Page 59 of Ride with the Devil

“A bomb?” Savannah twirls the stiletto. “That’s your plan?”

“Part of it, yeah. See, Winter wants a spectacle. I say we give him a spectacle.”

The plan is deceptively simple. With Devil’s permission, I allowed Kylie to use my phone. She downloaded an app to give her a burner number, then reached out to Winer. After apologizing for missing her deadline, she point-blank offered to go after Devil again and make it explosive.

He grabbed onto the word. He promised to meet her in person, paying her a fraction of her fee if she did exactly that. Make it explosive.

“He wants me to blow up the Devil’s Playground with Devil in it,” admits to the surprise of everyone except for Devil and Tanner.

Probably because Tanner is a genius who either figured it out already, or figured there was a reason he was involved in this discussion.

“Blow up?” echoes Rolls. “No fucking way. Link, you can’t?—”

Kylie holds up both of her hands. Not only is she making it obvious that, unlike everyone else in the room, she isn’t armed, but she catches Rolls’s attention. “No. I talked him down from that. I know it’s the Sinners’s HQ, and I’m a hitwoman, but that’s too much collateral damage, even for me. We settled on something a little more targeted. One of the offices off the back as long as I get video proof that Devil was in there when the bomb goes off. You said you can get me something that’ll do it, right?”

Rolls is the best fixer we have. He can getanything. “Yeah. I’m sure I can.”

“Good. I have until New Year’s to get it done.” She turns toward the pair of beat cops in their uniform. “That’s where you two come in. You’ll take the call. Report that Devil was a casualty. I’ll go and meet with Winter to let him know it’s done. We always do that.” Kylie rolls her eyes. “It’s a power play for him. And when I have him in my sights, I’ll take him down.” She waggles her fingers. “Bye bye, Snowflakes.”

Devil heard the plan earlier. He agreed to let Kylie lay it out in front of the people who would help us pull it off.

I look at them all, trying to get a gauge on what they’re thinking.

As I do, Kylie reminds them all while we’re here. “He hired the Humminbird to take down the head of the Sinners Syndicate.” A nudge to my side, and then, “What’s that saying, ace? And eye for an eye?”

I nod. “That’s right.”

“He wanted Devil,” she says flatly. “To be honest, his plan was to go after Damien next?—”

Savannah’s features sharpen as she sucks in a breath. “Over my dead body.”

Damien strokes the length of her dark hair. “Cara mia,” he murmurs softly.

“Just telling you that Winter… he won’t be deterred from this. Who knows? He might even have hunted up another contractor to get it done while I was… you know… off the grid. It might not be the best shot, but I might be youronlyshot at getting to him.”

“How can we trust you?” asks Cross. He stopped pacing, but unlike the others, he hadn’t put away his gun yet, either. “You tried to kill me and didn’t manage to pull that off. How do we know you’ll turn on your employer?”

Kylie snorts. “Don’t flatter yourself. I did what I did for money. It was another job to me. But this?—”

“Is your way of saving your skin?”

“Cross,” I begin.

Kylie shakes her head royally. “Of course. But, more importantly, this kill would be a favor for someone I care about. I don’t give a shit whatyouthink. There’s only one man in this room I want to prove myself to. And if Luca thinks I can do this, then I can.”

Suddenly, all eyes are on me.

I lay my hand on her shoulder while meeting Devil’s in particular. “I trust her,” I say simply.

“Really?” snaps Cross. “A hired killer you just met?”

“I’ll be retired once this is done.”

Wait.

What?

I look down at Kylie, feeling myself falling for her impish grin all over again. “You are?”

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