Page 37 of The Ghost Assassin

At this point, I’m on the apartment elevator with Kit and Jay still keeping up. “I don’t need a ride. They’re sending one for me.” I glance at Kit. “I’m going to need a couple of men to meet me there.”

“What’s going on?” Jay asks.

“It happened again.” The elevator doors open, and I exit, dial Tic Tac, and thank fuck he answers. “Lilah. We just got back online.”

“Another victim,” I say. “No one is telling me who. Get with Lucas. See what you can find out. Tell Rich to make calls. I’m headed to Washington. I have to pack. I’m flying out. Call me when you know.”

“Does this mean we’re off the hit list?”

“I’ll let you know.” My phone beeps with Jack.

I answer with, “What do you know?”

“It’s the head of the Department of Defense. Are you going there?”

I punch in my door code. “How do you know?”

“Dark Web. Someone on the inside is talking. I’m working on what he and Murphy had in common. Can I come to Washington with you?”

“No, but when I get back, we’re going to talk about how you know too much about what you should not,” I say, and then I hang up, opening the door.

I shed my coat and hurry forward to the next security point. The minute it opens, and I step into the apartment, I find Kane standing there, on the other side, waiting on me, just as I had him the other night.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Kane and I stare at each other, the heat of our argument this morning pulsing between us. “I’m trying to protect you, Lilah.”

“This again? Really? In case you’ve forgotten who you married, I’m pretty capable of protecting myself.”

“You’re human, Lilah, as we both found out that night on the beach, and neither one of us has ever fully gotten over it.”

There’s a flash in my mind of that night, of that man on top of me, of my relief when Kane pulled him off me. I shove the image away and focus on what matters right here, in this moment. Even though it proved wrong, Kane thought the cartel came after me. I was too fucked up at the time to process that as meaning he thought his father came after me.

Instead, it was the Society, with my own father’s support.

But that changed me, made me harder and stronger.

“I’m not the same person I was back then,” I say, thinking of my own vow to never, ever be that weak again. “You know this.”

“You’re my wife, Lilah,” he says, as if that is all the explanation he needs for worrying, his voice raw with emotion as he moves toward me, and me him.

We collide and I never have the chance to tell him I’m five minutes from walking out the door before his mouth is on my mouth. Kane is unleashed right now, hellbent on burying whatever is messing with his head in me. I end up against the wall, his big body pressed to mine, his hands are all over me.

I try to find some semblance of logic. “Kane,” I pant out, my hands on his shoulders. “I have to go to—”

His mouth is back on my mouth, and that’s it. To hell with Washington. That decision leads to the next obvious necessity. My pants are tugged and shoved until they’re gone, and then it’s a matter of seconds before he’s buried inside me. It’s a hard, fast, wicked ride and when it’s over, we’re on the ground, and he hasn’t even taken his jacket off. Kane’s against the wall, I’m on top of him, and he couldn’t be more of a captive audience.

I lean back, hands on his shoulders, and meet his stare. “Rich means nothing to me.”

“I know that, but he doesn’t. He will never accept that, Lilah, and calling him stirred up the fire in him again. And if you’re not careful, he’s going to put his nose in a place it shouldn’t be and end up dead.”

“Because you’re going to kill him?”

“If it’s me and you or him? I’ll do whatever the fuck I have to do. Don’t call him again. You’re going to get him killed.” The look in Kane’s eye when he makes that statement tells me he won’t be sorry if that happens. “Get him out of our lives and do it now. For his own good. And ours.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Kane’s jealousy over Rich is a poison pill that could too easily turn deadly. “I’ll get rid of him,” I promise.

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