by Meghan March
Her gaze cuts to mine. “I don’t want to explain this to you. You don’t need to know the things I know. You don’t need to carry the burden.”
“But if I’m in danger—”
“That’s the only reason I’m telling you this. Figured I’d take it to my grave. Here’s hoping confession is good for the soul.”
I wait in silence because it sounds like she needs a moment to gather her thoughts before she begins.
“It’s my fault. All of it.” Magnolia’s face creases with pain. “I never should’ve gotten him involved. I shouldn’t have passed the information about the job on to Rafe. Or, at least, I should’ve asked more questions so he knew what he was dealing with.”
“Wait, you got him the job with the . . .” I pitch my voice lower like I’m about to say something awful, which I suppose I am. “Human traffickers?”
A flash of pain lights up Magnolia’s expression. “People come to me when they need things, or when they need things done. I use my connections and make things happen. They didn’t tell me what the job was, just asked if I knew someone who could take it.”
Knowing what little I do about her backstory, I can’t imagine Magnolia would ever do such a thing. She’d been on the streets since she was a teenager, and selling other women . . . that’s just wrong.
“But—”
She waves a hand to silence me. “I know what you’re going to say. But Magnolia Maison sells women all the time, so what makes this different?”
I nod.
“Because all my girls make a choice. They know what they’re doing. I give them alternatives before they take their first john. If they can’t stomach doing it, I help them find something else they can do to earn money that doesn’t involve spreading their legs.”
“How do you have any working girls at all then?” That’s a mystery to me. I thought they were all women acting out of desperation.
“You’re a smart girl. What would you do if you could make a grand a night, easy, doing one job, or spend all day working to make a hundred? Maybe two hundred if you’re lucky? My girls get paid top dollar. You do the math. If you need money and don’t have many other options, it doesn’t take a genius to see the upside of the proposition.” She pauses. “You see where I’m going with this? Plus, I’m under Mount’s protection, which means my girls are too. People know he won’t stand for girls getting smacked around. It’s a fucking death warrant.”
I see the picture she’s painting, and it’s different from the one I expected. But that’s not the point of this whole conversation.
“So I’m supposed to believe that you wouldn’t traffic women.”
“Never.”
“And yet my brother got involved in a human-trafficking ring.”
“It was a favor for an important man. But I didn’t peg him for moving human cargo.”
“Another human trafficker? Did my brother know about this guy?” I ask, immediately wondering if there’s someone still out there that Kane and Rafe don’t know about.
Magnolia shrugs.
“Who?”
This question doesn’t come from me, but from Kane as he steps out of my bedroom and into the living room.
Every drop of blood drains from Magnolia’s face. When she unfreezes, she crosses herself.
“You’re a fucking ghost. I know you’re a ghost.” Her head whips to me. “What the fuck is going on, Temperance? Why you got a fucking ghost in your apartment who killed your fucking brother?”
She tenses on the couch, looking ready to spring into action at any moment—either attacking or running out the door—but I’m stunned by her questions.
How could she possibly know that Kane took the shot to kill Rafe and then was shot and killed? Magnolia wasn’t there. The news never reported on the incident at all. Mount covered it up.
So how can she know?
“No ghost, Mags. I’m real, and I want a name. Now.” Kane’s tone brooks no argument, but Magnolia doesn’t seem to hear the threat as clearly as I do.
She vaults off the couch, and before I realize what she’s doing, she has a small pistol in her hand, pointed at Kane.
“No!” I spring out of my seat and throw myself in front of him, blocking his body with mine, giving Magnolia my back. I tense, waiting for a bullet to rip through me, but it doesn’t come.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Kane grips my shoulders and glares down at me. His blue eyes are as dark as thunderclouds, and his lips are pressed into a hard line.
“I can’t let her—”
He grips my shoulders and peels me off the front of his body, exposing himself once more to Magnolia. “You never put yourself between me and a bullet. Never. My life isn’t worth even a second of yours.”
“Someone better tell me what’s going on right the fuck now.” Magnolia’s voice shakes, and I glance at her.
The gun is still in her hand, and it trembles in front of her as her finger caresses the trigger.
“How the hell did you hear about what happened at the airport?” Kane asks her.
“Doesn’t fucking matter, does it? It especially won’t matter when I make sure you’re really dead instead of just faking it.”
“Rafe isn’t really dead either.” I blurt out the truth, because there’s nothing I won’t do to get the barrel of that gun away from Kane. “He’s alive. I talked to him yesterday. It was a setup.”
The barrel wavers. “I don’t believe you. But I do believe Saxon had no problem collecting the rest of the fee for his hit after he pretended to take a bullet.”
“Put the gun down, Mags,” Kane says. “There were no real bullets.”
All his order does is make her level the pistol on him again.
“You better prove it right the fuck now before I pull this trigger and end you where you stand. I don’t miss.”
I try another tack. “You think he wouldn’t already be dead if Rafe wasn’t alive? I would’ve killed him myself. In fact, I tried before he told me Rafe wasn’t dead.”
Magnolia’s gaze darts from me to Kane and back again.
“You want to talk to Ransom?” Kane asks. “We’ll get him on the phone for you right now, but you gotta put the gun down first.”
“You think I’m stupid? This gun doesn’t leave my hand until I see his face. And don’t think for a second if I pull the trigger, I’m gonna miss. I never do.”
She jerks her head at me.
“You get his phone. I don’t trust him further than I can see him. And I sure don’t trust him not to pull a gun on me for pointing one at you. I recognize the look on his face. I’ve seen it on Mount’s before he orders someone dead for saying something wrong to Ke-Ke.”
I meet Kane’s gaze, and when he nods, I cross to the bedroom and get his phone. “I need your pass code.”
“Your fingerprint works.”
My chin jerks in his direction. “What? How is that possible?”
“You really want to discuss that right now?”
I shake my head and press my thumb to the reader. Sure enough, it opens. “We’re going to talk about how the hell you made that work later.”
“Call your brother before I disarm Magnolia and she accidentally shoots one of us, or a stray bullet hits Harriet.”
My gaze goes back to Magnolia, and while she’s moved her finger off the trigger, she hasn’t lowered the gun.
I nod and ask Kane for the number. He repeats it from memory. Before I can tap to engage the call, Magnolia interrupts.
“No. I want to see his face. I’m not trusting you don’t have some actor set up, ready to impersonate him.”
Her request actually doesn’t sound crazy. I probably should have asked for the same, but it didn’t even occur to me.
“Then you need a different number, and I don’t know if he’ll answer it.”
“You better hope he does.”
Magnolia’s voice is sharp as I dial the new number and then tap the button for a video call. Before it connects, I le
vel a stare on her. “Don’t threaten us. Remember what you just told me? You got everyone into this. Now they’re just cleaning up the mess.”
Rafe answers on the third ring. “The fuck you want? You need to see my beautiful face, Saxon?”
I realize he can’t see anything but the ceiling right now, so I tilt the phone so my face is in the camera’s view.
“Tempe?”
As soon as she hears my brother say my name, Magnolia releases a wild cry.
“Oh my God!” She stumbles toward me, and Kane snatches the pistol from her hand before she makes it two steps. “Let go of me, asshole.”
Rafe’s brow scrunches. “Magnolia? What the hell is going on?”
“She—”
Before I can explain, Magnolia snatches the phone from my grip and stares at my brother as tears stream down her face.
“I thought you were dead. Oh sweet fucking Jesus, I thought you were dead.”
I’ve never seen a composed woman fall apart so quickly. Magnolia loves my brother. That’s for damn sure.
I’m not sure what to think of that, but it doesn’t matter right now because she’s spilling everything she knows to Rafe on the phone.
“I didn’t mean to get you involved. I didn’t know he was running people. This is all my fault. I’m so fucking sorry, baby. Please come home to me.”
Kane cuts in. “Magnolia says there’s another trafficker. She came to your sister worried shit was going to spill over onto her. Now she won’t tell us the name because she wanted to kill me for killing you.”
“Who told you about Saxon pulling the trigger, Mags?” my brother asks, and like us, I think he’s wondering if Magnolia knows more than she’s saying.
“That’s not important, baby. What’s important is that you come back to me.”
My brother’s voice softens, and for the first time, I can picture them being together. “Sweetheart, I can’t come home to you until all these motherfuckers are dead, so you gotta tell us everything you know. Who else is involved?”
I figure Magnolia would spill everything when Rafe asked her, but strangely, she gets quiet for a few seconds. “If you don’t get him before he finds out I talked, I’m dead. I’m not giving you a name until you promise that you’ll get him first.”
“You know I wouldn’t let anything happen to you,” Rafe tells her.
She narrows her gaze as she stares into the phone. “I thought you were murdered by this asshole for his payday! I grieved you. I’m still wearing black. You know I can keep my mouth shut, and you could’ve told me the plan. I wouldn’t have said shit to anyone. You could’ve trusted me.”
I can’t help but glance at Kane, because Magnolia sounds a lot like I did when I learned the truth. I wonder if my brother’s answer will be the same as Kane’s was.
“You know I couldn’t tell you. I kept you out of the loop for a good reason. I don’t want anything blowing back on you. Besides, Saxon and Mount said no way. They were the ones who didn’t trust you. Not me.”
Well, shit.
Magnolia’s venomous glare lands on Kane. “I should’ve shot you when I had the chance.”
“Give us a name, Mags, and you and your man can run off into the sunset together as soon as we kill these bastards.”
Her lips purse and her whiskey-colored gaze touches every single person taking part in the conversation before she finally gives up the information.
“Giles. Lewis Giles is the one you need to kill.”
26
Kane
I fucking knew it.
The only good Giles is a dead Giles. I never had a valid reason to take him out before, but I do now.
“Tell me everything. How far up does this go?”
Giles is a state senator now, so there’s not a chance in hell that he’s running this alone. If he’s trafficking women, then he’s passing them along to other buyers who could be in the government too.
“I don’t know,” Magnolia says, her voice throaty, almost hoarse. “I thought he was running drugs for someone, not people.”
“Shit. We got politicians involved?” Ransom asks. “Fucking A. Now we’re going to have to take out half the government.”
“Please tell me this isn’t really happening,” Temperance says before looking to me.
These are things I wish I could shield her from, but I can’t. Also, it’s time to get a handle on the Magnolia situation. I snatch the phone from her hand and ignore her shout of protest. Keeping an arm outstretched, I block her flailing hands from taking it back.
“You take out your target; I’ll dig into Giles and find out who else is connected. I won’t take him out until we know exactly how deep this goes. Don’t change your objective, Ransom. Got it?”
Ransom nods on the screen. “Got it.”
“Find that motherfucker you need to kill and get back here. Apparently, some people give a shit that you’re alive.”
Temperance laughs, but there’s a hysterical edge to it, and Magnolia shouts in agreement, still trying to steal the phone back. I end the call and tuck it in my pocket before stopping her.
“You satisfied? He’s alive. He’s working to end this. No contact with him until then. Understand me?”
Magnolia practically snarls. “High-handed motherfucker. Always pegged you as the dominant type, but never as the straight-up asshole.” Her gaze flicks to Temperance. “Hope you can handle that.”
Temperance steps closer to me and I slide an arm around her waist, pulling her into my side.
“I can handle anything he throws at me.”
All I can hope is that she’s speaking the truth, because things are going to get uglier before they’re done.
27
Temperance
Magnolia sweeps out of my apartment with the same dramatic flair as when she came in. As soon as the door shuts behind her, I turn to Kane.
“Do you trust her?”
“As far as I can see her.”
His answer doesn’t fill me with relief.
“So, what do we do now?”
Kane pulls me in front of him and leans down to press a kiss to my forehead. “We go back to the warehouse.”
“We’re going to come up with a plan and go nail Giles’s ass?”
Kane presses another kiss to my head. “You make art. I dig again for anything I can find on Giles that ties him to this. I have a few contacts on the dark web who might know something. He’s been a public figure most of his life, so there are plenty of people who hate him and are willing to sell him out. I just have to find the one with the right information.”
I don’t like the sound of that, but at least he’ll be safe in the bat cave and not out setting up a sniper’s nest to take out Giles. Yet.
“And then?”
“You let me worry about that.”
“Kane . . .” My tone holds a note of warning. “I won’t live in the dark. You have to share with me so I don’t get blindsided again. That was our deal.”
He looks away before he cups my cheek. “I’ll tell you as soon as I figure out what the hell is actually going on. Magnolia could have lied. She always has her own agenda.” He pauses. “Don’t misunderstand me, though. There’s no way in hell you’re going to be part of anything that goes down. And if it happens quick, you might not know until after it’s done.”
I don’t like the sound of that. “But—”
“Sometimes it happens that way, and there’s not shit I can do. But I’ll make you one promise—I’m coming home to you no matter what. I’ve got a reason to live, and nothing will keep me from the life we’re gonna have together. Can you live with that?”
“As long as you come home to me.”
Two hours later, I’ve hammered out some of my tension on scrap metal, and I’ve had flashes of inspiration for several of the dozen pieces Valentina has asked me to create. The one I’m working on now is a much larger version of the piece I made for Harriet. I’m going to have to give her first dibs on it; ot
herwise, she’s going to be devastated. Hopefully, Valentina understands.
As I put my hammer back in its place, it knocks against metal pushed back to the corner of the workbench, between the wall and the toolbox.
The old army jeep I made for Kane. I pick it up and turn it in my hands.
I made it the day my entire world felt like it was shredding apart at the seams. Now, I can tell myself it was blowing up so I could rebuild it bigger and better.
Before, Kane was still mostly a mystery. Even though I was falling for him, I didn’t realize how much it was possible to love him.
Knowing that he orchestrated this whole plan with my brother, while it gutted me, showed me that there truly isn’t anything he wouldn’t do for me. He’s put himself on the line over and over—for me.
I’ve forgiven him, but I certainly haven’t given him the thanks he deserves. I wrap the jeep in my discarded sweatshirt, tuck it under my arm, and head for the elevator. Once inside, I realize I still have no idea how to get to the second floor.
I hit the Call button, and wouldn’t you know . . . Kane answers.
“You stuck, princess?”
“No. But I think it’s time I see the heart of the bat cave.”
He chuckles on the other end of the speaker. “Okay.”
The elevator starts moving a moment later, and instead of going to the third floor like it normally would, it stops on the second. When the doors open, Kane is there to move the gate and let me out.
I search the space behind him, but it’s a simple, dark gray hallway.
“This is it? I was expecting bats and maybe a waterfall.”
One of the corners of his mouth tugs up at my joke. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
He leads me down the hall and stops at the first door before opening it. “This is the gym.”
He pulls the door open, and I peek inside.
“Holy shit.” My mouth drops open as I survey the massive space filled with equipment. “I was expecting a Bowflex, and you’ve got an LA Fitness.”
Kane laughs, and I soak up the sound.