Kit noticed then, the hooks in the girl’s back, and one glance up showed him exactly what Luna had meant.
But even at his vantage point, he could see that the girl was no longer breathing—a blessing, undoubtedly. She was sickly thin, with bruises, and her hair shorn. This girl had suffered, and at the hands of someone like Lawrence, it hadn’t ended anytime soon.
“Luna,” Kit called again, not bothering to look at his watch—it was well beyond time to go.
Never mind that the girl, though he knew she was close to her, wasn’t part of the job.
“Fifteen seconds,” she responded back, oddly.
“I don’t—”
“Now twelve,” she said, “before we’re meant to be at the door. I didn’t forget this was still an assignment.”
The way she said that, such hurt in her voice made him wish he could spare her this pain. More than anything, he wished he could take it from her.
After a shaky breath, she looked at him with watery eyes, “Do we have to leave her here?”
He knew what she wanted him to say, she didn’t bother trying to hide that. And the almost clinical side of him knew that leaving her there would be a better course of action, but the other side that was affected by her thought she had suffered enough for one day.
But it wasn’t what he felt for her personally that mattered. “We need to go.”
“We could take her with us, and I—”
“Now, Luna.”
She wanted to argue, protest further, but as she opened her mouth to do just that, shuffling back in the office had Kit palming his gun.
“Boss? Is everything—”
The second he cleared the entryway, Kit plugged two bullets into his chest, then one final one in his head.
They were out of time.
Starting across the floor, he grabbed Luna's arm, intending to drag her out if he had to, but she snatched her arm free, muttering words he couldn’t hear—though he was pretty sure he wouldn’t have liked what she said—then looked back to her friend.
She shook her head, whispering softly as she gingerly laid the girl back down, then moved to her feet. She barely spared Lawrence a glance as she went over to his body and jerked the knives she’d left embedded in him out.
Luna left the room without waiting for him.
Calavera, he thought staring after her.
Day of the dead.
Aidra was waiting by the door near the back exit, her gaze intense and scrutinizing as she took them in. Kit knew their time had been up, but Aidra had remained—it seemed everyone was breaking the rules.
On the drive back to the penthouse, Luna never spoke a word.
He was talking to Aidra, but Luna wasn’t listening—nor did she particularly care.
She wasn’t sure at what point her sadness at Cat’s fate had shifted to anger, but once it hit her, she welcomed it—anything but the cloaking sadness that threatened to tear her up.
The second the doors opened and she could walk inside, Luna didn’t hesitate in stopping in the kitchen, bending down to the liquor cabinet and grabbing the first bottle she saw.
She didn’t bother looking at the label, nor did she particularly care what kind it was, she just wanted something she knew would take the pain away.
Luna wasn’t thinking about the fact that she and Kit were sharing a room, or that all of her things were tucked away inside of it. Instead, she headed for one of the spare rooms he’d told her about, closing and locking the door before she headed into the bathroom where she ran a bath.
Screwing the cap off the bottle, she tipped it to her lips, drinking down the burning liquid without hesitation. It seared her throat before settling into her stomach, but as the pleasant warmth began to spread, she didn’t think about that.
Slowly, she wasn’t thinking about anything at all.
Despite her earlier intentions as she sunk into the bath, she let the water burn away the rest of her feelings until she was in a pleasant state of warmness.
There was no pain and death.
There was no heartache and loss.
There was nothing—and she loved it.
Even the shallow cuts on her hands didn’t bother her—if anything, she was glad to see them.
They were a reminder that in the end, she’d had the last laugh with Lawrence—she was no longer the victim.
“Luna.”
She startled at the sound of Kit’s voice outside the bathroom door, water splashing onto the floor as she sat up. But he didn’t come in, nor did she see the handle move.
But that didn’t make a difference when she knew she had locked the other door.
“Did you seriously break in here?” she asked, glaring at the door as though he could see her.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t?” he retorted, his voice strained.
She knew he was upset with her because she hadn’t followed his plan to the letter. It was supposed to be a simple in-and-out assignment that she had botched it in favor of torturing the hell out of Lawrence.
Kit’s instructions had always been rather clear—you didn’t play with your victims.
He was precise that way.
She had fully intended to follow his rules, at least until she saw Cat and what the monster had done to her.
Rational thought had fled.
She’d wanted Lawrence to hurt, to feel the pain he had caused so many others, and the last thing she wanted to do was apologize for it.
“If you want to debrief,” she called, “let’s do it later.”
There was a moment of silence before Kit was opening the door and strolling inside, as though she wasn’t glaring daggers at him, and he’d been invited.
“Or we can do it now,” he said, going to lean against the sink counter. “What you did was reckless and stupid.”
“Considering I’m sitting right here listening to you, I disagree. I had it under control. You didn’t—”
“You're paid to do an assignment, nothing more.”
“And I did it. Uilleam only asked that he die, not how to kill him. I knew what time we needed to be out of there—I told you the second you came in that room with me. So why are you giving me shit?”
That was the wrong thing to say, she could tell from the way his eyes went hard and that muscle in his jaw worked. It wasn’t often that Kit was angry with her—she never gave him reason to be—but he was now.
But Luna was feeling a bit reckless, and she was more than happy to give Kit a fight if that’s what he wanted. “She was my best friend—the only friend I had. And you want me to pretend like she meant nothing? I can’t turn my feelings on and off like you can, Kit—I don’t work that way.”
That muscle was working faster, but he still didn’t react. “The job—”
“Fuck the job!”
Kit had had enough.
One second he was across the room, the next he was hauling her out of the water with a vengeance, but he didn’t hurt her. Even in her mind’s frenzy as she struggled to right herself, she knew he wouldn’t do that.
She could feel the barely restrained anger pulsating out of him, and the rational part of her knew that she should have been more afraid—that she should have heeded his unspoken warning—but it wasn’t fear she was feeling.
“Don’t make me put you over my knee,” Kit growled at her, his fingers dancing over the column of her throat until he had her face in his hand and forced her to look up at him.
It didn’t matter that she was completely naked and pressed against him dripping wet.
He didn’t care that she was soaking his clothes.
He wanted her attention—he had it.
“There is no fuck the job, Luna. You either do it, or you die. That’s what happens when you sign a contract. If you merely wanted his head, I would have laid it at your feet.”
Her heart was hammering in her chest, her breaths panting. “I can take care of myself, Kit. You taught me how.”
“And you’ve show
n me that, but you don’t have to do it alone, Luna. What about that are you not understanding? I’d put anyone in the ground for you, you only need ask. So the day you give me a name, I’ll show them what fear really is.”
“Because you’re better at it.”
“Because I love you, Luna. Don’t be daft.”
His words managed to suck all the air right out of her. Every bit of her anger and annoyance and agitation with him disappearing.
“Why is that surprising to you?” he asked, his tone gentling. “You had to have known how I felt.”
“But it’s different hearing you say it.”
Kit’s gaze darted over her face before it softened, and he offered a half-smile that made her feel warm inside. “I love you, mi pequeña luna. More than I’ve ever loved anyone.”
Her fingers curled into the front of his shirt. “I love you too, Kit.”
More than the stars.
More than the moon.
More than she had ever thought possible.
She loved him with everything she was.
“I know you’re upset about your friend, and I’m sorry that it happened.” The tension in his shoulders eased. “Aidra is taking care of it.”
What else could she say other than, “Thank you.”
He nodded once. “You did good tonight—mistakes and all.”
But she should have done more, Luna thought.
Not what she had done to Lawrence, but what she hadn’t done for Cat. She should have tried to go after her sooner.
Her throat feeling tight all of a sudden, Luna shook her head. “It doesn’t feel like it.”
Kit sighed, his lips falling to her forehead a moment. “Then let me help you forget that feeling.”
She didn’t know how long it would last, the reprieve he offered her, but she would take it.
For just a while, she wanted to forget.
Part II
Chapter 15
Present Day …
When she took a breath, Kit was jerked from his own memory of that night and the visceral reaction her words created. It didn’t matter that they were sitting in an office being observed, he was too focused on the way her breath caught—the way she reacted to the stimuli that her thoughts provided.
She was angry with him, sure, but she missed him whether she was willing to admit that or not.
Her gaze found his, open and vulnerable, making him wonder if he reached for her, would she allow him to touch her?
But it wasn’t just her body he wanted—he wanted her. And if she wasn’t willing to give everything, he wanted nothing at all, even if it meant his cock was going to be disappointed.
Trying to tamp down the lust he felt, his mind seized on everything she’d said, focusing his attention on something other than the reminder of how he’d fucked her that night. “There was nothing you could have done,” he said. “Your friend—Cat, wasn’t it?—even if it hadn’t been at Lawrence’s hand, it might have been by another’s.”
Luna blamed herself, but he wasn’t lying when he said nothing could have been done.
And he never did like the distant look she got in her eyes when she spoke of something particularly painful, as though disassociating herself from the memory.
Never in his life had he wanted to fix something the way he felt with Luna. It drove him in a way that he hadn’t realized until one day he had woken up and felt at peace while she slept on soundly beside him.
He had fallen in love with her without even trying.
Luna rubbed her finger where her wedding ring used to sit, a tattoo resting in its place. A part of him hated that bare finger, especially when he felt the weight of her ring in his pocket—but he was soothed, somewhat, because of the skull she’d had placed there.
It was enough—for now.
“I waited too late,” she said. “I should have done something sooner.”
Kit shook his head. “It could have been you in her place, or another girl, but the blame shouldn’t rest with you. You tried, and if that’s no solace, take comfort in the knowledge that you avenged her.”
Most first assignments were fairly easy—at least Kit’s had been when he’d joined the Lotus Society. Truthfully, most of the work he’d done for them was relatively clean and simple, the deaths meant to look like accidents.
But there was nothing about what Luna had done to Lawrence that was clean. He’d been a mess of cuts and bruises, blood pouring from wounds that even he thought had to be painful.
And Luna, his precious Luna, hadn’t batted an eye at the horrific sight of a man bleeding out in front of her. No, she had been too lost in her rage to see what she had done.
Shrugging as she folded her arms across her chest, a defensive move he’d learned to recognize, Luna said, “Maybe.”
“Not maybe,” Kit said gently. “You fulfilled your promise to her when you went back. That’s what matters. You kept your word.”
“I would like to pause here,” Donna said setting her pen down. “It seems you two were at a precipice that night.”
Luna’s lips twitched, her grief forgotten for a moment as she fought a smile. “If that’s how you want to look at it.”
Even as it was hard to accept some of the things she was saying as she recounted their past, he thrilled in seeing her smiles as she recalled days when everything was good between them.
Donna asked, “How would you look at it, Luna?”
“It was the day everything changed,” she explained. “Kit always treated me like a fragile little bird that he couldn’t touch because he thought he would break me.”
“Whether you believe it or not,” Kit cut in, “you were fragile.”
“Not since that night in your dungeon,” she said, brown eyes steady on him.
His gift, the first of many.
It was never that her strength was lacking, only that he’d wanted to ensure that she wanted what was between them and not because she thought of him as some kind of savior.
“Is that the point where your relationship changed?” Donna asked looking between them, letting the question hang between them.
“No,” Luna said, “if anything that’s when our relationship started.”
Kit had stopped fighting the draw to her—or rather, he had finally pushed the images of her when she’d first arrived in his home out of his mind and focused on the present.
Once he saw her—really saw her—that was it for him.
Luna smiled absently, as though remembering that time. “Those were the good years, I think. Everything was simple—just the two of us. I loved you and you loved me, and that was all that mattered.”
“What changed?”
Everything had changed, Kit thought. And he knew, without her having to say, the exact moment when their perfectly put together world started to fall apart.
“I woke up from the dream,” Luna said softly. “Everything was great, better than I could have wished for. And I was happy until I found out the truth about him.”
“Would you care to elaborate?”
This time, it was Luna beginning the tale, but as it always were when it came to hurdles in their lives, it began with Uilleam.
Chapter 16
2011 April
Luna found that she did rather enjoy Kit’s gifts, even if she wasn’t sure what all they would bring.
Sometimes they were things that made her laugh, like the new set of serrated steel blades and the thigh holster that came with them.
Another time he had shown her exactly how loud she could scream when he tortured her in that special way of his.
But this, even if she wasn’t entirely sure what “this” was, topped those by far.
It had been a late morning spent tucked against his side as she cursed the need for the sun to rise as she wished she could sleep longer. Her last job had felt never ending as she spent three months infiltrating a company to steal classified computer files.
It wasn’t extraneous work, but tedious and boring
, but once it was done, she was just glad she could spend more time with Kit until she was called back in.
He had even promised to take a few days for just the two of them to spend together.
Luna hadn’t anticipated he’d meant flying her out of the country to an undisclosed location. And when he said alone, he meant it.
Not even Aidra had come along with them on this trip.
“Where are we going, exactly?” she asked, looking to the man that continuously surprised her.
It went well beyond the gifts—it was just Kit. He was thoughtful and caring, and the last four years had shown her that.
Once Lawrence was gone from the picture, she felt like she had been able to breathe again, even if Kit made a habit of stealing that away.
She was free.
Truly free.
And every day since, Kit had shown her the world and everything it had to offer
Like this trip.
He hadn’t given her any details, merely had her wake up and ready herself before they were out the door and headed for his car.
A mere thirty minutes later, they were on the jet.
“You’ll see when we get there,” Kit replied with the slightest of smiles, his attention on the paper in his lap.
He was, by far, one of the only men she knew that still read a newspaper. It was just one of those habits she knew he would never break.
“If I guess, will you tell me?” she asked, trying another strategy.
“Patience.”
Luna kicked her feet up, smiling over at him. “We both know I’ve never been good at that.”
“Bihafio, Luna.”
Behave, he said.
Laughing, she almost missed his smile as she plucked the paper from his hands, her own gaze shifting over the columns of text as she fell into his lap.
“Who are you looking for now?”
There was only one section of the newspaper Kit paid particular attention to—the obituaries. It had seemed rather odd to her, at least until she better understood why he did it.
Sometimes it was as simple as the person that had died, the legacy they’d left behind summed up in a matter of three paragraphs, sometimes less. But, Kit had taught her that it wasn’t just the person featured there that mattered—sometimes it was who they were connected to.
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