Page 105 of Brutal Collateral

Me: We may need to add some NYC building inspectors to the list.

Aunt Lena: On it.

Smiling, I put the phone away.

“Let me show you something.” I reach for Griffin’s hand.

Looking at the blueprints, I mention that only the new build meets the requirements of several countries as far as separating women from men for religious reasons. The existing building doesn’t have room based on the floor plan Atlas showed me. Which means the UN would have rejected it.

“How did you know this?” Griffin asks, staring at me.

Shrugging, I say, “Years in the CIA. I’d met a few women foreign dignitaries here and there who mentioned how their offices had to be set up.”

“Are you going back?” Griffin whispers to me.

A blast of heat hits my neck. “To the CIA?”

“Aye,” he mutters, his voice gravelly.

I shake my head. “No. Ares got my contract terminated.” Unless I convince Cherise otherwise and confess that I’d lied to her all these years about who I was and wasn’t.

Griffin penetrates me with a stare. “Where will you go to disappear?” He’s testing me.

“I... I don’t know.” I brush my exposed neck, Griffin noticing my hands.

“Nice nails.”

“They’re fake.” I wave my gel manicure at him. “Like our marriage.”

He growls. “Keep up your little game with me and I’ll keep blurring those fake lines behind closed doors.”

“Even like this?” I brush the short strands of my hair.

“Did you cut your hair thinking I wouldn’t be attracted to you anymore?” He folds his arms.

I lean on the table. “I couldn’t connect with who I saw in the mirror. Alexander dyed my hair blonde. Ares made me dye it back. I went to the salon for a trim and the shorter she cut it, the more I recognized myself. I saw myself and not all the hair.”

“Because you had to hide in the Navy,” he surmises.

“Yeah, in a way.”

“And who do you want to be, Ava?” He circles me. “You busted in here. Made your point. Spectacularly. Bravo, for letting your Hadleigh flag fly.Ilove it.”

“I... I don’t know who to be, Griffin.” I can’t confess I’m not one hundred percent sure I want to leave him. “I’m figuring it out.”

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