by Meghan March
It’s been over two months since I’ve seen Rafe, and that time barely counts because I thought I watched his murder. I’ve recovered from that. Mostly. But I’m still desperate for a hug and dinner at our favorite restaurant. But until they make sure they cut off the head of the snake—or the lizard—that can’t happen.
I haven’t seen Magnolia since she left my apartment, and part of me wonders how she’s handling this, and if she and my brother are making plans to run off together. Even though I’m not sure whether I should trust her, if she’s the woman my brother is in love with, I’m going to welcome her to the family with open arms, regardless of whether she likes it or wants it. That’s just the way I am.
Valentina and I stand there in silence, staring at the sculptures and each lost in our own thoughts, when the front window of the gallery shatters with a crash.
“Oh my God!” Trinity, Valentina’s assistant, screams as all three of us instinctively hit the floor.
Tires squeal in the street and we brace, our arms over our heads, waiting for a wash of drive-by bullets to hit.
But they don’t come, and the roar of the engine fades away to be replaced by regular street noise.
Valentina tenses beside me. “I have to get to my phone. I have to call Rix.”
Her words sound as if they’re fueled by the same adrenaline dump that just hit my system. I’m poised and ready to fight for my life, if necessary. I don’t trust that the threat is gone just because a car drove away. I have to call Kane.
That’s when it hits me—this has to be connected to me. I brought this on the gallery. I put Valentina and Trinity in danger. My stomach twists into a knot, and now I think I really am going to vomit.
“Val? Is it safe? What do we do?” Trinity asks with urgency coating the fear in her voice.
Valentina stares at something on the floor, and my gaze snaps to it.
It looks like . . . a pipe?
What the hell?
“Trinity, go to the back room. Stay there until I tell you to come out,” Valentina says with the tone of authority. “I’m calling Rix. Someone is going to pay for this.”
I open my mouth to tell her it could be because of me, but snap it shut. I can’t tell her anything.
I have to cancel the showing. It’s too selfish to take the chance. I should have never agreed. Lagarto has to know that either Rafe or someone who knew him is alive and hunting him, because his entire organization has been wiped out.
Then logic kicks in. But . . . if it was a human trafficker seeking revenge, wouldn’t they have taken me or killed us all to prove a point? He wouldn’t have just broken a window with a pipe. Right?
Then I remember the man at the scrap yard . . .
This is connected to me. I know it.
Now, what the hell am I going to do about it?
An hour later, behind a boarded-up window, Rix looks from me to Valentina and back at the security footage from the cameras he had installed for situations just like this.
I texted Kane, and he responded a few minutes ago that he’s on his way. I’m hoping we have this figured out before he gets here, because whoever threatened my safety will definitely fall into the needs killing category, and I don’t know how to balance that situation while I’m standing next to a cop.
“Do you recognize this prick?” he asks as Valentina leans closer over his shoulder.
I watch as he replays the tape again, studying the thin man who hurls the thick metal pipe through the window.
“He looks familiar,” I say. “I’ve seen him before.” I squint at the screen, ninety-nine percent certain it’s the guy from the scrap yard, but I don’t want to say until Kane gives me the all-clear.
“Or you’ve seen him a hundred times since we’ve replayed the video over and over,” Trinity says.
Valentina claps her hands. “Wait. I know who he is. Shit. I know. That little douchebag . . . How could I forget him?”
“Who?” Rix asks. “Because the last time someone put a brick through your window . . .”
“We all know that was my fault, so let’s not dwell,” Trinity says.
Valentina reaches out to squeeze the girl’s fingers. “Don’t worry about that. Because these two things aren’t related at all. That,” she points at the screen, “is Gregor Standish’s assistant. Protégé. Or whatever the hell you call the man’s hanger-on.”
As soon as she says the name Gregor Standish, my stomach drops to my feet. Fuck. I knew it.
“Are you sure?” I ask, my gaze locked on Valentina.
“Positive. He came in a few months ago complaining that we didn’t have any Standish pieces in the gallery, and that made us subpar and without vision. Then he tried to get me to take a sculpture on consignment, and was adamant that I price it at two hundred thousand and not a penny less. I told him to take a hike.”
“Why in the fuck would he be throwing a pipe through your window now?” Rix asks. “Wait, Standish . . . isn’t he the artist who killed himself?”
I bite my lip because I know there’s no way in hell Standish’s death was a suicide.
Valentina answers his question. “Yes. His pieces were ugly-as-hell modern art. He was supposed to have one auctioned off at the Seven Sinners benefit . . .” She looks at me. “But yours went up in its place.”
Heat burns my face and my throat until there’s barely room to breathe. As much as I want to tell her what I know and even more, what I suspect, we’re standing in front of a cop, and I’m not stupid. I won’t say a damn thing that implicates Mount.
Rix’s gaze locks on me. “You know something about this?”
I attempt to wipe any guilt from my expression, but it’s nearly impossible. I’ve carried plenty of guilt about the situation along with me for months. The knowledge has been eating at me that if Standish’s artwork hadn’t been accidentally switched with mine, he’d still be alive . . . and I wouldn’t have this dream of an opportunity.
“Temperance?” Rix prompts me when the silence stretches awkwardly long.
I have to say something. Anything. Because with each moment I stall, I sound guiltier and guiltier, even though my only crime is withholding my suspicions—that Mount had him killed for his smear campaign against the distillery, which upset Keira. And I know for certain that Mount would kill men for less than what Standish did.
“Standish was pissed that my sculpture was accidentally auctioned off under his name, like Valentina said,” I tell him.
“And?” Rix asks.
“And nothing. I never spoke to him again after we argued about it. He died shortly after.”
Rix’s pale, silvery eyes bore into me like he’s digging for the truth and can see directly inside my brain and soul. “Have you had any other issues that could be related to this?”
My brain reels. So much shit has happened lately in my life that I don’t know what is connected to what, but I can’t tell him anything without potentially jeopardizing Rafe or Kane.
I hate keeping secrets, but I have no choice. I keep my answers short and pointed. “I didn’t know he had an assistant or protégé.”
“Could he be out for revenge?” Trinity asks. “I mean . . . if your stuff got auctioned off in his place and he was upset enough to kill himself, that seems like a motive for revenge. At least, on TV it would be.”
Rix studies me longer. “Do you know anything else about Standish’s suicide? Anything that would make this guy want revenge?”
From the knowledge in his silver gaze, he knows that Keira is connected to Mount, and there’s a chance that suicide could have been murder. Even so, there’s no way in hell I’m going to confirm that, because even I don’t know for sure. And I don’t want to.
Valentina elbows him. “Babe, instead of interrogating my newest featured artist, why don’t you go out and arrest the guy who threw a pipe through my window and interrogate him. He’s the criminal here.”
Rix rises from the desk and looks from me to Valentina. “If there�
��s anything you’re not telling me, I need to know now, Temperance.”
I shake my head and tell myself I’m not lying because there’s literally nothing I know about Standish’s assistant. I didn’t even know he existed until this moment, so I’m not lying when I reply.
“I don’t know anything about this guy.” I glance at the shattered glass. “Except that if he’s after me, then I’m going to be footing the bill for the new window as an apology.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Valentina says, her tone decisive. “That’s what insurance is for, anyway. Although, with two days to go before the showing . . .”
Rix leans down and presses a kiss to her forehead. “Don’t worry, duchess. I’ve already got someone coming to replace it tomorrow. I had the measurements from last time it happened. The show will go on.”
31
Kane
No one threatens my woman and lives to tell about it.
I feel that to the very depths of whatever is left of my soul. And that’s why it’s ten times harder to watch Temperance walk into a police station to face this motherfucker when I want to handle things my way.
I should have dug deeper into Standish’s life than his ex-wives. I didn’t realize he had an assistant who was fucking crazy. I could have prevented this, and I didn’t. I feel like I’ve failed her.
My vigilance will know no bounds from here on out.
I wanted to take care of the situation, but Temperance argued that the police needed to sort it out. It took everything I had not to ignore her request. What sealed it?
When she said, “I don’t want you to carry around this burden because of me, Kane. I want to brighten your life, not add to the shadows.”
She meant the burden on my conscience for another death. I’ve never had someone care about the effects of my job on me or my soul before, but Temperance continues to amaze me.
She loves me.
I still can’t believe it sometimes.
Instead of shaking her for being stubborn, I held her tight and thanked God again for sending her into my path.
I don’t deserve her. But I’m not giving her up.
Temperance Ransom is mine, and she’s staying mine until there’s not a single beat of my heart pounding in my chest.
I watch as her brown ponytail disappears inside the front door of the precinct. Wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap, I sink lower in the driver’s seat of a blacked-out Cadillac CTS-V across the street, impatient and aggravated as I wait.
This isn’t the life I want for us—her having to face things alone because I’m a fucking dead man. Literally. I should be beside her, and I could have been, but as Ken Sax. Not as Kane Savage.
I punch the steering wheel before I pull my shit together and turn up the volume on the transmitter she agreed to carry inside. If I can’t be there in person, I’m going to hear every damn word that’s spoken. If anyone says a single cross word to her, dead man or not, I’ll find a way to get her out of there and so far away that the cops will never find her.
After the pipe went through the gallery window, my digging finally connected the dots. I recognized the assistant’s photo. He’s the asshole I saw sitting at the bar of Seven Sinners during the speed-dating event, and had to have been the one to pull the fire alarm.
I should have put it together earlier. That’s what I do. But I didn’t this time because we had too many other things to worry about—namely, keeping Temperance safe while I faked two deaths and then kept that from her while Ransom and I systematically removed every person who presented a threat to their safety.
Or almost every person. That Lagarto motherfucker and Giles are still walking the earth, and that’s not okay with me.
Giles is only breathing because I still can’t link him to any of the trafficking. All I have to go on is Magnolia’s word, and that I don’t trust. I’ve been watching Giles for years, and his shit is tight. I don’t know what he’s doing, but whoever he hired to clean up his tracks is better than I am. But that doesn’t mean they won’t miss something eventually. I could take him out on Magnolia’s word, but my finger doesn’t pull a trigger without feeling completely certain, and I’m not sure yet that she doesn’t have a hidden agenda—like getting him out of her way at the club.
And then there’s Lagarto. About to move another shipment, and well versed at staying off the radar. In the only photo I’ve been able to find of him, he’s wearing a big floppy hat and baggy clothes, which is completely fucking useless. Information about him is the only thing standing between us and ending this, and we need more of it so we can all move on with our lives.
Except . . . Ransom and I don’t have lives anymore. We’re both legally dead, and while that’s never bothered me before, now it does.
It never occurred to me that someday I’d want a woman to take my name. My name. Not an alias. Hell, I never thought I’d find a woman I’d want for more than a night.
Temperance changed everything.
My earpiece crackles to life, interrupting that train of thought.
“Ms. Ransom, Mrs. Hendrix. Thank you for coming in today. We know this isn’t how you wanted to spend your afternoon, and I promise we’ll be brief.”
“Whatever you need, Mac. You know that.”
Valentina’s tone and her use of the cop’s nickname tells me she’s met the person interviewing them before, and it makes me feel marginally better that they’re not working with a stranger. Then again, with her husband being a cop, there’s no way in hell he would have let that happen either. I don’t know much about Beauregard “Rix” Hendrix, but he doesn’t seem like a complete asshole.
“I just want to ask you a few questions about your relationship with Mr. Riddel.”
“Who?” Temperance asks.
“The man who’s being held on charges of destruction of property and vandalism. This man.”
I can picture the cop flashing a mug shot at her.
“I’ve never met him before,” Temperance says.
“But he seems to know you, Ms. Ransom,” the detective replies.
“How?” Temperance’s question holds a cautious tone.
“He says that you stole his boss’s career and caused his death, which, on the books is a suicide. However, Mr. Riddel states emphatically that Mr. Standish’s death was the result of a conspiracy to commit murder.”
Rix’s voice cuts in. “Mac, are you fucking serious with this?”
I’m so fucking glad he didn’t send our women into questioning by themselves. Apparently, he doesn’t give a shit about breaking police protocol, which I respect.
“I bring my woman and her girl in for you to ask some questions about a broken fucking window, and you want to talk about some crazy-ass theories of the man who did it? He’s screwing with you.” Rix’s reply is barely contained rage, and Mac doesn’t have a chance to respond before Rix starts again. “He wants to make sure you’re so busy chasing your own goddamn tail that you don’t even look at him for what he did. Valentina is pressing charges. End of story.”
“Rix, you know I have to—”
“Not listen to petty criminals looking for some reason why life got them down and they aren’t responsible for what they did. Now, take their statements, and let us all get on with our fucking day.”
I decide right then that I’m sending Valentina’s cop husband a box of doughnuts tomorrow.
Mac relents. “Fine. We have a witness who saw him throw the pipe. She should be in to identify him already. If she confirms it was him, everyone can go about their day.”
They chat a few minutes longer before someone knocks on the door.
“Mac, I got something you’re gonna want to see,” a new voice says.
“What?” Mac asks.
“Suspect went off during the lineup. Got real interesting.”
“Send the footage to my laptop.”
“You should already have it.”
“Thanks.” I hear some noise that must be Mac fucking around
with his computer. “I’ll just watch this and come back.”
“Bullshit, Mac. Just play it,” Rix says.
“Fine. Not my fault if it scars them for life.”
Rix scoffs. “They’re made of tough stuff.”
I have to agree with him, but I’m tense as I wait to hear what’s coming next.
First, it’s unintelligible yelling. Then, “You bitch! You killed him! I know you’re behind that glass! I’m not going to rest until I ruin the career that you stole! Next time, I won’t just put nails in your tire or take off your mirror, I’ll take you out!”
My hand is on the Cadillac’s door handle before he finishes yelling. I’m ready to rush the station and get Temperance out of there.
“That’s definitely him. Please tell me you’re going to nail his balls to the wall for threatening her,” I hear Valentina say, confidence in her tone that slows my knee-jerk reaction.
“Damn fucking right. You’re going to arrest him. Charge him with every fucking thing you can. That piece of shit is nuts, and he’s not getting anywhere near my wife or her girl ever again. You hear me, Mac?”
That comes from Rix, and I release the door handle and take a deep breath.
“Ms. Ransom, can you confirm that Mr. Riddel put nails in your tire and damaged your mirror?”
“Yes. Absolutely. I didn’t know it was him, but those incidents did happen. Roadside assistance took pictures of the tire. They’re in my email. I can also get you pictures of the mirror.”
“Good. Let’s get your statements on each of those incidents, and you can send over the pictures when you get home. This asshole has a history of property damage, and now statements in a police station about escalating his behavior. I don’t expect the judge is going to like that.”
I don’t breathe easy until Temperance is out of that building and back within my reach.