Page 39 of Heathen

"None of those, sir."

Cora's smile spreads her entire face, and I can see that she's highly amused by what's going on.

"Care to explain rather than letting me continue to guess?" Kincaid asks, a little less humor in his tone.

I pull in a deep breath and lay it all out, from the time I met her at the grocery store to the minute I woke up late, leaving out that dream of course.

"You didn't have to marry her to get us to look into this sort of thing," Kincaid responds. "We would've helped either way."

"I didn't see another way," I offer. "She's... stubborn, sir. I didn't know if her mouth would get her into trouble before I could get her out of there."

"I see," Kincaid says. "I'll get Max to work on an annulment, and then we—"

"No," I snap out before I can stop myself. "I mean, I think I need to discuss that with her first."

"Already sounding married," Ace mutters, smiling when Cora smacks at his chest with the back of her hand.

Chapter 16

Kaylee

If there's anything I hate in life, it's being told what to do by someone who has no authority over me. I've experienced it too many times in my life to keep letting others dictate how I react to things. It's how I find myself waiting outside of the hotel for my Uber.

I even had to download the damn app to my phone and enter my banking information, because I've never even been in any sort of ride-share or transportation network before. I can't recall a single time when I hailed a cab, and I don't think the shuttle we took during our eighth-grade trip to Washington DC from the airport to the hotel really counts.

I hate that I feel like I'm disobeying Ellis because what right does the man have to tell me to stay put at the hotel?

None, that's what.

The drive from the hotel to my neighborhood is unfamiliar, the driver taking roads and turns I never take, but it gets me to where I need to be. I pay through the app, leaving what I would consider a nice tip, but also not overdoing it because I've already missed more work than I should've. Paying all of my bills this month is going to be more difficult than normal, and that's going to be rough. I'm already living paycheck to paycheck.

"Thank you," I say before climbing out.

I wait for the car to drive away before I start up the short sidewalk to my tiny front porch.

I doubt my neighbors care that I'm pulling my potted plant toward my door so I can stand on the edge, but thankfully, thehidden key I left on the top of the doorframe for Morgan is still there.

I slide it into the lock and shove the door open.

I've only been gone for three days, but the air inside the living room is hot and thick, my ivy in the corner looking worse for wear since I keep the air conditioner off when I'm not home in order to save on electricity.

Even with it being October, the heat inside the house is so oppressive, that it makes me want to sit on the front porch and order another Uber back to the hotel.

Instead of leaving, I close myself in the house and press my back to the front door. Sweat beads on my forehead and between my breasts, but the heat raising my body temp has nothing on how hot it felt listening to the sounds Ellis was making in his sleep earlier this morning.

I swear I saw him reach under the sheet he's been using to cover up with on the sofa, and I had a major battle between making noise and waking him up and letting him sleep just to see how far things would go.

Ultimately, I slapped my coffee cup down on the table, jolting him awake. It felt like the less creepy thing to do, but I'm woman enough to admit that I felt a tinge of regret in doing so.

I don't know why he's dragging his feet in putting an end to Dima and finding out what happened to Alena, but, at the same time, I wonder just how much I'm going to think of him once we split ways.

My body urges me to climb in his lap every time we're near, but then he says or does something that makes me want to wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze or shake some sense into him.

Unable to tolerate the heat in here much longer, I head to the small kitchen and grab a cup from the dish drainer, filling it with water, before walking over to my poor little ivy. I pourthe water into the soil, knowing I might be too late when it just soaks in and disappears, leaving the topsoil still looking as dry as before.

I jolt when knuckles meet the front door, but it only startles me for a second before I walk over and lift up on the tips of my toes to peer through the peephole.

I fully expect to see Ellis standing there, and I'm already formulating my argument for him tracking my phone or something, but my blood runs cold when I see the goon from the warehouse standing there.

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