Page 73 of Once A Crime Lord

“Bye, Lyla.”

Huskin hung up and looked at Gavin with a suspicious sheen to his eyes.

“What are you doing here?” Huskin said abruptly.

Gavin blinked. He couldn’t believe this little shit. He had thirteen weapons on his person, not counting his bare hands, which could do more damage than people believed.

“What?” he asked, daring Huskin to speak to him in that tone again.

“You have her. What the hell do you care about me for?”

The killing rage shattered as Huskin’s words penetrated. Lyla was his, and she wouldn’t leave him for Huskin. He didn’t like loose ends or the fact that Lyla had history with another man, but that couldn’t be helped. The only thing that would alter her love would be to hurt a man who clearly had no chance with her.

Huskin pushed himself away off the door, set his phone on the counter, and slumped on a kitchen stool. “You want to kill me on principle, don’t you?”

Perceptive bastard.

Huskin met his gaze boldly. “I’ve read a lot about you. From what I saw in the hotel room, it must be true.”

He said nothing.

“The media insinuated you’re involved in organized crime. I know you’ve been to jail, and your father was murdered.” Huskin paused for input, but continued when Gavin merely watched him. “When I met Lyla, I couldn’t understand why such a beautiful woman couldn’t look me in the eye.”

He stirred but forced himself to stillness. He had been trained to control his heartbeat to fool lie detectors and could lay in wait for his prey for days. Huskin was clearly suicidal. He’d be damned if he showed Huskin that the bastard hit a nerve.

“I figured she had been abused by her family or,” Huskin inclined his head, “by a boyfriend.”

He leaned forward. Huskin’s tone was cool and clinical, but the insults were anything but.

“It took me months to gain her trust, but she never told me who she was running from. It was you. That’s why she got a new identity and started a new life.”

Gavin rose. If Huskin wanted to die, he would do it up close and personal as he had been fantasizing about. Huskin was calm personified, as if he was fine with meeting his maker right here and now. It was unnatural. Even those who worshipped the devil didn’t want to be in hell with him.

“She’s changed,” Huskin stated and ran his hand over the countertop. “The way she walks and talks... The woman I knew wasn’t capable of telling someone off, much less killing a man.”

Blade had recounted Lyla’s latest kill to him. Knowing that she could handle herself in an emergency allowed him to focus on his shit. He was damn proud of his wife.

“What have you done to her?” Huskin asked.

He advanced slowly. “The world we live in demands that we adapt, so we do.”

“Your world? Meaning the criminal world?”

He stopped a few paces away from Huskin. “You’re better off not knowing.”

They eyed one another in silence. The air pulsed with accusations and charged emotions.

Huskin shrugged. “I guess I should warn you that you’re being recorded.”

He raised a brow. “Why are you warning me?”

“Because you have to tell someone they’re being recorded before the evidence can be used in a court of law.”

Fuck. The nerd pulled a fast one on him.

“I’m glad you didn’t destroy that picture on my nightstand. It’s the only copy I have,” Huskin said.

He was impressed and intrigued despite himself. He was always informed about the latest technology, and whatever Jonathan was using was something he had never heard of. “You knew I was here. Why didn’t you call the cops?”

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