Total pages in book: 54
Estimated words: 51825 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51825 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
“If the killer’s watching, you’re showing my hand, telling them I believe they’re coming for me and my team, when I need them to feel like it’s a one and done, so stop trying to act like you know what you’re doing. You could actually accelerate the next hit, if there is one. Caution is discreet, not in your fucking face.”
My cellphone buzzes with a text from Ellis: He just landed.
Speaking of in my face. Is this constant locating of Kane a threat or a distraction? This is the question on my mind. Maybe he really doesn’t want me to be thinking about him and Murphy, because I’m thinking about him and Kane. I text Lucas: Ellis is a number-one priority. I need to know everything there is to know about him and how he connects to Murphy.
Where is Tic Tac? he asks in reply. We can divide and conquer.
Off-grid and hiding, I say. It’s time to earn your payday.
A few minutes later, we’re in the apartment and I leave Kit in the hallway for his own safety. He’s lucky I don’t send him to hang out with Jack. I trust Kit in the heat of the moment, which says a lot about me, but when he gets too confident, he blows the cover off the logic pot, and it boileth over.
I pour Kane a whiskey I’m certain he will need when he arrives and end up at his favorite window spot, sipping it myself. It’s interesting that my father hasn’t contacted me over Murphy, and I’m really not sure what to think of it. He’s about to be governor. The polls say that’s inevitable. Between that and his link to Pocher, he’d find out about this, but then he might be kept in the dark by Pocher and told to stand down and disconnect himself. It wouldn’t be the first time he tried to disconnect himself from me, even by way of my murder.
He knew Pocher was going to kill me.
I’m not sure how I’ve managed to stand in the same room with him without killing him at this point. I down the whiskey, the smokey taste burning a path down my throat.
The alarm buzzes with Kane’s arrival, and I swear my heart is racing. Entry into the apartment is not fast, and I walk to the bar, refill his glass, and then step in front of the door where I know he’ll enter. I’m just in time. It opens, and he’s standing there in jeans and a leather jacket covering a snug T-shirt. He’s male perfection, and it’s hard to believe I ever denied him.
Just seeing him delivers a rush of desire but logically, too, relief that rivals the sense of relief I’d felt when they pulled him out of the ocean. He’s my husband. When did I ever think I’d own that statement? The door shuts behind him, and his eyes are dark, his expression harder than I have ever seen on this man before. He’s rattled in a way that is undefinable.
“What went wrong?”
He steps into me, cups my head, and kisses the hell out of me. He tastes of danger and death, and when he tears his mouth from mine, he reaches for the glass, downs every drop, and then captures my hand. His energy is wicked and dark, shooting up my arm, and charging my body. He sets the glass on the table by the stairs and guides me upward, toward the sanctuary that is our bedroom. His steps are measured but determined, anger and frustration vibrating off him.
Something has happened that has nothing to do with Murphy.
The minute we’re in the bedroom, he shrugs out of his jacket and tosses it on a chair before he’s pulling me to him. “What happened?” I ask. “Kane, what—”
“Later, Lilah.” Already his mouth is slanting over mine, and I taste it this time. I taste what I’d missed moments before—the possessiveness, the demand, the urgency to claim me as if I’m not already his.
Whatever happened, he believes it’s the end of us.
Chapter Thirteen
Suddenly, I don’t want to know what happened.
There are only a few things in this life that could convince Kane he’s about to lose me, and none of them are good. Two of those things include death and a jail cell, which means everything about this night went wrong. I push against him, tearing our lips apart.
“Don’t ask,” he warns.
He doesn’t mean never. In the past, he would have, but we’re beyond that now. He means now, and I’m so beyond okay with that. I push out of his arms and sit down on the end of the bed to remove my boots. Kane does the same, and then we both stand. He stands there—we stand there—facing each other, watching each other.
The burn that is our desire sizzles between us, alive and well and untouched by the world around us, but there’s more there, too. The tension between us ticks, and there’s a storm behind his intense, heated stare I can feel beating at me.