Page 25 of Burning Justice

Kane eased past the neighbor’s patio and ducked behind a hot tub with a good view of the backyard. She was really shutting him out? “We’re gonna need to talk about this.”

“No, we don’t—Oh, hi. Didn’t see you there.” She giggled.

Kane frowned. He’d never heard her make that sound.

“Just talking to myself. Don’t mind me.”

The back door opened, and she stepped onto the lit patio. Strings of fairy lights had been hung in the trusses of a covered porch. A chef at the far side worked the outdoor kitchen, and Kane had to admit the scent of citrus and chicken smelled amazing.

A man followed her onto the porch, taking her arm.

“Let go of me.”

He was close enough to her that Kane heard him say, “Don’t think I will. You’re going to explain why you’re wandering all over Mr. Howards’s house.”

“Well I never. Treating me like this.” She morphed into some kind of high-society snooty…

Kane thought it was cute. As long as he wasn’t the one who had to deal with that drama. He switched his comms to the channel where he’d be able to hear both sets of earpieces. “Saxon, anything from Raine?”

“Not yet.”

The guy manhandling Sanchez dragged her around the side of the house, behind a little storage shed that was nicer than the house he’d grown up in. He shoved her up against the wall behind it.

Kane had to get out from this spot before someone saw him creeping around and called the local sheriff. And he had no intention of leaving her with this guy.

“Who are you, and why are you at this party?”

Sanchez cowered a little, but not much. She wasn’t so good at acting helpless. Not really in her nature. “None of your business…and because I go wherever I want.”

Kane raced between the houses.

As he approached the guy’s back, she whipped out one hand and jabbed it into the guy’s throat. He choked and started to go down.

Kane caught him and laid the guy behind the shed, where no one would easily see him. Tucked away in the shadows.

“I didn’t ask for an assist.”

He got his first close-up look at her outfit and nearly swallowed his tongue. Tall heels. A skintight black dress. Every curve he’d been ignoring for two years seemed to shimmer in the light. And she’d done something to her hair that left it wavy and loose.

Sanchez set a hand on her hip. “Like what you see?”

Before he could rewire even two brain cells, she spoke again.

“Looking for some of this?” She waved at the guy she’d throat punched.

He fought back the raging fire and said, “We should get Raine and get out of here.”

“You’re the one who needs to leave, Kane.”

She might as well have tossed a bucket of ice water over his head. “I’m your backup, remember?”

“There’s a chopper coming. You shouldn’t be here when it gets here.” She motioned to that dress again. “I’m the one who blends in.”

She didn’t seem to understand how much attention she drew. The woman was a knockout, as Grandpa would say.

“Raine is off comms. We need to go. You’ve already been discovered, and any other security will be looking for you…and this guy.” He wanted to take her arm, but it would probably feel too much like that guy manhandling her. “Can we go? Please?”

She looked over his shoulder, up into the sky.

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