Page 53 of Assassin's Heart
“I won’t leave Brooke behind.” Not right now, when her equilibrium was fragile and her fear could rear its ugly head at any moment. She had to be with me. If that meant traveling, we’d roll with it.
But Remi seemed to have anticipated that as well. “I think we might have a way to take her with us and keep her safe at the same time,” he said. Then to his brothers, “What about bringing in our new friends? They could be strong allies if we let them.”
“Do assassins have allies?” I asked, only partly teasing.
“Not in the business,” Eli said with a wink. My heart lifted the tiniest bit.
“But we can go outside the business,” Remi added. “It’s actually safer that way.”
“Who would you trust?” Remi wouldn’t trust just anyone, not with Brooke’s safety at risk; I truly believed that. And then the pieces began to assemble themselves into a logical answer. “King?”
“His team is the best JCL has.” Levi shifted in his seat, the move clueing me in that he wasn’t as comfortable with outsiders as Remi was. Being the oldest, the one responsible for his family when they’d been on the streets, that didn’t surprise me. “As much as an outside firm is never my first choice, we can’t both handle the mob and keep Brooke safe. Knowing what I know about King’s team, I do believe they can protect her.”
Levi didn’t give his trust easily. I nodded my agreement.
“I’ll get on the arrangements,” Eli said, rising from his seat.
I watched Remi’s brothers as they crossed the room to the bank of computers we’d used the first time Remi had brought me down here, unsure how I felt. Relieved, like someone had taken the burden from my shoulders, broken it into pieces, and scattered it among the four of us so I didn’t have to carry it all on my own. And yet still anxious because we didn’t know what would happen when we got to DC. I turned to Remi—
And realized he was watching me, the same mix of emotions in his gaze. And a message:We’ll figure it out.
I wasn’t alone.
Tears pricked the backs of my eyes.
“Let’s go upstairs, leave these two to the details,” he said. The words had a rough undertone that slid beneath my anxiety and touched a different part of me, a part that had been put on the back burner since we’d gotten out of bed yesterday. A part that surged to the fore with a suddenness that shocked me.
“Upstairs.” I squeezed my thighs together, only then realizing that Remi’s fingers had curled along my inner thigh, so close to the spot that needed him the most. “All right.”
His grin was wicked enough to curl my toes. “Upstairs,lev sheli.”
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Chapter Twenty-Two
Remi —
Lev sheli.My heart. That’s what Leah was. That and so much more.
I kept her hand in mine as we walked toward the elevator. Abby and Brooke were on the ground floor, and we’d join them there...in a little bit. First, I needed time with Leah, needed to wipe that lost, scared look away, the one I’d caught far too often staring back at me. I needed to take her away, just for a little bit, give her some semblance of peace—if she’d let me.
The doors opened, then closed behind us. I eyed Leah as I pushed the button for the third floor.
“Brooke was with us last night,” I said, watching her eyes widen when she noticed our destination. “She’ll be with us on this trip.” Along with my brothers and the four members of King’s team if we could get them.
Leah frowned. “Does that bother you?”
“Hell no, it doesn’t bother me.” That was part of being a parent, right? Having a kid limit the possibility of sex was a given; that didn’t make your sex life nonexistent. “It just means we have to take advantage of an opportunity when it presents itself.”
I pushed the emergency stop button, bringing the elevator to a halt between floors.
“Oh.”
That one little syllable and my dick went hard as a rock. I grinned. “Oh.”
I didn’t have a lot of room to maneuver, so it took me about two seconds to stalk her across the tiny elevator car. Long enough for Leah’s eyes to go dark, drowsy. To get that sexed-up look I’d had to mostly imagine in the dark the other night. Now there was no hiding the slightest nuance of her expression. There would be no hiding the smallest centimeter of her body either.
I reached for the top button on her shirt. Her skin began to flush and her breath quickened as I flicked the buttons open one by one, revealing inch after inch of creamy, silken skin that made my mouth water with anticipation. The last one undone, I moved to the closure of her jeans, then the zipper. And then I grasped the waist and pulled, going to my knees to remove her pants and give me the access I was dying for.
