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She should kill Jackson immediately and walk away forever.

She knew she wouldn’t, and that made her all the angrier.

Angelie was getting soft. She was no longer the striking cobra, but a tool for Thierry and his Macallan cronies. She wanted this partnership less than Jackson did, she suspected.

Santiago stepped into the living room to make a call, leaving the two women alone at the table.

A few moments later, Jackson looked up. “Why are you staring at me?” she asked warily. “I can’t work under your basilisk glare.”

Angelie laughed. “Thinking. We are an unlikely pair.”

“You said it.” But there was no heat in the recrimination.

“I only want to recover the girl. Then you and I will go our separate ways. I will honor our time working together by not cutting your throat in your sleep and adding another scar to your collection. I hope you will offer me the same promise.”

Jackson set down the papers and highlighter and regarded Angelie thoughtfully. A hand went to the thin white line on her neck, then to the puckered flesh on her temple. Angelie knew both scars were souvenirs of attacks by killers Jackson was tracking. She’d put her life on the line more than once in her quest for justice. Angelie could respect that.

Jackson’s mismatched gray eyes were even more dissimilar in the shadows of the kitchen. An unusual woman. Beautiful, but not in a conventional way. Angelie was neither plain nor stunning, just a woman who could disappear in a crowd. Jackson would never have that advantage. It would make her work with Macallan difficult.

“I quit my job,” Taylor said finally.

Angelie tried not to show her surprise. “Why?”

“I’d already planned to retire. Thierry’s been after me for a while, and the gig seems interesting enough. I like the idea of being proactive, investigating people who come across the radar, stopping their crimes before they happen. But things have been…off, for a while now. I never expected to live in the same world as the kind of evil I’ve come across in the past few years. People have lost themselves. It’s not only the world, which is its own problem. It’s smaller. More personal, more devious. Did you know that in Nashville, some of the bartenders help roofie women? If you slide a hundred dollars to the right person, they will hand over a drink that knocks out a woman for the night. And we’re meant to look the other way. We can’t police anymore. We can’t stop the evil. It’s terrifying to me to see the breadth and depth of the depravity. It has multiplied, morphed, become something so tangible I can’t hope to contain it. Nor am I allowed to, in many cases.”

“I will come back to Nashville and murder them all.”

Jackson’s lips quirked. “Don’t you think I’m tempted? Don’t you think that infuriates me to the point of no return?”

“It doesn’t, not if you don’t act on those emotions.”

“I don’t have that luxury. I simply have to lead by example and try to make people follow. Try to make them choose to do the right thing instead of the wrong one.”

“How could you ever control another human’s decisions?”

“Good question. Deterrence used to work, at least a bit. I could sit down with a troubled kid and put the fear of God into him. Now? I try that? I’ll get sued and lose my job. I can’t stand by and watch it happen, either.” She shrugged. “I had to get out. It’s no longer a space I can function in.”

“And Macallan is?”

“I don’t know. I certainly can’t do what you do and live with myself.”

“You could learn. Trust me.”

“No.” The emphatic tone was tempered by a quick smile. “It’s not who I am. I suspect there is a strength to you that I am missing. You were born in blood. Thierry told me how your parents died. I’m sorry.”

Angelie didn’t respond, and Jackson went on. “I was simply trained to react to the atrocities I saw. No, I couldn’t take a life for money. In defense, yes. I have. Lord knows I probably will again. But I could never hunt someone down and eliminate them.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Angelie asked. She was intrigued, to say the least, but sensed Jackson was leading her somewhere.

“Because I don’t like who I am with you around. The wolves inside me turn dark. So yes, Angelie. I will honor our agreement. I will not slit your throat in your sleep. But when we’re done here, when Game is dead and gone and Carson back home with her mom, I don’t want to see you again. Deal?”

Angelie nodded, surprised by how sharply the big woman’s words sliced.

“Do not worry, Taylor. People like me don’t have many friends.”

“Good.”

They worked in silence then, the only sounds the crackling fire and the whisper of paper.