Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 61054 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 204(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61054 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 204(@300wpm)
Kane eyes Jay, who seems to read the hard stare of my now-husband with exceptional understanding. “I’ll wait by the yellow tape.” He backs out of the picture.
Kane drags me to him all rough and tough, like a little manhandling will do anything but maybe turn me on. It won’t get him his way. That’s just not how I roll. “I’m not firing him.”
My lips curve. “You won’t have to.”
“Damn it, Lilah.”
“I feel you should trademark that statement.”
“Lilah,” he murmurs, softening his voice.
He’s worried, and he’s showing it. I don’t know if this is the new face of commitment and marriage, or if there is more going on than I know, and he didn’t want to tell me on our honeymoon. The dead body waiting on me forces me to save the discovery process until later. “I can—”
“Take care of yourself. I know. As can I, Agent Love-Mendez. My chopper still ended up in the middle of the ocean.”
I go distinctly cold inside, ice sliding down my spine. “Point made. I’ll keep Jay.” I pause for impact. “For now. And they say marriage is all about compromise. Consider me the marriage champion.”
“I’m fairly certain the devil just turned over in his grave.”
“I’m fairly certain you will too if you don’t tell me what’s going on when I get home. I need to go. Dead people, and all.”
He shocks me and cups my head, kissing me hard and fast before he releases me, opens the back of the vehicle, and climbs inside. That’s all the confirmation I need to tell me that yes, there is a problem, a big fucked up, blubbery walrus of a problem.
Chapter Five
I slide my bag over my chest cross-body style and place my weapon inside. Once my badge is around my neck I start walking toward the yellow tape.
“You’re trying to get rid of me,” Jay says, stepping to my side and keeping pace.
“I’m trying to keep you alive, JLo.”
“Did you just call me JLo? Are you saying I’m a diva?”
I give him the side-eye. “I’m saying everything about you is softer than you let Kane see.” I point fingers at my eyes and then at him. “But I see.”
He rubs his stomach. “I’ve been in the gym. I was down from that gunshot wound, Lilah. Rebuilding takes time.”
“Now you’re going to make me shoot you for being stupid, Jay. Soft on the inside, you big dope. And since you don’t seem to be following along without guidance today, that’s not an insult. It means you’re too good for the likes of us.” I stop in front of some short, stocky, beer belly uniform I don’t know and flash my badge. “He’s with me.”
He grabs my badge and looks at it and then at me. “You’re that chick who married the drug lord.”
“You mean the filthy rich CEO of Mendez Enterprises? Yes, I am. Let us pass before I find another cantaloupe for you to swallow.”
“You really are a bitch.”
“Thank you,” I say.
He scowls and creates an opening in the tape barrier large enough for the likes of me and Jay.
“You’re in a real mood,” Jay points out as we head toward the building where the hey hum seems to be hey humming along. We’re on a row street now, townhomes slapped wall to wall. In New York City, this style of living means twelve hundred to fifteen hundred square feet. It means money.
As for Jay’s comment about my mood, he’s not wrong, and it really doesn’t require a reply. I move onto what matters. “What do you know that I don’t know, Jay?”
“The future of my job, apparently.”
“We covered my motivations. What do you know—”
“You’ve been gone for two weeks, Lilah,” he states. “How could I know anything?”
We weave through a couple of uniforms and when we clear their path, I halt and face him. “You and I both know Kane stayed in touch with what was happening back home. He’s Kane. Talk.”
“I know nothing.”
I stare at him.
Hard.
His lips press together. “Kit called and told me it’s your life for mine. That’s all I know. Pretty much the same thing they told me when I was placed on your detail. Nothing has changed. There’s nothing to tell.”
“Only it wasn’t the same, was it?” I challenge.
“There’s a crisp tension in the air, but after Kane’s chopper went down, what do you expect? He’s under attack and while generally his woman would be considered off-limits, you’re pretty good at painting a target on your back, Lilah.”
“Who was responsible for his chopper going down?”
“Everyone thinks it was his uncle.”
“And you? What do you think?”
“I think your mom was killed in a chopper too and that feels like a connection.”
“It was a small plane,” I correct, but my mind is racing down the same path I’ve gone many times since the accident. Both me and Murphy believe Pocher was behind my mother’s crash. For the first time, though, I wonder, could there be a connection here that Kane and I have missed? Like, did Pocher know Kane’s uncle? Could Pocher fear Kane, because Kane isn’t under his control, but his uncle is? I’d call it reaching, but not in my world.