Kane’s gaze darkens, and he gives me one of those animalistic once-overs that tells me I’ve affected him. That I have control, not him, and that’s what I fucking need right along with the escape. Control. He drags me to him, fingers tangling in my hair, hand on my breast, even as his mouth is back on mine. There is this wildness between us, and I could say it’s forbidden, but it’s not. It’s just how we are together, but this time there is a desperation that doesn’t feel like it’s all me.
He lifts me, and my legs wrap his hips, my fingers diving into his hair, but when he starts toward the stairs and his bedroom, I pull back. “Not the bedroom.”
“Sorry, beautiful. I’m not stopping. Punish me if you like, but wait until you’re naked.”
I pant out a breath, my fingers digging into his shoulders, my awareness of what he’s trying to do more than certain. He wants me in his bed, which I know he equates to some sort of ownership. But he keeps charging upward, and I just want out of my own head. My cell phone rings, and that is enough to have my lips press to his again. I want out of the world that I’m living inside and into the one I used to live inside with Kane. He enters his bedroom, walking across the gray-tiled floor and up the steps that lead to his bed. I release my legs, forcing him to let go of me, and when I would step back, he shackles my hips.
“To be clear, Lilah,” he says. “No one else has been in my bed since you left.”
“So you fucked Samantha downstairs.”
His hand is suddenly behind my neck, and he drags my mouth to his. “Samantha—”
“Was a fuck,” I say. “Or ten. Or however many. I get it. Stop talking and just fuck me already.” I reach for his pants, and while he kisses me, I touch him in every way I know he wants to be touched, in all those ways that makes me the one in control.
“Undress,” he orders, setting me away from him.
“You first,” I order, and when my damn phone rings again, I pull it from my pocket and throw it across the room. I look at him again, and suddenly there is no “him first” or “me first.” There is just now. I need us both naked now. “I’m tired of waiting,” I say. “Together.”
He gives a nod, and that is exactly what we do. We strip together and I finish first, waiting on him, and when I have the opportunity, I shove him back onto the mattress. But I don’t get the upper hand on Kane. He pulls me with him, and when I fully intend to climb on him and ride him, he rolls me over and settles on top of me. “Do you hate me now, Lilah?”
“At present, the potential of an orgasm exists, so no. I do not. If you fail in that department, yes. I will fucking hate you all over again.”
“I didn’t ask last week, but you can’t—”
“I’m not going to have a baby, Kane. I still get a shot, and come on, you and me and a baby would be about as fucked up as—”
He kisses me and slides inside me, and I’m there in that place where there is nothing but him. He brushes hair from my face and whispers, “I wouldn’t want you to hate me.” And then he rolls us to our sides, no longer taking control but not giving it either. What he does is every little trick he ever learned about what turns me on. And that’s the thing about Kane: he actually cares what turns me on. He actually knows.
It’s not fast, this encounter between us. It’s slow, alternated with frenzy, and then slow again, the way I need it to be. That way I stay out of my own head for as long as I possibly can, but finally, and yet too soon, I shudder to that place that is always so damn perfect just before the end. Neither of us moves for a full minute, or two, or longer. I don’t know. Kane finally squeezes my ass and pulls me to him. “Now you can’t hate me.”
The many reasons I can’t be with Kane hit me hard: He’s a criminal. I’m an FBI agent. He buried a damn body without asking me. And yet I still fucking love him. And on a day like today, I know love cuts. I need air. I need space.
“I don’t hate you, Kane,” I say, because that’s the easiest way to explain what I feel. “Not all of the time.” I roll away from him and scoot to the edge of the bed, grabbing tissues because us girls get all the mess. That’s how it is. Men fuck. Women get fucking messy. I’ve just tossed the tissues when my phone rings again, the sound like a punch that drags me fully back into the hell that brought me here. I need out of here. I need to leave.
And that’s what I say. “I need to go.” But as I try to stand, Kane grabs me, and suddenly he is sitting beside me.
“You don’t want to leave. I don’t want you to leave. Who are you trying to please, Lilah?” He doesn’t give me time to answer, adding, “And you want the answers I can now give you.”
Not the one I need most right now. “I need to talk to my brother, Kane,” I say, pulling against him.
He holds on. “Not now. Not in your current state of mind.”
“I need to know where he stands. I need—”
“Not now. Wait until you come down from the anger and the shock.”
I start to get up again.
“Lilah,” Kane warns.
“I’m not going to leave.” I look over at him. “But I want to get dressed.”
He pulls me to him and kisses me before letting me go.
“I swore you’d never kiss me for the hell of it ever again.”
“And now?”
“And now, I just want to get dressed.” He inhales and lets me go, but I sense his frustration, even his anger, as if I’ve used him when I have not. I wish it were that simple with Kane, but it’s not.
I lean in and kiss him, my lips lingering on his for a moment before I say, “And now—that.” I pull back then and stand up, walking to the foot of the bed to start dressing. Kane does the same, and by the time I’m awkwardly aware that I have a badge, gun, pants, and boots on with no bra or blouse, Kane has left the room shirtless and returned, fully dressed, with my clothes in hand.
I accept them without looking at him and finish dressing, while my phone once again rings. Kane grabs it but doesn’t look at the number, and when he offers it to me, he catches my hand. “Facts before conversation. There is much I can tell you about the Society that you now need to know.”
“Are you part of it?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t follow anyone else’s lead. Because no one owns me, just like no one owns you, and that makes us problems for the Society. Let’s go talk.”
I nod. I don’t ask where he wants to talk. I know.
Together we walk out of the bedroom and up another level of stairs to Kane’s attic, which he had converted into an office for me: my Purgatory when I was staying with him, which before my attack was often. I enter the room, taking in the giant gray wooden desk, the chairs in a corner, whiteboards and bulletin boards covering the walls. Memories slam into me, all those nights and days I stayed in here, working, chasing killers. All the times that Kane listened to me talk through my thoughts and gave me the perspective of a man who grew up in the center of a crime family. Murphy’s words come back to me: He’s a resource. I know this. I just don’t understand why Murphy knows it. What don’t I know?
I walk to the desk and sit down behind it. Kane walks to one of the corner chairs and sits down. I roll around and face him. “You said you have friends in law enforcement outside of me.”
“Yes,” he confirms. “I do.”
“Who?”
“Why?”
“Is my boss one of them?”
“No,” he says. “Your boss is not one of those people.”
“He knows I’m here.”
He arches a brow. “Really?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“He says that the enemy of my enemies is my friend, and that you’re an enemy to everyone but me. Why would he say that to me, Kane?”
“Aside from the fact that it’s true, you’ll have to ask him that question.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about the Society?”
“I told you. You don’t get
to die, and I know you, Lilah. You’re dogmatic in an in-your-face kind of way about what you want. And I fucking love it. It works for you. It works for me, but you can’t approach the Society that way.”
“I don’t need you to make my fucking decisions for me, Kane.”
He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees. “This isn’t one killer you’re going head-to-head with. This is a massive group of killers, far more powerful than me. And you ask me why I allow myself to stay aligned with the cartel? Because that cartel gives them pause. It gives me the power to punch them in the throat, even if I can’t destroy them. And there are those whispers on the borders about me ordering mass killings. They work for me, and for you, because they give me a level of control and power.”
I don’t let myself think about the implications of what he just confessed. I focus on the enemy in front of me, against me. “My father said that they rule the world. That they are that powerful. Is that true?”
“Yes. That is true.”
“And they’ve tried to recruit you?”
“Yes.” He offers nothing more.
“Is Pocher one of them?”
“Yes.”
“Damn it, Kane. He’s backing my father, and you didn’t tell me?”
“If you would have gone after them, and if you go after them now in the wrong way, not only will we never prove they ordered your attack, you will end up dead. So no. I did not tell you. The time was not right.”
“Would you have told me?”
“Yes. I would have.”
“When?”
“When you trusted me enough again to listen and not get killed.”
“All right. I’ll accept that answer even if I don’t like it. Now tell me about the tattoo.”
“I didn’t lie to you, Lilah. The Blood Assassins are as provable as UFOs.”
“Is there any known attachment to the Society?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to find out since your attack. And that brings me to Romano and what I couldn’t tell you before you knew about the Society: that lead came from him directly. He was working for the Society—Pocher, he believes, though he’s not a hundred percent sure. The communications were guarded. They started pressing him, taking over his operation. He pushed back.”
“And?”
“And one of his men came head-to-head with a Blood Assassin. Romano’s man cornered him in an attempt to make him talk. The assassin killed himself. A day later, that Romano was dead. And that Romano was the nephew of the old man.”
“Holy fuck,” I breathe out.
“Yes. Holy fuck. Shortly after, that anonymous tip came his way, and he needed to distance himself from it until the heat was off.”
“So he gave it to me.”
“Yes.”
“Did he leave the clue at the beheading?”
“I asked him that and he said no, which means whoever gave him the tip must have given it to you.”
“It has to be someone who really wants the Society taken down if they came to us both.”
“I would agree. And if you need more to prove how low the Society will go, it’s unconfirmed, but the old man believes they killed his men to cause a turf war between his people and mine, to distract us both.”
“I don’t know if I buy that,” I say. “I believe it was the Society, but I believe it was about Woods and making the murders go away. About pushing me out to allow that to happen.”
“A two-for-one, perhaps,” he suggests.
“Obviously, the Virgin Mary is attached to the Society: the tattoos. The necklace in Suthers’s suit, and I was just at your rental property and found a Virgin Mary necklace on Cynthia’s lampshade. What do you know about that connection? Because there is one.”
“Until now, there wasn’t one, or I would have already connected the Blood Assassins to the Society long ago, but yes, I agree. There is a connection, but it seems too careless to be approved by the leadership. I don’t believe the upper-level management would allow themselves a method of identification.”
Kane’s cell phone rings, and he pulls it from his pocket, frowning slightly before he answers the call. “Mendez,” he says. There is a pause and he says, “When?” Another pause and, “Where?”
He says nothing else before hanging up.
“You wanted Ghost. You’re about to get him. He’s ready to meet.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
It’s finally time to meet Ghost. Maybe, just maybe, that means I will catch myself an assassin. And maybe, just maybe, that means I can take down Pocher. “He actually agreed to meet us?”
“With conditions,” Kane says.
“What conditions?”
“He’s not the guy you’re looking for, but he’s willing to provide information. But you cannot arrest him or kill him.”
“Are you one hundred percent certain he’s not our guy?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Ghost doesn’t deny his work. He’s too proud of it.”
“When?” I ask.
“Now,” he says.
“Where?”
“Agree to the terms, Lilah,” Kane presses.
“I’m going to want to kill him more than I want to arrest him,” I admit, because I can with Kane. And because it’s true.
“We don’t always get what we want. Agree or this ends now.”
“This time,” I bite out.
“Say it.”
“Jesus, Kane, you are being a prick. I won’t kill him unless he’s trying to kill one or both of us, and I won’t arrest him.” And just to be clear, I repeat, “This time.”
He studies me for two beats and then says, “There’s a chopper waiting for us at the airport, as long as we’re there in the next forty-five minutes. Otherwise it leaves without us.”
“And you think getting on a chopper that Ghost provides for us is safe?”
“Ghost and I share a mutual respect, but we won’t get on that chopper unarmed.”
“You and an assassin have mutual respect?”
“Your enemy’s enemies are your friends, Lilah. There is the Society and the rest of us, and I make damn sure to align myself with people who can be useful if needed.”
“And you’re not going to apologize for that, right?”
“No, Lilah, I won’t. And if you’d stop judging me, we’d both be a hell of a lot happier. Because we both know every time you judge me, you’re judging yourself and us.”
He stands up and heads for the door. I stand up and call after him. “My badge judges us, Kane.”
He turns around and faces me. “You know how to fix that.”
“So it has to be me getting rid of my badge, not you getting rid of the cartel?”
“Start counting bodies. Eventually you’ll decide you can’t live by the rules of that badge. Until then, and after that, I’ll be here. But don’t wait too long, because the Society will still be here, too.” He exits the room.
I follow him, intent on replying, but he’s already on the phone, and it’s clear he’s talking to one of his men and instructing them to follow us when we leave. And now isn’t the time to debate right and wrong, anyway. Right now is about staying alive and catching a killer. Maybe that’s his point, though. That’s what this is always about.
He enters the bedroom, with me on his heels, both of us crossing through it to enter the massive closet that is lined with his clothes, with a table and chair in the center. He reaches under the table and hits the button I know from experience is there. The mirrored back wall immediately parts, displaying a separate room.
He walks inside it, and again, I follow him to a room equally as large and lined with weapons, many of which I am certain are illegal. And yet I’ve always known they were here. I’ve always accepted they exist. He grabs a shoulder holster and buckles it into place before inserting a Glock. I’m about to reach for an ankle holster when he hands me a knife already attached to an ankle strap. “I believe you know how to use this,
” he says.
“Bastard,” I say, accepting it.
“It’s time to stop hiding from it.”
“I’m going to walk away before I punch you.” I turn and head for the door.
“It’s okay to have enjoyed it, Lilah.”
Stunned that he knows what I didn’t think even he knew, I stop walking and grip the doorframe as he adds, “He deserved it.”
I turn to face him, and I don’t even try to deny the truth. “I know. I know he deserved it.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“Have you ever enjoyed killing someone?”
“Yes. Because they deserved it. And you know how much guilt I feel over any of those kills? None. And do you know what I feel when I think of you shoving that knife into that man’s chest? Regret because it was over so fast.”
I stand there for several beats, absorbing those words, trying to justify my crime with another crime. The very thing I’ve just sat in another room and judged him for. I inhale and turn away from him, walking toward the bedroom, but my gaze catches on the wall of clothing to my right. My clothing that I had left here, that he’s kept here. I set the knife on the table, and my gun, badge, and phone follow before I yank off my boots, then pull off the damn sweet pink blouse that feels as fake as my badge right now. I toss it to the floor and quickly change into a black T-shirt and jeans, both of which will fade into darkness if needed. I slip my small hip purse back in place, the inclusion of money, ID, and credit cards one of necessity. I’ve just attached the blade and holster and pulled on a pair of low-heeled boots when my cell phone rings.
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