“That’s what happens when you hire second-best,” Ghost comments dryly, his attention still on me even as he adds, “Obviously Pocher believed you could identify a Blood Assassin and become a problem.”
My fingers curl into my hands by my sides. “Did he tell you why?”
“No.” He offers nothing more.
“I want the assassin.”
His cold-as-ice eyes meet mine. “You mean the man with the scar who you chased at the cemetery?”
“What the hell is he talking about, Lilah?” Kane demands.
“I handled it,” I say, never looking away from Ghost. “Who is he?”
“They call him the Gamer. He likes to taunt his victims, and since he’s taunting you, that must mean that you’re now on the list.”
“And yet you were obviously there, too, watching us.”
“Sizing you up. That’s what I do.”
There is a threat in those words that I welcome. Bring it the fuck on. I will kill him, but right now, I want the man who I can now assume is both Junior and the Gamer. “What’s the Gamer’s real name?”
“Ask a better question,” he says.
“Where do I find him?”
“You can wait for him to come to you, as he clearly will soon, or catch him before his next and last kill. Which, by the way, will not look like one of his kills any more than Suthers did. That’s why Woods died when he did. He was no longer needed.”
“They wanted Suthers to look like he copied his sister,” I say. “But what about this one? Why is it different?”
“Suthers wasn’t planned, but since you were involved in his sister’s case, I assume your return trigged that.”
“Did you kill Laney?”
“I never kill and tell unless I want to, and I don’t.”
That’s close enough to a confession for me, and my fingers itch to pull my gun as he adds, “As for the upcoming hit, he’s a member of law enforcement, and when a member of law enforcement commits suicide, that person can become a fall guy for a slew of shit for years to come.”
Suddenly, I’m not thinking about Laney. Greg. Fuck. He crossed the Society. “Who?” I ask, my throat tightening.
“Eddie Rivera,” he says, stunning me with the unexpected. “A man so close to your father that any dirt that might surface during his campaign can land on him.”
“Is Eddie part of the Society or just a fall guy?” Kane asks.
“He’s one of the Society members creating the coup,” Ghost says, looking at him and then back at me.
“What about his wife?” I ask, looking for confirmation that Alexandra set me up the night of my attack.
“Not on the kill list I was given,” he says. “That’s all I have to offer.”
“Is the coup made up of people who wanted out of the Society?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Then why was Eddie pushing so damn hard to let Woods fall for the murders?” I press.
“Sounds like a man desperate to cover up his coup activity,” Ghost says.
That was the fear I sensed in him. “When will he be killed?” I ask.
“Should have already happened. Could have already happened.”
“How do we get to the Gamer before he kills him?” I ask.
“You don’t. You wait until he comes for Eddie and grab him. Be warned, though: you won’t get to the Society through him. He’ll claim the killings are personal vendettas. He’ll be killed in custody to ensure he doesn’t change his mind and talk. But you close your case, and I get rid of the Gamer.”
The sound of a chopper approaching fills the air. “That will be my ride.” He looks at Kane. “If she takes the Gamer down, I’ll owe you.” He walks around Kane toward the door.
I turn around and call out. “You’ll owe me,” I say. “But I don’t want a favor. I want you next.”
He faces me. “You’re Kane’s woman. There are rules of engagement, and those rules make you off-limits. But if you come at me, you break the rule, not me. And you’ll go down, not me.”
He gives me his back and walks toward the door. My mind conjures an image of Laney tangled in a sheet, her face pale, her life gone, and anger burns inside me. I’m done talking to Ghost. I have what I need, except for justice for Laney. I take a step toward him, and Kane pulls me around to face him. “The Society is the enemy you need to battle right now. Not Ghost. And he’ll be ready for anything you do right now.”
Kane’s right. I’ll wait to go after Ghost. But not for long.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Kane and I lift off in his plush private chopper without warning Eddie that he will be dead soon if he doesn’t protect himself. I don’t have his number or address. My brother wouldn’t answer his phone, and Lucas is apparently drunk and mute. I have to get to Eddie before he dies, because the reality here is that haters are gonna hate, and assholes are just assholes, but as an FBI agent, I protect everyone, including assholes like Eddie. And now that I know about Eddie’s role in overthrowing the Society, I understand the fear I felt in him. I also respect him, despite his asshole-ness that has me thinking of him as a wounded dog protecting himself. And doing so from an organization that I am certain that he involved himself in by trying to impress my manipulative and self-serving father.
For forty-five minutes, we’re in that chopper when I need to be on the ground saving Eddie and catching the Gamer. Instead, unable to call anyone, unable to find out what Kane’s man is doing on the ground, I can’t do anything but sit and wait for our landing. I remind myself that a murder that looks like suicide won’t happen unless Eddie is alone. I’d feel comforted about this, but let’s face it: Who the hell wants to be with that man? If Alexandra does—and I don’t care if she calls him husband—I’d be shocked.
When Kane and I are finally close enough to the ground for my cell phone to work, it doesn’t. I can’t get a signal. Once we’re on the ground, the minute we are in the airport, away from the roar of the chopper, he calls his man. I check my messages, of which there are no damn messages. I listen to Kane’s clipped conversation as we exit the airport and make our way to his Roadster. Kane opens the door for me, a gentlemanly habit that I can’t convince him isn’t necessary no matter how many times I flash my badge or gun. I stop inside the door as he ends the call. “Eddie isn’t at his house. His wife is. But they have yet to find Eddie.”
“Fuck! I have to call my brother again.” I slide into the seat, and Andrew’s line has gone to voice mail again before Kane joins me and shuts the door.
“Nothing?” he asks.
“Nope. Nada. Nothing. I have to text a warning.” I start typing, reading as I do: I have a lead on the assassin and an anonymous tip that Eddie is a target. I have to reach him. I glance at Kane before I hit Send. “Talk me out of it or I’m hitting Send.”
“I have his address,” he says, starting the engine. “We’re going to him now. Someone is watching his house.” He places us in reverse. “And you have no idea how irrational your brother or Eddie are, or how he might react to that kind of message.”
“How far is the house?”
“Twenty minutes.”
“But he’s not there.”
“But his wife will know where he is.”
“Drive there, yes, but have your man go up to the door and try to get Alexandra on the phone.”
“He doesn’t speak English,” he says. “But he can hand the phone to her.”
“Holy hell, Kane. He doesn’t speak English?”
“Every person on my staff has a special skill. His special skill is killing people. A far better skill than English with an assassin involved.”
“I hate that you employ people who have that skill. What is your skill?”
“You know my skills, but I’ll be happy to demonstrate again later tonight. And in the morning.” He hits a number on his phone.
I dial my father. And damn it, his line goes to voice mail as well. “I need Eddie’s number to discuss the case and pote
ntially closing it,” I lie. “It’s urgent. Call me.” I hang up. Kane is speaking in Spanish, with my name thrown into the conversation, before he places the phone on speaker.
“Eduardo is going to the door,” he says. “He’ll be there in about sixty seconds.”
There is movement, footsteps and knocking. The sound of Alexandra calling out, “Who are you?”
A male, highly accented voice shouts, “Call. Lilah. Call. Lilah.”
“Jesus, Kane. She’s not going to open the door with a strange man who can’t even speak English. Drive faster.”
“Lilah!” the man shouts. “Call. Lilah!”
I hear the door open. “Lilah?” she asks. And he says again, “Call.” I assume he shoves the phone at her, since I hear, “Lilah?” And this time it’s Alexandra saying my name into the phone.
“Yes, Alexandra. It’s me. I didn’t have your number. I need to reach Eddie. It’s about the case I’m on. He’ll want to hear what I have to say. It’s urgent.”
“Obviously. He says he had some campaign meeting with your father and brother and a bunch of money men tonight.”
That explains why no one is answering my calls. “Why aren’t you there?”
“I’m not a part of whatever they do,” she says.
“Where are they?”
“I have no idea.”
This is odd. Everything about her and Eddie together is odd. “I need his number. Can you text it to me so I have yours and his?”
“Yes. What’s your number?”
I give it to her.
“Got it,” she says. “I’ll send it when we hang up.”
“I need you to call him and tell him it’s urgent I talk to him in case he doesn’t take my calls. And text him.”
“His phone is off, but I’ll try. Do you want to give me details?”
“No. I don’t.”
I hang up and dial Eddie once I receive Alexandra’s text with his information. His line goes direct to voice mail. “Lucas is nearby,” I say, glancing at Kane. “We have to go to his house. He’ll find Eddie.”
Without one bitchy word, Kane pulls a U-turn. That’s the thing about Kane. He knows when to let things go, except me. And I thought he had. Maybe he did, and I showed back up and shook his world. I don’t like where that leads me, and that path is not one I need to travel now, or perhaps ever.
My phone buzzes with a text message, and I glance down to read: Eddie’s phone is off but I left him a message.
I could say thanks, but I guess it really isn’t my thing, at least not with a woman who might well have set me up to be raped and murdered. And Lord help her and me if I find out that’s true.
Kane and I pull up to Lucas’s house and walk to the door. I ring the bell over and over, and he doesn’t answer. I try the door. It’s unlocked. It’s one of the rare moments that people being stupid works in my favor. Kane and I walk inside and down the hallway and holy shit. There is a naked woman sitting on top of Lucas on the couch. Her gaze lifts to mine and she gasps. “Shit. Shit.” She climbs off Lucas, who makes a pained noise that sounds a bit like a wounded animal.
“Baby, what is happening? We were fucking.” He must see where her attention rests because he twists around.
“Oh fuck. He’s finally going to kill me, isn’t he?”
“Kill you?” The woman gasps and looks at us, pulling a dress over her head. “I didn’t see or hear anything.” She grabs her shoes and runs toward us and past me.
“Ellen!” Lucas shouts, standing up, as naked as the day he was born. The door opens and shuts.
“Jesus, Lucas,” I spout. “Put some fucking clothes on.”
“Do you know how to knock?” he demands. “I was fucking enjoying fucking.”
“I need you to find Eddie Rivera,” I say. “His phone is off and his life is on the line, but clearly you’re too damn sloshed.”
“I told you,” he says. “I can hack the United States government shit-faced.”
“Then do it now,” I say.
“Hack the United States?” he asks, and he’s so damn drunk that he’s serious.
I walk to him and lean on the couch. “Unless you’re trying to impress Kane with the size of your dick, get dressed.”
He grabs his pants. “You’re right. I need to get dressed before he realizes what a threat I really am.”
“Don’t taunt him, Lucas,” I warn, turning to face Kane, my hand flattening on his chest, and while his expression is indiscernible, his eyes glint with the kind of hate that no man wants from Kane Mendez. “He’s drunk.”
“And stupid,” Kane replies, his tone lethal. “More so than he realizes.”
“Because,” I repeat, “he’s drunk.”
“I need his phone number,” Lucas says from behind me. “Or do I have to get that myself, too?”
I rotate to find his drunk ass dressed and sitting on his coffee table facing us, his blond hair standing on end, with a laptop in his hands. “I have it,” I say, fishing my phone from my pocket and reading him the number. He keys it into his laptop and, in about sixty seconds, says, “The last GPS location was the docks down at Halsey’s Marina.” He presses a few more keys and adds, “He owns a boat that is parked at lot 11105 at the west end. Now what?”
Now I need to know if he’s alone, I think. “Where are my brother and father right now?”
He doesn’t ask for those phone numbers, keying them in from memory, and a few seconds later, he says, “Both phones are at your father’s house, so one would assume the people who own them are as well.”
“Oh shit,” I breathe out, turning to face Kane. “Eddie isn’t with them.” I dash for the door, and Kane is immediately by my side.
“You’re welcome!” Lucas shouts as we exit the house, but I can’t think about his drunk attitude and anger now. Right now, I’m thinking about saving the family asshole, or at least one of them. If Eddie isn’t already dead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Kane is on the phone the instant we are outside Lucas’s house. By the time we are inside his Roadster, he’s hanging up. “I have men on the way to the marina now.” He cranks the engine and pulls forward.
“How long will it take them to get there?”
“Twenty minutes longer than it will take us to get there, but we’ll have backup.”
I open my mouth to reply, and a horrible thought hits me. “Oh God.” I face Kane. “What if this was all a setup? What if Ghost was planning to take out my father and brother? And getting us out of town and focused on Eddie when we returned was a diversion to ensure we don’t interfere?” I don’t give him time to reply. “Go to my father’s house.”
“Ghost was not taking out your family,” he says. “He knows what kind of enemy that would make me on your behalf.”
“I have to know they’re okay.”
“I’ll go to your father’s house,” he says. “But that is twenty minutes out of the way. Those minutes may cost you Eddie and the Gamer.”
“This is my father and brother we’re talking about.”
“I know that,” he says. “And I wouldn’t risk what is important to you, ever. Ghost is not coming after you or your family. The Gamer might come for you. We need to get to him before he does.”
“My family—”
“Eddie lives close to your father. My man is still there. He can be to your father’s ten minutes before we can.”
“Send him,” I say. “Send him now.”
Kane punches a button on his phone and then speaks in Spanish to his man before hanging up. “He’s going to walk to the door when he gets there and tell them to call you,” he says. “Just like he did with Alexandra.”
I nod and face forward, immediately dialing my brother, only to get his voice mail. I dial my father with the same result. “Damn it. Fuck. Damn it.”
“Relax.”
“Do not fucking tell me to relax, Kane, or I will slap you again but harder.”
“Ghost is not going after your famil
y, Lilah,” he says. “You know me. My word should mean something to you. And I’m giving you my word that, under the present circumstances, Ghost will not go after your family.”
“Is that a promise, Kane?”
“If you live by the words you speak, you shouldn’t need to fluff it up with the word promise. And I mean the words I speak.”
“You just don’t always speak the words I want to hear.”
“That’s a trap that leads to lies, and if my word isn’t enough for you—”
“Of course it is.”
He glances over at me. “Because you trust me?”
“I trust you,” I say, despite the fact that I know this pulls us closer when I have been trying desperately to keep him at a distance. “You’re the only person I do trust right now.”
“And yet you doubted my efforts to avenge your attack?”
“You kept things from me, Kane. And I know you. I knew what you were doing regardless of the reasons.”
“The Society was the reason. I could not have you chase them and end up dead.”
“So what? I should just forget my attack? I should just get over it because it was them?”
“Do you think, do you really fucking think, that is what I want or will accept? Don’t you think I have a plan to make them pay?”
I press my hand to my temple. “Now is not the time for this.”
“It’s the perfect time for this,” he says. “Anytime we finally talk about this is the right time.”
“Fuck you, Kane.”
“Anytime. Anywhere.”
I look at him, and I’m about to blast him when I realize what he’s doing. “Holy hell. You’re distracting me from freaking out.”
“That doesn’t make this conversation any less important.”
I turn away from him. “Damn opportunist.”
“That’s a mild statement for you, Lilah Love. Where are all the F-words I so love and expect?” His cell phone rings and he answers it, listening for a few beats before hanging up. My phone rings instantly. “That will be your brother,” he says.
I let out a breath and answer the call. “Andrew.”
“What the hell is going on, Lilah? Why do I have a man that I don’t know who doesn’t speak English at my door saying ‘Call Lilah’?”