Page 46 of Liar & Champion
“Sounds like you’ve been working too hard for the house. Come out here and work for me. You’d look fine in silk shorts. I’m getting too old for this game. Time to bring in some fresh blood.”
“Blood? You mean meat. I don’t like people watching me rip someone apart. They inevitably get in the way.”
“Ah. Well that wouldn’t do. Killing can be an uncomfortable compulsion.”
“I’m not a compulsive killer. I’m a cold-blooded killer. There’s a difference. Fighting isn’t killing, it’s therapy, and sometimes it leads to an unfortunate death, but that’s not its purpose. Then again, it might be slightly novel to fight in front of an audience. Do you like her? Do you think you can last six months with one woman?”
I sighed heavily. He reminded me so much of me sometimes, but there was something seriously wrong with his brain. “It’ll be a good change of pace.” Six months of wanting something so much that I couldn’t have? And then could I really think of other women when I was more transfixed with Sunshine than I’d ever been with anything else? I cleared my throat. “What I really want is to rip Dupre apart. Maybe his family. Maybe his country. I don’t know how far I should take it, but he shot me while I was protecting some debutante with perfect breasts.”
Now I was sounding psychotic, but it was Daniel.
“Sunshine’s now regulated as some debutante with perfect breasts?”
“Christina. I was stuck with her, who is absolutely worthless in a gunfight, but Kitten was brilliant. It was the nicest gunfight I’ve ever been to where I didn’t have a gun. Sorry for getting blood on your upholstery.”
“There was a lot of blood. I actually worried about you. You guys are staying in your house?”
“Providence. There’s more security there, and I still have the games to run. I never go home during the season, anyway. I’m having Tom watch her back. You remember Tom?”
“Yeah. You saved his life and he decided to become your lifelong slave. This is why I don’t save people’s lives. Who can walk around with that kind of baggage?”
“What else are my impressive muscles for other than carrying extra baggage?” I hung up on him. He was getting weirder all the time. I’d left home at eighteen, and at that age he’d made an effort to join my mother’s world. At some point he’d realize that he wanted to live his own life, or maybe not. Maybe my mother was better at manipulating him than me. I was awfully hard to manipulate unless I wanted to be. Still, he seemed to have too much conviction for someone who killed for someone else. Someday he’d probably start his own house. Maybe he’d inherit. Was that his goal? Would he try to take me out as a possible threat for his own ambitions?
I smiled at the thought. No. He knew me better than that. If I wanted my mother’s house, I’d have it. If I wanted Daniel’s death, I’d have that. I always got what I wanted. And now I had Kitten. I must want her an awful lot. Except that I couldn’t take her without hurting her, and that’s the last thing I wanted.
I closed my phone and walked into city hall. It took less than five minutes to get everything settled down. All of a sudden, afterone call to my cousin, no one wanted to prosecute Snowdrop, no one needed to talk about zoning, it was all green lights wherever I wanted to go. Not killing my mother was the hardest thing I always had to do. She was like me, talented at getting her way, more than talented, supernaturally gifted, so not taking her life, living my own instead, was the most difficult and impressive achievement I could make. Killing her, I’d inherit her enemies, her allies, her money, her connections. They wouldn’t just go away. I was still the heir no matter how hard I cut all of that out of my life. But with this deal with Sunshine, I’d finally have the Crocodile out of my life for good.
Once that was taken care of, I walked out of the building only to have Jezebel’s blue Betsy pull up while she shot me a mega-watt smile because I’d taken care of the problem. I’d only had to marry a Kitten to do it. She’d rather die than get married, but death didn’t solve any problems, just left them for someone else to take care of.
I got in the passenger’s seat and turned to study her. “How was China?”
“I ran into an old friend.”
I raised a brow while she pulled into traffic, cutting off a guy in a big truck who laid on the horn. She didn’t seem to notice, but the way she’d pulled her pistol, she definitely did. Jezebel didn’t have friends. “That’s unexpected. Was he a lot of fun?”
She laughed and sounded crazy. I was surrounded by psychopaths. I was comfortable with that, so why did I like being with Sunshine so much? “Oh, Nix, I got three new scars from it. Of course I had fun.”
“As long as your fun didn’t interfere with business.”
She shot me a look over her sunglasses, brown contacts golden like whiskey. “Now you’re being funny. And you? You’re different. Look like a rattler that got his tail stepped on.”
Did I? Maybe I was slightly on edge from staying up all night holding a woman I wanted more than anything but couldn’t have. “I’ve gotten married.”
She slammed on the brakes, but I was expecting that, so I could stay lounging on my side of the car, leg braced for impact. She took off her sunglasses and turned to stare at me with an expression of disbelief. After that, her gaze went to my left hand where I was sporting Kitten’s very charming carved wooden wedding band.
She reached for it, but I pulled away. “Careful, it’s delicate.”
She sputtered while the car behind her honked. She pulled out her gun and shot in the air, and the truck went around her, strangely quiet and careful for some reason. “Nix, you got married? You sold yourself for the company? You big idiot! You poor thing. You must have been heavily medicated to have gotten yourself to the altar. And I was in China so I couldn’t stop you. Nothing’s worth it. Do you want me to help with her? I could kidnap her and put the fear into her. Or torture her.”
I laughed. Her reaction was very sweet for her. “I didn’t know you cared. No, Kitten’s for protecting. This is important to me. Anyone harms her is dead. Anyone breaths on her wrong is in traction. I’m married to her to protect her from a psychopath stalker who shot me.”
“Ah. Blood loss. That explains it. Still, Kitten?” She winced and shook her head. “You married a tourist?”
“No. She’d never be a tourist in Las Vegas. She’s one hundred percent civilian and not interested in this scene. She actually thinks I’m a home health nurse when I’m not working on my self-defense classes.”
She pulled slowly back out into traffic, ignoring the backup she’d caused. “This just gets better and better all the time. You can’t run that kind of lie in Vegas, Nix.” She gestured at the billboard we passed of me and Dirk without shirts.
“I get that. I just want to break it to her gently.”
