Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 50820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 254(@200wpm)___ 203(@250wpm)___ 169(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 50820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 254(@200wpm)___ 203(@250wpm)___ 169(@300wpm)
It’s right then that the door to the foyer opens and I know Kane, Kit, and Jay, are all about to claim their place in the room. And they have a place. Roberto does not. “Are we clear?” I repeat, a bite to my words that is nothing compared to my blade.
He holds my stare despite the men at the door. “We’re clear, Lilah,” he states directly.
I study him a beat and believe he understands I mean what I’ve promised. “Good,” I say. “You might want to finish that bottle while you wait for me to talk to my husband. Kane may very well not be as generous where you’re concerned as I was.” With that, I leave him there and walk toward Kane, while Kit and Jay step directly in front of Roberto.
Chapter Eleven
Things guaranteed in life besides taxes and death; stupid people will always exist, they will always irritate me, and you will be stuck with your family, and yes, that means even the bad ones. Unless there’s an apocalypse in which case, many of your “family” members will run for supplies and shut the door in your face. But swinging back to the certainty of dying.
Kane’s father was dead. Now he’s not. Seriously, the highs and lows of that reality for Kane must be a real bitch, especially if he prefers Roberto dead. He’s going to absolutely love me coming at him with a suggestion he let his father live on another day. As he knows this, Kane waits on me beside the foyer door, planted solidly in place, steam and fury all but billowing from his head. He’s ridiculously pissed to the point that I can guarantee he’s vibrating. He’s simply too good at containing rage to allow anyone but me to see it firsthand, unless he so chooses for them to see it while praying to their maker. Kane has a dark side. Somehow mine stores his away, pushes it deep down and leaves no room for anything but what he sees in me, what he needs to control, but never quite can.
I halt in front of my stressed-the-fuck-out husband and he’s not as in control as I thought. He captures my hand and drags me to the other side of the door, back inside the foyer. We’re barely sealed inside when I’m pressed against the door and his hands are planted on either side of me. Kane rarely pulls the dominance thing on me and even when he does, neither of us are fooled into thinking it’s going to last long with me in this relationship.
“What the fuck, Lilah?” he demands.
“I had a plan.”
“We had a plan. For you to go upstairs alone.”
“And then he showed up,” I remind him, “intending to confront you about trying to kill him. For all I knew, he was planning to kill you”
He curses in Spanish. “He’s not going to kill me and you know it. I serve a purpose. He will never relinquish his empire to anyone but me.”
“If it’s life or death, you or him, he’d choose him every time, and on that note, ask me why he’s still alive?”
“You knew I didn’t want to deal with getting a body twenty plus floors down and in the ground? Or the fact that he came here to be seen?”
“Nope to both,” I say. “You’re resourceful. You’d have handled the fallout and body, but this isn’t as bad as it might seem.”
“I don’t even want to know where you’re going with this.” He pushes off the wall, his hands settling on his hips. “Fuck, Lilah.”
“Fuck him, Kane. We can use him. He’s willing to step back into the kingpin role and leave you alone.”
“No. Never. That will never happen.”
“He’s desperate to stay alive and wants the shelter of the cartel. Submit him. Use him to leverage the Society.”
“If he just wanted to stay alive, he wouldn’t have come back. And let’s not forget, the resources he used to try and kill us with the very men I once called loyal to me.”
I do love the way he says “try” as if he assumes their failure. “They can try is right,” I say. “But they won’t. No one wants him as their leader. The ones who have honor want you. The ones who do not, want to kill him and take his place.”
“Which means killing me,” he counters. “My father has set me up to claim the throne, so to speak. They have to kill me to get it even though I don’t fucking want it.”
“But we need it. And while you’re not wrong about the risk to you and him, him being alive and well adds a layer of protection for you.”
“Or Pocher sees a chance to get rid of both of us. We’re fast, easy targets.”
“Nothing about either of you is easy to target and if that were true, they’d have ended you already.”