught in her lungs, almost as if her body was too busy with other things to remember that basic function. She wanted to
make his body hum with the same rich energy that he was building inside her.
Finding the long, hard length of him nestled between them, she wrapped her hand around the hard shaft and tugged. He growled, the vibration of the sound rumbling through her own body.
Rolling them both, Blakely positioned herself above him and used her hold to guide him home. A sigh of satisfaction and relief left her parted lips. Blakely threw back her head, relishing the joy of feeling him buried deep inside her.
But after a few moments, that wasn’t enough.
She began to ride him, rolling her hips back and forth in an effort to get more. Gray’s hands gripped her hips, guiding her, moving her, faster and faster until the world began to turn black around the edges.
Blakely’s breath panted in and out. Her body burned, heat and need building higher and higher.
One moment she was upright, the next her back was bouncing off the mattress as Gray pounded in and out of her.
Somehow, as he’d flipped them both, he’d managed to find her hands. Twining their fingers together, he used the hold to keep her steady. His mouth found hers, the kiss as deep as the connection between them.
The orgasm exploded through Blakely. Gray’s bark of relief was right behind as he thrust deep, once, twice, three more times, before collapsing onto the bed beside her.
Their limbs tangled, bodies sweaty and replete.
After several seconds, Blakely leaned up and stared down into his gorgeous face. His eyes were open, a self-satisfied smile stretching his lips as he watched her.
“Well, isn’t it quite handy to have a bed at thirty thousand feet?”
Twelve
Blakely lounged against the pile of pillows. They should probably get up and get dressed, but she wasn’t motivated to move, not after the multiple orgasms Gray had just given her. Honestly, she wasn’t certain her legs would hold her, anyway, if she tried.
Gray didn’t appear to be in too much of a hurry to go back to their seats, either. And she had to admit the view wasn’t hard to look at.
He was sprawled across the bed, sheets tangled between his thighs, completely uncaring. Half of his delectable ass was on display. Blakely was tempted to tug at the covers just so she could see the rest. But she knew if she did, they’d end up having sex again, and as much as she enjoyed sex with Gray, her body needed a few more minutes of recovery.
Gray’s fingers played across her skin, tracing mindless patterns over her hips, belly and ribs. He had her tucked beneath him, his head resting on the curve of her waist. He was quiet and a little pensive, just as he’d been earlier when they first boarded the plane.
Threading her fingers into his hair, Blakely gently pulled until his eyes found hers. “Hey, everything’s going to be okay.”
“I know.” His words said one thing, but the darkness lurking in his gaze suggested another.
“You’ve been hit by so much in the past several years, Gray. I really hope this is the start to everything changing. Your sister could help prove your innocence.”
“Sure, but only by admitting to a crime herself.”
There was a fly in the ointment for sure. As much as she liked to be able to think most humans were honorable enough to admit to a crime in order to save someone else from paying the price...she knew firsthand that wasn’t likely. Most people were selfish and could only see the impact something like that would make on their own lives.
What struck her as surprising was that a few weeks ago she wouldn’t have considered it possible at all. But Gray... He was starting to make her feel like there were good people still left in the world.
Maybe his sister would be one of them.
“Why do you think she’s been watching you?”
“No idea.”
“But you have a theory.”
A frown crinkled the corners of his gorgeous green eyes. “Yes.”
Blakely smoothed his hair away from his forehead so she could see him better, waiting.
“I’d like to think her guilty conscience means she’s been trying to figure out how to fix what she screwed up. But the rest of me...”
Blakely’s stomach dropped right along with Gray’s voice.
“I keep thinking she’s had plenty of time to act if she wanted to. However, if she’s been waiting for another opportunity to take from me? To ruin my life some more?”
Blakely shook her head. Something deep inside told her that wasn’t what his sister wanted. Maybe she was being naive—a state she’d never been afflicted by before—but it didn’t add up.
“To what purpose? You don’t have access to the company anymore. Sure, you have plenty of money of your own, but we both know she could have taken that at any point.”
“True.”
“And the people she’s been stealing from have been terrible human beings.”
“I’m a convicted felon.”
Frustration tinged Blakely’s voice. “Because she framed you.”
Gray’s gaze dropped back down to stare at a spot on the bed. He continued to trace patterns on her skin. Goose bumps spread over her arms and legs, but she ignored them.
“You know, going to prison saved my life.”
Blakely’s own fingers traced across his shoulders, paying special attention to the puckered skin under the ridge of his shoulder blade. She hadn’t asked, but assumed he’d gotten the scar during his time inside. He’d told her he’d gotten several others that way.
She couldn’t understand how anyone could feel a situation that had left multiple marks across his body had saved him.
“How?”
His mouth twisted into a wry grimace. “I was aimless and spoiled before I went inside.”
Blakely couldn’t dispute that statement, because it was clearly true.
“I spent my entire life being given everything. I never had to earn anything, not truly. Inside, I had to earn everything. But the most important thing I learned how to earn was respect. Respect for myself and respect from others.”
Blakely’s stomach clenched. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and hold him close, but something told her this wasn’t the time.
“Don’t get me wrong, at first I was pissed. Angry at everyone and everything. I was still entitled, wearing the idea that life had treated me unfairly like a chip on my shoulder.”
She was surprised he wasn’t still pissed. He’d lost seven years of his life because someone else had screwed him over. And no matter how hard she tried, Blakely couldn’t forget the role she’d played in putting him there, either.
“But then I met Stone and Finn. Separately, we were vulnerable to the other gangs and groups that formed inside. But together, we had power and quickly discovered how to demand deference from the other inmates.
“The experience stripped away my entitled lifestyle and made me realize I didn’t like the person I’d been very much.”
That must have been a difficult moment. Not many people had the fortitude to truly evaluate themselves and admit they weren’t proud of who they’d become.
“That takes real strength, Gray.”
He huffed out a reluctant laugh. “I don’t know about that. But it definitely wasn’t a comfortable experience. Stone helped me, though. He’s one of the most honest men I’ve ever met.”
Blakely could see that. She’d only had a few dealings with him so far, but he’d seemed very fair and concerned for her comfort and safety.
“It wasn’t an easy process. There are things about my time inside I’ll never tell anyone, because I’m not proud of them, but also because unless you’ve been there you can’t understand.”
Her fingers traced the white, puckered flesh again. Part of her wanted him to be able to share anything with her, but she understood. There were things about her past—her childhood—that she had no intention of sharing with anyone, inclu
ding Gray.
At the end of the day, the details didn’t matter, anyway. What did were the lessons and growth that had come from them.
“It didn’t take Stone, Finn or me long to realize in order to stay on the right side of the other inmates, as well as the guards, we needed something that both sides wanted. Inside, boredom is a serious problem. Hours and hours of idleness is a breeding ground for serious issues.”
She could absolutely understand how that would be true.
“We ended up running an underground fighting ring. A perfect solution for everyone. Stone managed and arranged things. He handled the details and ensured the guards’ buy-in.”
“So, basically, he worked the connections and people?” It was the role Stone appeared to fill for Stone Surveillance, as well. He was the face of the company.
“Exactly. Finn handled the books, worked the betting pools and ran the numbers. He also used his charm and personality to stoke friendly rivalries and build hype for whatever fight was coming up.”
Blakely had a feeling she knew the answer to her question, but she had to ask it, anyway...even if a huge part of her didn’t necessarily want the answer. “And what did you do?”
Gray’s mouth twisted into a self-deprecating smile. “I fought.”
Of course he had. Blakely’s stomach clenched uncomfortably. A spurt of fear shot into her system, as if he was preparing for a fight now.
“I’d never been in a fight before walking into that prison. I was too soft. I’d always used money and status to get myself out of any difficult situations.”
“So why did you take on that role? Why couldn’t you have been the bookie and let Finn fight?”
Gray’s burst of laughter tickled across her skin. “Yeah, right. Finn is a lot of things, but he’s too soft to fight. Besides, his dexterous hands are a valuable commodity.”
Blakely’s eyes rolled. Sure they were. He’d been a jewel thief.
“I was good at it. The training gave me something to focus on outside of my feelings of anger and injustice. I discovered discipline. I finally had to work for something...or risk getting my ass beaten.”
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