Reviving Bianca Read online

  “Were you raised by your mother?”

  “Yes,” Bianca confirmed with a shaky voice. She couldn’t even clear her throat to force out more words. But it turned out she didn’t have to. Dade had more information.

  “Did you and your mother live with your uncle? Your mother’s brother?”

  Bianca nodded, or at least she assumed she did. Inside, she was freaking out. Outside, she was shaking so badly that Grayson set the phone on the coffee table and wrapped an arm around her. He responded for her. “That’s correct.”

  “I’m so sorry to drag your past to the forefront, Bianca, but I want to make sure all my information is accurate.”

  “Go on,” Grayson said.

  “According to Spencer’s investigation, your mother is still living with her brother in Mesa, Arizona. Though she rarely leaves the house and hasn’t been seen in a while, so I can’t confirm that definitively.”

  Yeah, that sounded like her mother…

  Nineteen years, though. Nineteen real-time years since Bianca had left that living hell. Her mother had been there for eighteen years before that too. That was a long time to live under the thumb of a tyrannical asshole.

  How could anyone be that weak? It was one thing to stay while she was raising a child. It was another thing for her mother to stay because she wasn’t strong enough to leave even after her daughter fled. Why?

  “Anyway, I hate to have to tell you this, but from what we can tell, Blue Cell made a connection with your uncle, who was all too eager to take money in exchange for removing you from the picture.”

  “What the fuck?” Grayson nearly shouted. His grip on Bianca stiffened.

  Bianca froze solid. Not breathing. Not blinking. Her worst nightmare had come to life.

  The truth was, she’d gotten lax about the possibility of her uncle coming after her over time. With every passing year, she’d had more confidence he hadn’t cared that she left home without telling him and never came back. She’d imagined a scenario in her mind where he hated her so much he was glad she was gone and didn’t give a fuck. After talking to Cindy, she understood better now. What did he need her for if he still had her mother to bully? No wonder he’d never come after Bianca.

  Since waking up from a ten-year hibernation, she hadn’t given much thought to the man at all. He wasn’t worth a moment of her attention. Jorge Gonzales might as well have been dead for all she knew or cared.

  Even though he obviously still controlled her in a way she hadn’t realized—by keeping her from enjoying life to the fullest. She hadn’t honestly considered that he might hunt her down.

  Apparently money talked, though. How much of a bribe would be enough to make her uncle salivate at the mouth and come after her?

  “Yeah,” Dade continued. “I’m sorry. I guess you weren’t expecting something like this. It’s pretty obvious that for whatever reason no one can fathom, Blue Cell’s goal is to prevent us from ever working for Project DEEP again.”

  “Why the hell would anyone want to do that? Our job is to save people. We’ve dedicated our lives to curing diseases. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to destroy that ability.”

  They had known it was happening, though. After all, Dade had been working with Spencer for weeks now. Assuming the kid wasn’t yanking anyone’s chains, and he really was a double agent providing accurate information, then there was no reason to doubt the truth in Dade’s concerned words.

  “I can’t answer that question yet, but I can tell you people have been paid to wreak havoc on us every step of the way from the moment Emily was revived. Nothing has been a coincidence. We are all in danger. At least now with Spencer’s help, we’re able to get one step ahead of the unknown enemy.

  “Unfortunately, there’s no way to stop this roller coaster, Bianca. Your uncle has already been paid to eliminate you.”

  “Jesus, Dade, this is serious shit.” Grayson’s fingers were gripping her hip too tightly, but her brain wasn’t firing messages to her body to get him to ease up. He was scared. He didn’t even know he was holding her so tightly.

  And frankly, she was glad. Without him, she would be in a fetal position on the floor, rocking back and forth.

  Dade kept going. “Obviously, it’s not rocket science to figure out where your parents live, Grayson, and if Blue Cell knows you’re paired up, I’m sure that information has been given to Gonzales. I would think he might start there.”

  Yeah, Bianca was going to pass out. The voices coming from both men grew faint as she started falling to the side.

  “Shit.” Grayson jumped up and lowered her to the couch. He grabbed the throw blanket off the back and tucked it around her, drawing her attention to the fact that she was shivering. She squeezed her eyes shut against the world.

  Grayson grabbed the phone, took it off speaker, and brought it to his ear. “Bianca is pretty shaken up. I need to let you go. I’ll call you back after we discuss a plan.”

  “I understand. I think your plan should involve getting the hell off your parents’ property ASAP.”

  “Agreed. Talk to you soon.” He ended the call, tossed the phone on the coffee table, and turned back to Bianca.

  She had her eyes squeezed shut and her lips pursed tight. Her body was shivering. Not surprising. He didn’t know all the details, but he did know that Jorge Gonzales had been personally responsible for destroying Bianca as a child. There was no reason to believe he wouldn’t hunt her down and finish the job if he was offered the right incentive. And apparently he had been.

  Grayson sat on the edge of the sofa and set a hand on Bianca’s back. “We should leave, honey. I’m going to pack up our stuff and let my parents know.”

  She flinched, her eyes opening as she had a surge of understanding. She gazed at him with crazed eyes, stretching out her folded body and licking her lips. She shook her head. “No. I’ll go. You stay. I’ll take the car and get as far away from here as I can. I’ll drive all night if I have to.”

  He frowned. “What are you talking about? You’re not going alone. That’s crazy.”

  She shoved him with her hands so hard that he stood to avoid falling on the floor. Next, she swung her legs around and jumped to her feet. “It’s not crazy. You didn’t ask for this mess. I never should have considered for a moment burdening you with my family’s problems. You have to stay here and protect your parents.”

  He swung around to fully face her. “Protect them? They don’t need my protection. They’re perfectly safe. Your uncle isn’t looking for my parents, he’s looking for you.”

  She shook her head vigorously. “And you don’t know my uncle. He’ll do anything to get to me, including hurt your family. You need to stay here in case he comes here. And he will. You know he will. Dade all but said he would.”

  Grayson was going to have to work hard to get her to see reason. “Gonzales was paid to hunt you down. These people at Blue Cell aren’t messing around. They would have told Gonzales exactly what to do. No way the man is going to risk getting caught before he finds you in order to stop and mess with another family.”

  Bianca turned and ran into the bedroom, still speaking nonsense. “You said yourself, I should get a new identity. You said Temple would be happy to set me up with one at any time. I’ll do it. I’ll get as far away as possible, change my name, and start a new life. No one else needs to get hurt because of me.”

  He watched her rushing around the room, grabbing her things and tossing them on the bed. He wanted to stop her and force her to look at him and see reason, but she was a little unbalanced right now, rightfully so, and he never in his lifetime wanted to do anything that would even closely resemble hurting her.

  She needed to get this out of her system, so he would just have to keep reasoning with her from the doorway. “When I suggested you change your name, I meant I would do so also. We would go together. And that’s still an option if you want to take it. In fact, I’ve always liked the option. You’re the one who shot it down.”

&
nbsp; She turned toward him, a pile of T-shirts in her arms. She looked ready to pounce. “Because I’m not the sort of person to run from a problem, Grayson. I didn’t want to be the loser who decided she couldn’t take the heat and left town. We should be working our way toward Montana in order to fight for our lives with the rest of the team.”

  “Are you listening to yourself, honey?” he asked gently. He still wouldn’t be opposed to her changing her name and fleeing with her life. With him, of course. Not alone. But her plan of heading toward Montana was also a good one. “Okay. Okay. So, we’ll go to Montana.”

  She groaned and shook her head, dropping the shirts on the bed. “That idea was perfect…before we found out there was a hit on my head, Gray. Now I’m a danger to the team also.”

  Ah, so he was Gray tonight. That was usually a good sign. “Honey, the entire team is in danger. You don’t have a monopoly on that. We’re all in hiding. We’re all targets. We can’t control whose turn it is, nor will we even know it every time. There could currently be something in the works to eliminate six of us at the same time. Montana is a big place. We can hide there. If it stresses you out to head for the same location as the rest of the team, we can hide together someplace else for a while.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t ask that of you. It’s too much. We have no way of knowing how long we might have to hide. Months? Years? You can’t give up your life to hide with me. You need to work with the team to find out who is doing all this and take them down.”

  If they kept talking in circles like this, he was going to be more confused than her. “Bianca, listen to yourself. Whether you went off on your own, which is totally not an option, or we went to Montana, we’re both going to be in hiding until we solve this. Together or alone, we’ll be watching our backs. Why the hell would we split up?”

  She gave a frustrated growl and lifted both hands to rub her temples. “Because I don’t want to be the reason anything happens to you or your family. I can’t live with that kind of guilt. You have to let me go. You should stay here and protect them.” The steam was going out of her as her words grew weaker and slower.

  He took the opportunity to step forward. He tugged her around the waist and threaded his hand in her hair so he could tilt her head and make her look at him. His other hand held her lower back against him. “You seem to have forgotten my promise to never let you go.”

  She rolled her eyes. “That was before you knew I was putting you in danger. You have no idea what my uncle is capable of.” She shuddered.

  She was right about that last statement. He didn’t know more than she’d told him. And he’d made a promise to her and himself never to pressure her. He took a slow breath. “Bianca.” He waited for her to look at him again. “I’m not leaving you.”

  Her shoulders fell, and she lowered her gaze to his chest.

  He eased his grip on her so she could hide her face against him, but he didn’t let her go.

  “Okay. Let’s go then, before he finds us.”

  Chapter 10

  Adrenaline helped kick Bianca into high gear. She returned to packing her bag with clothes while Grayson ran upstairs to inform his parents of their imminent departure.

  Moments later, he was back, stuffing his own belongings into a bag. He raced to the bathroom to grab toiletries, and she ran right into him as they switched places so she could do the same.

  They didn’t have much to pack and were headed upstairs in less than fifteen minutes.

  Both of Grayson’s parents were in the kitchen, his mother busy rushing around putting sandwiches together. She lifted her gaze when Bianca entered the room. “Sweet girl, I’m so sorry you two need to leave like this. I hope you’ll come back soon.” She stopped working to cup Bianca’s face. “You’re a dear, dear woman. I hope you know you’re welcome in our home any time.”

  Bianca leaned closer to give the woman a tight hug, unable to form words. The past few weeks had been the most relaxing weeks of her life. The first time she’d ever taken to relax and recuperate and heal her body and her soul.

  Jane Maston was the closest woman to a mother she’d ever had, and although Bianca was a twenty-seven-year-old woman, she had enjoyed having a strong mother figure in her life.

  “Thank you so much for everything,” Bianca said as she stepped out of Jane’s arms to find Charles holding his open next to his wife.

  Even crazier than hugging Grayson’s mother was hugging his father, a man. A soft bear of a man who’d never struck a woman in his life. Tears came to Bianca’s eyes as he hugged her close.

  Grayson was nervous. It was obvious by the way he moved around quickly, his brow furrowed. He retrieved the car from the barn and rushed them out the back door within minutes. After he had Bianca settled in the car, he turned to speak to his parents. His dad looked serious. His mother nodded over and over. Grayson hugged them both tightly before releasing them and stepping toward the car.

  Bianca felt guilty about leaving them like this. They were unprotected. If her uncle came here looking for her, would he take off when he found out she wasn’t there? Or would he come unhinged and take it out on these innocent people?

  She said nothing when Grayson climbed in the car and took off. After waving at his parents, she kept her gaze on the passenger window, watching the darkness fly by while she tried to keep from freaking out about their situation.

  There would be no sense arguing further with Grayson. He’d proven he would no sooner let her leave on her own than he would cut off his arm.

  It was difficult to process having someone in her life who was willing and able to stand up for her. It was even harder to embrace. But she was trying, and that was all she could do.

  Grayson drove for several minutes before he reached over and took her hand, squeezing it and giving a slight tug to get her to lean his direction. She was practically flattened to the door.

  She sighed as she gave him her attention.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he said.

  She shuddered and then stared at their connected hands on her thigh. It had been a long time since she allowed herself to think about her uncle. She never even permitted the memory of his face to enter her consciousness. Now, it was filtering in from every angle, bombarding her with nervousness.

  Flashes of his anger kept surfacing. Visions of his face, red with ire, his eyes narrowed, his lips pursed as he would yank her by the arm and drag her across a room to the chair he liked to sit on while he spanked her. Images of his bare hand swatting her bottom when she was little were almost worse than the memory of him hitting her with his belt and then later his whip.

  There was something more invasive about having his bare hand on her naked thighs and her panties when her dress rose up above them. Humiliation made her stiffen after years of chasing it to the recesses of her mind.

  “Bianca… Honey…”

  She squeezed her eyes shut, gripping Grayson’s fingers too tightly.

  The car came to a stop, and Bianca jerked her gaze up to find them on the side of the road, Grayson leaning toward her. He took her face in his hands. She hadn’t realized she’d been crying until the moment when his thumb brushed away a row of tears.

  “Sorry,” she murmured.

  “Oh, honey, don’t be sorry. I can’t imagine what you’re going through. I’m going to get us someplace safe. I promise.”

  He couldn’t promise that. No one could. She lifted her hands and swiped away the tears, taking a deep breath. “I let my mind wander. I never do that.”

  “Understandable.”

  She took a deep breath and held his gaze. “I’m ready to tell you everything.” Where the strength came from, she didn’t know, but it no longer seemed reasonable to carry the heavy burden of her childhood alone when Grayson so obviously was willing to shoulder some of the load.

  He reached for her neck and pulled her closer to kiss her lips. “Let me get us someplace safer than the side of the road, okay?”

  “Yes.�
� She blew out a breath and found herself relaxing against the seat. The decision to open up to him alone was enough to give her some relief. A small weight lifted.

  Grayson took a random exit and secured them a room in an off-the-radar motel. “Let’s stay here for the night. Tomorrow we’ll put more miles behind us.”

  She agreed and helped him carry their meager belongings into the small room. At the snick of the door shutting behind them, she swallowed. She was exhausted, and she knew Grayson was too. But she needed to talk. She wouldn’t be able to rest until she unburdened herself of her childhood.

  Grayson had been a ball of nerves during the entire drive. He wasn’t sure how to read Bianca’s mood, but it seemed she’d turned some sort of corner for better or for worse.

  She stood in the center of the motel room rubbing her hands together. He doubted she’d even seen the room. She was so far in her head. She was also shaking.

  Needing to hold her, he dropped their bags on the floor and grabbed her hand to lure her toward the bed. He propped the pillows against the headboard, and sat, back to the wall. “Come here, honey.” He gave her hand a tug, and she came to him, climbing onto the mattress. He needed her closer, so he settled her on his lap.

  For long minutes, he simply stroked her hair, wondering if she would talk or if she might fall asleep.

  Finally, she took a deep breath and let it out on a long exhale. Her next words surprised him. “My mother was young when she got pregnant with me. I have no idea who my father was. I’m not sure if she did or not. She never told me.”

  He stroked her back, not saying a word.

  “She had no place else to go, so she went to her brother’s. He took her in and gave her a room. Maybe he was pissed and hadn’t wanted to. Or maybe we provided him an outlet for his anger. I don’t know. But he was strict, and there was no way to please him. I don’t know if he was always like that. Maybe my grandfather was also abusive. I have no idea.

  “He thought women belonged in their place. My mother fell under his thumb and did whatever he asked of her, probably because she had no choice. She had no practical skills with which to get a job. She had no education beyond high school. And she had no self-esteem.”