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)
“He’d have to have known the relationship we had with Murphy.”
“We have no idea who Murphy shared that information with.”
“Homeland Security came to me. They offered to protect us both if we work to take down the Society. They want me to basically spy on them and the FBI.”
“And you said?”
“Mostly fuck you. I don’t know the people involved yet to trust it’s a safe route to travel.”
He arches a brow. “Mostly?”
“I agreed to work Murphy’s case.”
“What happened to conflict of interest?”
“Director Ellis—that’s the Homeland guy—says they don’t trust anyone else. Kane, I’m not so sure this is your father. It could be Pocher.”
“Who my father assures me he’s tight with,” he reminds me.
“That doesn’t mean Pocher didn’t order all of us dead. I have everyone on our team locked down. My brother, Tic Tac, my cousin, all protected to be safe.”
“If this is my father, he wants our resources in place. He won’t kill them off. He’ll try to use them for his own gain.”
“If it’s Pocher or someone else, they might not. We only have two options here anyway. Either we kill your father and you take over, or we don’t kill him and we control him.”
He cuts his gaze skyward and then steps around me and walks toward the living room window. Twice now he’s walked away from me, and that is not how Kane operates. Not how we operate. Not anymore and he’s the one who drives that point home. I rotate and watch him step to his favorite spot overlooking the city, one hand pressed to the glass.
I pour him another drink, sip deeply, and then top it off before I walk to join him. Once I’m there, standing beside him where I belong, where I always belonged, I offer him the glass. He accepts it, downs the content, and then sets the glass on the coffee table.
“Kane—”
As if he was waiting for me to speak, he drags me in front of him, presses me to the window, and then plants his hands on either side of me. “You are the only reason I didn’t become him, Lilah.”
“I don’t believe that, Kane. You were never—”
“I was. There was a reason you ran from me. You knew. But I was never going to stay away. You were going to be mine. There was no question.”
“And now you protect me from me way too often for me to want to admit.”
His hands come down on my arms. “You’re missing the point. I was never going to let his world become your world, Lilah.”
“Or yours.”
“Or mine,” he concedes. “I was never going to be my father’s son, but I can’t escape that destiny. You can.”
Anger spikes hard and fast. “And how exactly do you suggest I do that, Kane? And be careful how you answer. Both of us have to live with the consequences.”
Chapter Fifteen
I’ve stood in front of a killer, waiting for a showdown, and my heart didn’t beat with the intensity it does now as I wait on Kane’s answer.
“If you’re with me—” he starts.
“Don’t say the rest, Kane.” Anger snaps and crackles inside me with some other, darker, painful emotion I don’t want to feel. I duck under his arm, or try to, fully intending to walk away before I completely lose my shit.
Kane cages me between him and the window, leaving me two options: stay where I’m at or fight to get away. “I’m trying to protect you.”
“Fuck you, Kane. I don’t need your protection.”
“You just said—”
“That you keep me from killing everyone who pisses me off, but since you’ve stepped out of that role, I think I’ll kill everyone who pisses me off, starting with your father.”
“Then I’m a kingpin, Lilah. You still aren’t following. You’re an agent with a badge. That would destroy you.”
Anger and something much more vulnerable and raw rips through me, controlling me now. “No, it won’t, because we won’t be together. You solved all my problems, Kane. Now let me go.”
“You’re being a bitch.”
“Fuck you.” I reach up to slap him.
He catches my wrist. “Are we really doing this again?”
“Next is my knee. Let me go.”
His jaw tics. “I should. That’s the problem…I should.”
“Fucking do it, Kane. Walk away. Go be a fucking kingpin if that’s what you believe to be your destiny. Maybe that’s what you want. Maybe you want my badge to get out of the way.”
“You think this is what I want, Lilah? Do you really think that is what I want?” His voice is lower now, but no less intense. A storm in the depth of his dark eyes speaks to emotions he rarely allows to exist.
“You had two choices, Kane. Let me crawl into the black hole you’re drowning in right now or let me go. Let me help you survive it or push me away. You chose the latter.”