Page 23 of The Ghost Assassin

One I barely recognized as me. One I might not recognize in Kane.

For my part, I ran from Kane when I was really running from other things.

Then I started to kill people.

If this was anyone but his father, I’d say this was about to be rainbows and unicorns because Kane doesn’t fuck around and take it, and I love that about him. But this is his father and the cartel. The complexity both situationally and emotionally, is real.

I start walking, hot on his heels, with both of our mothers on my mind for obvious reasons. They were the good that created some form of understandable humanity in their husbands. Once they were gone—no…once they were murdered—nothing was left of the men we knew as fathers but greed and hunger for money and power. I remember a quote my mom read to me once by author and inventor, O. A. Battista, who my mother almost starred in a movie about. “The best inheritance a parent can give his children is a few minutes of his time each day.” The man clearly didn’t know my father or Kane’s, proven by the fact that Battista also said, “One of the most lasting pleasures you can experience is the feeling that comes over you when you genuinely forgive an enemy—whether he knows it or not.”

Battista lived a sheltered life.

I follow Kane down the stairs, eyeing my watch that reads almost three in the morning. I catch up to him as he finishes pouring a glass of whiskey. He downs the contents and grips the edge of the bar. I step to his side, my hand settling on his arm, aware that he needs an outlet and I’m it. “We should go back to bed.”

He sets the glass down and rotates to face me. “Fucking won’t solve this.”

“Fucking solves a lot.”

“We just tried that, Lilah. It didn’t work. What part of my father being alive is a problem you can’t seem to understand?”

“We’ll kill him, Kane.”

“Then I’m cartel leader, and the boss you had to protect us both is now dead. And don’t think for a moment that my father was above killing him to up my exposure, should I decide to take over the cartel.”

“He’d have to have known the relationship we had with Murphy.”

“We have no idea who Murphy shared that information with.”

“Homeland Security came to me. They offered to protect us both if we work to take down the Society. They want me to basically spy on them and the FBI.”

“And you said?”

“Mostly fuck you. I don’t know the people involved yet to trust it’s a safe route to travel.”

He arches a brow. “Mostly?”

“I agreed to work Murphy’s case.”

“What happened to conflict of interest?”

“Director Ellis—that’s the Homeland guy—says they don’t trust anyone else. Kane, I’m not so sure this is your father. It could be Pocher.”

“Who my father assures me he’s tight with,” he reminds me.

“That doesn’t mean Pocher didn’t order all of us dead. I have everyone on our team locked down. My brother, Tic Tac, my cousin, all protected to be safe.”

“If this is my father, he wants our resources in place. He won’t kill them off. He’ll try to use them for his own gain.”

“If it’s Pocher or someone else, they might not. We only have two options here anyway. Either we kill your father and you take over, or we don’t kill him and we control him.”

He cuts his gaze skyward and then steps around me and walks toward the living room window. Twice now he’s walked away from me, and that is not how Kane operates. Not how we operate. Not anymore and he’s the one who drives that point home. I rotate and watch him step to his favorite spot overlooking the city, one hand pressed to the glass.

I pour him another drink, sip deeply, and then top it off before I walk to join him. Once I’m there, standing beside him where I belong, where I always belonged, I offer him the glass. He accepts it, downs the content, and then sets the glass on the coffee table.

“Kane—”

As if he was waiting for me to speak, he drags me in front of him, presses me to the window, and then plants his hands on either side of me. “You are the only reason I didn’t become him, Lilah.”

“I don’t believe that, Kane. You were never—”

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