Page 96 of Second First Kiss

Kat looked over to see her sister with one of her granddad’s old boxes, only when she tilted it, instead of being full of rope and fishing hooks, it was filled with stacks of money.

“Where did you get the cash, R. J.?” Kat demanded to know. When he didn’t answer, she said, “Drugs?”

Guilty silence.

“That’s okay, you can tell it to Nolan, who’s on his way here.”

“I plead the Fifth.”

“Does this look like a courtroom, you idiot?” Kat considered hitting him for being a moron, but then thought about Tessa and how scared she must be. Then she thought of Nolan and how she didn’t want to jeopardize his case—or her custody hearing.

At the thought of Nolan, tears began stinging the backs of her eyes. Yes, she was a boss bitch who could save her family, but right then she wanted to be a part of a team, one where she wasn’t the only one fighting for justice. She wanted Nolan. And she was going to tell him as soon as this was all said and done.

“Call 9-1-1,” she said to Tessa, just in case Nolan hadn’t gotten the message from Brynn. “Tell them to send the police.”

Tessa took out her phone and started swiping.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Kat slowly turned around and saw yet another barrel pointed in her direction. She nearly laughed. Since it was the second one of the day, she’d think she’d be used to it, but she wasn’t. Especially since this wasn’t some dumb kid with a bad trigger finger. This was a trained shooter with everything to lose.

“Eli?” R. J. said. “What took you so long?”

And for the first time that day her fear turned into sheer terror. Standing there, more what ifs spun through her mind. What if Tessa died? What if she never got to tell Nolan she loved him? What if she never got to officially adopt Tessa and her sister went into the system? What if she died and the two most important people in her world didn’t know how important they were to her?

All she could do was hope that Nolan got the message and made it there before Eli realized that the only way out of this mess was to kill Kat and her sister.

25

The drive from Eli’s house to Kat’s was the longest fifteen minutes of his life. Going to Eli’s had been a gigantic waste of time. He had already packed up and cleared out. His wife had no idea where he was and hadn’t seen him since the day before. Which meant his gut was right and Eli was behind more than a few cases of missing whiskey and stolen credit card numbers.

He was somehow involved with the drugs. They had a forensic team ripping apart his house now to see if there was any evidence left behind—and there always was. Especially when someone rushed, they always left something damning behind.

But right then all he was thinking about was the text from Tessa that read R. J. was in her backyard with a gun, followed by a call from his sister about Kat needing his help at the house. He only hoped that he arrived in time.

He had six cruisers with him, each one going in sirens off, hoping to get the jump on R. J. The last thing he needed was to spook the kid and have a gun accidentally go off. But when he pulled up, he spotted a familiar car already in the drive.

Eli’s.

Fuck!

With Eli there this thing just went from dangerous to potentially deadly.

Silently, Nolan led Team One around the side of the house, hopping the fence, while Team Two scaled the fence on the opposite side of the property. When he got to the corner of the house, he held up his fist in signal for everyone to hold position. He peeked around the side and fuck indeed. Tessa and Kat stood with their hands in the air, Eli’s weapon pointed directly at them.

“You couldn’t just let it go,” Eli said to Kat. “It was bad enough when this idiot shot me during the raid on our stash that I gave him a heads-up about. I managed to turn that into a cushy spot within the Carmichaels’ company, but you were a problem. I tried to get you to quit. I tried to get you fired, but you’re like a damn cockroach, you kept coming back. And you have Nolan totally conned.”

“I don’t have Nolan conned. But I had you figured as bad news from the start. Game recognizes game. Only my game doesn’t hurt people. Yours does.”

Nolan knew the moment Kat spotted him out of the corner of her eye. He watched the relief overtake her as her body sagged from some of the tension easing. Not enough for anyone else to notice, but he did. He knew her expressions and body movements so well by now he could read her like a book. Which was how he knew she was about to do something stupid.

Instead of standing still, she correctly assumed that if there was a team on one side of the house, there would be a team on the other side, so she pulled Tessa behind her back, and the sudden motion had Eli tightening his hand on his weapon. “I told you to stand still.”

“And have you point that thing at my sister? Not going to happen.”

“Stop or I will shoot you,” he said.

Kat took a step backward, using her body like a shield to protect her sister. “You’re going to shoot anyway. This way my sister isn’t caught up in this mess.”

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