Page 34 of Killer Kiss

She laughed again, but this time it sounded a little bitter. “Yeah, I bet you would. Which is exactly why you’re going to get yourself in trouble.” She shifted, bringing one knee up slightly so we were facing each other. “Listen. I know we got off to a bad start, but it sounds like my sister cared about you. Which means she wouldn’t want you wasting your money on men like Bert Leddith. Don’t give him any money. It won’t end well.”

“Too late. I already did.”

She groaned into her hands before finally glancing up at me again. “You aren’t going to give this up, are you? You’re just going to stick to it like a dog with a bone. Why?”

“Because I care about your sister.”

“Are you in love with her?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

I was. “I love her, but I’m not in love with her. She’s twenty-two, Ophelia. She’s soft and sweet and so fucking good.” I swallowed hard. “She’s everything I’m not.”

“That’s probably why she likes you,” Ophelia mused. “She has a thing for bad boys.”

I hated that. Hated the idea of her with a man like me. Someone who would ruin everything good inside her. “It’s why I’d destroy her. I love her enough to not want to do that to her.”

Ophelia watched me then, quietly. The moment drew out as she studied me, then eventually shook her head. “Well then, Augie Mitchell. What do you know? We actually have something in common.”

10

OPHELIA

I’d been avoiding my mother ever since Riddick and I had posted our proof-of-kill photos on the secure server she ran for the business. The online folders were locked down tight with more layers of software security than most government agencies had, but then she’d gone ahead and sent me two thumbs-up emojis, which was about as high as her praise got. So I knew she’d gotten the files.

Which meant her constant calls were now about something else.

I didn’t need to answer the phone to know it was going to be about one of two things. Riddick. Or she had another job bag for me.

I didn’t have nice things to say about either so I cancelled the call and turned my phone over on the tabletop.

“I saw that.”

I gritted my teeth and looked over my shoulder at the owner of the all-too-familiar voice. Like her phone calls also had conjuring powers, my mother stood there, in the middle of the café with a deep scowl etched across her face.

I turned back around. “Don’t follow me if you don’t want to see me avoiding your calls. We both know I don’t want to talk to you.”

She slid into the chair on the other side of the table and smiled brightly at the waitress. “Nora? Could I order, please?”

An older woman with faded blonde hair and skin so deeply brown I was sure she’d spent most of her life on a beach, came hurrying over, a notepad and pen clutched in her fingers.

“Your usual?” the woman asked.

“Yes, please.”

I cocked my head in my mother’s direction. “I wouldn’t have come here if I’d known this was your place.”

Mom shrugged out of her jacket and twisted to place it on the back of her seat. “If you were around more, maybe you would have known.”

I sighed heavily into the remains of my coffee.

Mom’s finger prodded against my forehead. “Stop frowning like that. Look at all those lines. Haven’t you been getting your Botox injections?”

I didn’t grace her shitty question with an answer. I wasn’t in my twenties anymore. I had some fine lines. Who fucking cared? I never did, until I was around her for too long.

The older woman came back with my mother’s coffee, and Mom took it from her, taking a sip. She immediately handed the mug back.

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