Page 65 of Half Dead

“She’s a fool for love, so it fits,” Ray said.

“I can’t believe Kane let you say yes.” Gun’s temper seemed to flare with each word.

“He didn’tlet medo anything. I’m my own person. And for the record, he wasn’t happy about it.”

“I should hope not,” Camryn said, without looking up as she typed on her phone. “I don’t understand why Lucifer is letting you come home between trials, though. Aren’t you more likely to fail if you don’t get any rest?”

“Maybe he has a warped sense of fairness,” Gun suggested.

“Don’t give him any credit,” I said. “It’s because it cranks up the suffering factor.” And Lucifer was dedicated to making Kane suffer in every way possible.

Cam glanced up from her phone. “I don’t get it. How is giving you recovery time with Kane the cause of any suffering?”

“Think about it. Let’s say I finish the first trial successfully. I come home to Kane. Do we spend our time together enjoying a blissful reunion? Not a chance. We spend it worrying about the next trial, whether this will be the lasttime we see each other as Kane wipes the blood off my face and arguing about whether I made the right call. He’s sowing the seeds of discontent.”

Understanding sparked in Camryn’s eyes. “So even if Lucifer loses, he wins.”

Gun sucked the air between his teeth. “That demon is an evil genius. I should take notes.”

I glared at him. “Please don’t.”

“I’m beginning to regret my advice to rip off his mask,” Camryn said. “He’s not just a player. He’s a game master.”

“It was the right call,” I insisted. “We cut to the chase more quickly and deprived him of the entertainment value he would’ve gotten from leading me on at One Oak.”

Cam checked her phone again and smiled.

Gun tipped back his head and groaned. “Oh gods. She’s smiling at the phone. I see another year of therapy in her future.”

Camryn set the phone on the table facedown. “It’s only Leo.”

Ray looked at me. “Leo as in Officer Leo?”

I nodded. “What’s up with Leo?”

Cam toyed with a few strands of her hair. “He wants to grab a coffee when his schedule calms down.”

“Coffee?” Gun scoffed. “He’s friend-zoning you.”

Camryn glared at him. “He is not. Coffee is a perfectly acceptable first date. Recommended, in fact.”

“I don’t think dating someone in law enforcement is very sensible for an assassin,” Nana Pratt said. “What happens when he finds out the truth?”

That was Camryn’s dilemma to resolve. I had my own more imminent and deadly problems to tackle.

“The good news is that Leo’s job should get easier now that Lucifer has redirected his energy to the trials,” I said. “No more Supay inflicting madness to frame me.”

“Are you sure about that?” Cam asked. “Because Leo said he had to help restrain another guy just this morning.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me if Lucifer didn’t call off his mad dog,” I admitted.

Camryn frowned at the phone. “Gun and I could try to take him out, but we’d have to lure him outside the town border.” Assassins Guild rules dictated that the members couldn’t kill within the borders of Fairhaven.

“How would we do that? Kidnap him and drive him into the mountains?” Gun’s eyes lit up as he spoke. “Yes, that’s an excellent plan.” He patted my hand. “You focus on the trials. Leave David Jordan to us.”

“Except he isn’t David Jordan. Supay is a god.”

Gun shrugged. “I’d prefer to think of him as an evil spirit with friends in high places.”

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