Page 76 of The Secrets That Kill

Justice. Revenge. Clean up.

“Still a criminal. You know I kill.” I meet her now blue-gray gaze. “You really want to make me into satin hearts and save my soul?”

“You’re an asshole.”

“That too.”

She picks up her wine and take a sip. “You’re not the police.”

“They can’t do a fucking thing, Ivy. Not here, not with this. If they’re not on Henderson’s payroll already, some of them have probably visited his clubs.”

“Not everyone is into kink.”

“Some of these clubs don’t only work in kink, Ivy.”

Her eyes widened.

“Not prostitution, but so damn close at times, it might as well be. These guys join certain clubs, pick up a girl in there, and fuck her. Some of the women do it for the thrill, to get off, and others are on someone’s payroll.” I slide a clean knife into a slot in the wooden block. “The police can’t fight big money and bigger lawyers. And technically, from what they’d see, no one’s doing anything wrong. They’re all consenting adults.”

Unlike her when she was raped at fifteen. Underage equals rape regardless of intent.

I really am going to kill that fucker for touching her. For daring to think he could have her. What’s one more stain on my already-black soul?

“I know you hate him for what he did to Ruby. Can’t you talk to him?”

I stare at her. “You think I should break bread with fucking Henderson?”

“No, I just meant find a way. The Old Testament is old for a reason.”

“It’s still looked on as a guidebook for a reason.”

“But—”

“I don’t know him. Never met him. He really doesn’t matter. Closing it all down does, getting the information does. I need to stop him from hurting other girls.” I need to play her slightly, manipulate the softness of her soul.

I want her to be so into this she will do anything and everything I ask.

Ivy nods. “So you just decided to track him down?”

Blowing out a breath, I play a card. “Someone else hired me. I’m guessing it’s someone who lost someone. I don’t know the person, and I don’t want to.”

That part is true. I really don’t give a damn who the client is. Someone with power, someone who knows the Knights, of our society. It could also be someone higher up within the Knights, or more specifically, one of them, who knows this client.

There are shadows with shadows in my world. There are those who pull strings, sort offers. Then there are the upper Knights who stay in the dark, holding power. A different sort of power than what I’m interested in.

And if I get this information when I kill Henderson, I get more power. More will be revealed, it always is.

Ivy doesn’t need to know any of this, though.

Normally I don’t give a fuck about who knows who. Politics is the same beast wherever it sits. Out on the world stage or in the underworld of crime. It’s everywhere. And it always makes you a target.

But this job…I know the power it can bring, just with Henderson’s list of names. Footage? Evidence?

That’s worth quadruple its weight.

But it’s unbelievably tricky. And why I need her.

“Ivy, I know you do want to help and it’s a big ask. It’s why I said I’d forgive you for your sins against me.”

---