Page 13 of Lady Death

When the kiss ended, he pulled back to stare into her eyes. Ronin wasn’t smiling or teasing, just searching her face, a hint of wonder in the pale depth of his eyes. Suddenly, the night lit up in a roar of fire as the bombs went off with a thunderous explosion.

“Oh, fuck,” he muttered, staring at the giant fireball. “What did you do?”

She tried to pull away from him. “What I had to do. Let me go.”

“No, come on,” he said, gripping her hand. “We need to get out of here.”

She wasn’t going to argue because he was right. Once they were safely away, she could ditch him. Ronin led her to a motorcycle and thrust a helmet into her hands. She looked at it in confusion.

“What’s this?”

“Put it on, Keres, and let’s go.”

“I’m not riding on the back of that thing.”

He gave a sigh of exasperation. “Just get on now and yell at me later.”

Ronin mounted the machine and gave a nod to the area behind him. Rolling her eyes, Keres jammed the brain bucket onto her head and hopped on behind him. With a roar, the engine fired up and a moment later, he accelerated away. She wrapped her arms around him, trying hard not to think about how her legs straddled his hips. It surprised her that she stayed calm. No panic. No anxiety.

She glanced behind them, seeing orange flames reaching high in the sky, and satisfaction settled in her soul.

Chapter Seven

Keres stared at the red brick building and frowned. “Why did you bring me back here? I have to get home.”

Ronin gently took hold of her arm and guided her to the front door. “I want some answers.”

“And I want world peace, but we can’t all get what we want.”

He punched in a code and then placed his thumb on the pad. The door clicked open a second later. She dragged her feet, but he simply picked her up and brought her inside.

“This is cheating,” she complained.

“Not my fault you weigh nothing.”

Unable to do much, she stuck her tongue out at him. He held her as they rode the elevator up, and when it opened on his floor, there was another scanner with another keypad.

“Is this place secretly Fort Knox?”

He ignored that. Once they were inside, he let go of her and backed away, folding his arms across his chest.

“Do you realize what you did tonight?” he demanded.

“I’m fully aware of what happened and my part in it.”

“Davorin has eyes everywhere. It won’t take him long to find out who blew up his production line, and when he does, you’ll be in danger.”

“That’s why Darby and I took precautions. No one knew of our plans. No one saw us leave our apartment.”

“What explosive did you use? And don’t you dare say it’s not my business.”

“C-4.”

“Fucking hell. How’d you get C-4?”

Her chin lifted in defiance. “Darby has connections, and that’s all I’m going to tell you.”

Ronin stalked closer, and when she backed up, hefollowed. He didn’t touch her, didn’t restrain her, and allowed her enough room to escape if she wished. Strangely enough, though, was that she didn’t want to retreat. Her heart pounded and her breath grew shallow, but it wasn’t from panic. It was from something far more dangerous. It was sexual temptation.

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