Page 12 of Hunt

“So, it’s not Petra, is it?” Ronan stated flatly, yet it was only yesterday that I would consider Ronan to be the most handsome man in the entire universe. Today, not so much. He was turning uglier by the second.

“No, it’s Riley. Riley Laws,” I told him, even though he already knew.

He nodded his chestnut head toward Rourke while wearing that smirk and caught his blue eyes running over my legs for a second before he focused back on the man behind me. “Your stalker and I had met sometime ago, yet we didn’t know we had you in common.”

“How did you meet?” I played dumb as I cast my eye across his desk, searching for a piece of information to pass on to Judith.

Yeah, like, they were going to have their cooked, tax-evaded books out on display. Or was she hoping I’d found a bloody dagger with a victim’s DNA on it? Let’s face it, they’d never kill anyone with their own hands; they’d order someone else to do it to distance themselves from the crime.

I heard Gunner exhale as if he was becoming irritated by my insistent questions, and I wanted to turn to look at him, but I had it wrong. I always thought Rourke the Stalker Freak was the most dangerous person, but no, the real danger was the man in front of me.

Ronan flicked his finger at me. “I’d like to introduce you to Gunner. " His eyes narrowed and fixed onto my face as if waiting for a reaction. “Kaiser.” He lowered his tone to a raspy snarl when he said ‘Kaiser,’ which made my stomach turn. The last time I heard him speak to me like that was when he wouldn’t let me cum in the nature pool.

I forced myself to frown in confusion. “O-kay,” I faltered a couple of beats before I was brave enough to glance at the face of my foster brother. The boy whose life I ruined the moment I allowed the Larsson police to convince me that lying on oath was my only option. To keep up the game, I added, “I knew you didn’t have burn scars. I knew you were lying about your face covered in scars.”

When I looked at his rugged and beautiful face, I saw a single scar running his left eyebrow, the scar that I had forgotten about. The memory surfaced of how he got that scar, and it was the usual careless childhood games: throwing himself recklessly about, showing off in front of me. But I had to shove that memory back into the dark spaces of my mind.

I held back an escaped sigh and turned back to address Ronan. “So,” I swallowed over my nerves, “So this is Rourke?”

“Yep,” Gunner breathed hotly. It annoyed him that my reaction was so benign, but I couldn’t look at him or I’d crumble into a million pieces.

“And he’s a Kaiser?” I asked Ronan. Even though I couldn’t ask Gunner, my heart was racing so much, and it was easier to talk about him rather than to him.

“Yep,” Ronan answered, rubbing his jaw with the back of his knuckles while those eyes flicked to the sinister man behind me before landing back on me again. “The son of Lars Kaiser. Have you heard of him?”

A shiver traveled down my spine at the sound of my foster father’s name being spelled out to me as if they were expecting a reaction. Did this mean that they knew who I was? No. That didn’t make sense.

“Related to my boss?” I pointed to the wall, and Ronan narrowed his eyes. It was a deliberate swerve away from the topic of Lars Kaiser because I didn’t have the strength to go down that rabbit hole, or else I’d find myself tripping up on my own words.

Gunner slid closely past me as his intense body heat draped over my shivering skin, but I held my composure. It was apparent he was attempting to intimidate me by raking those eyes over my trembling body while his solid frame was pumped up in suppressed rage.

It should have been Riley Laws who was angry because he lied to her…me. Riley should have demanded an explanation for why he lied to her and wore that stupid mask.

“Yeah,” Gunner sighed, irritated. “I’m Mikael’s nephew.”

I licked my bottom lip and summoned the courage to look at him briefly before dropping my gaze to the desk. Pain pounded through my chest and stomach, and I tightly clenched my fists until an ache claimed my shoulders. My feet naturally shuffled backward, closer to the door, because it was so hellishly intense there that I could barely breathe.

I have replayed scenes like this thousands of times over the past few years, but I thought this day would never come because I was in a safety net organized by professional and experienced people I trusted.

“Why didn’t you say that in the beginning?” I asked Gunner without looking at him. It was impossible to look at him properly, so I focused on Ronan, which fueled Gunner’s need for my attention. “You lied to me.”

Now, it’s his turn to fabricate a story to convince me. “I didn’t want you to know who I was,” he replied, and I caught him in my peripheral vision, folding his arms across his chest.

“Why? When we met, I wasn’t working here,” I questioned curiously to see what excuse he’d come up with. “I don’t see how it matters who you are.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” he argued as the sound of a lighter being struck urged me to look at his big, warm hands that had touched me so many times.

“No,” I replied bluntly, feeling pressure to return to the kitchen.

“I’m a Kaiser,” he said, raising his voice, which startled me. “We carry a reputation.”

“Like what? Are you crooked?” I challenged him to see how he’d react. “Do you commit illegal acts on the side?” I had to be careful because pushing them away would make it harder to find dirt on them.

“No,” he replied, and of course he was lying. The Kaisers were rampant criminals but were good at hiding their tracks and never got their hands dirty. The only crime they didn’t commit was the death of Lars Kaiser, my foster father.

“I have to go,” I sighed, turning away from my enemies, expecting them to urge me to stay. But I realized this was a test to see if I’d react to Gunner’s unmasking, which would mark me as a guilty liar.

Nerves snaked down my spine as I turned my back on two of the most dangerous men in Gothenburg, which was unwise, but they left me with no choice.

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