Love Kills Read online

  “That’s not fucking true.” I shove at him and force him to look at me. “I love you, but—”

  His fingers tangle roughly in my hair, and he yanks my gaze to his. “Do not finish that sentence. Not now. Not ever. There is no but when it comes to us. And I’m going to kiss you right now, because you’re mine, Lilah Love. You do not belong to the fucking Umbrella Man. He does not get to own you. Understand?”

  “He doesn’t fucking own me.”

  “Prove it.”

  “By letting you own me?”

  “By doing what you always do and trying to prove I don’t.” He kisses me, and I start out doing just what he dared me to do. I kiss him back with one intention, proving he doesn’t own me. Proving I own me. I alone fucking own me. I yank at his shirt and slide my hands under it, all the warm heat of his body stealing the chill of the rain and death that has haunted me this night. Things that don’t always bother me, but they do tonight. He’s right. Umbrella Man owned me tonight. It makes me angry, so damn angry, and I take it out on Kane. I shove against him, and he lets me. He backs up.

  “Un-fucking-dress,” I order.

  His eyes darken as he pulls his shirt over his head and tosses it. This man shirtless is a distraction I need. I yank my bag over my head, right along with my badge. My shirt comes next, tossed aside, and by the time my bra is off, I’m against him. I’m kissing him, or he’s kissing me. Whatever. He’s doing what I want. He scoops me up, and he carries me to the living room—he clearly knows I’m in his bed, he doesn’t need to force me there now.

  He sets me down in front of the couch, and we’re undressed faster than I was down that alleyway because I fucking hesitated. I shove him to the couch and start to climb on top of him. When I’m there, in control, his gaze rakes over my body, and his eyes meet mine. His lips curve, and I know I’m doing just what he wants me to do. He didn’t want to own me. He wanted me to own me again. That’s the thing about Kane Mendez. He knows I can’t live in his world if I’m weak. I know I can’t live in my world if I’m weak. But I also know he can’t live in his world weak either. Suddenly, I don’t care about who owns who. I just want to know he’s alive.

  I kiss him, and it’s no longer a power play. I kiss the hell out of him and then whisper, “I need a break.”

  He understands. He always understands. He rolls us, and we’re side by side, him inside me, him stroking hair from my face. “I’m here,” he says. “You’re here. We’re just us right now.”

  “Yes,” I whisper, and for the next, I don’t know how long, that’s all there is. Me and him. Him and me. But when we come back to reality, I’m back in that alleyway hesitating, and I know why it scared me so freaking badly.

  “What happens when you hesitate Kane?”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You can’t afford to hesitate. You are Kane Mendez, and that’s a dangerous name.”

  “The difference between us is that when you were gone, I never intended to let you stay away. I hesitated, I still do, because of you.”

  “You can’t afford to do that.” I try to get up, and he rolls me to my back, leaning over me. “A willingness to die is not power. It’s not control. It’s a source of stupidity.”

  “I disagree.”

  “Do you now?” he challenges. “You think a willingness to die helps you? You die, and Umbrella Man lives. Then he keeps killing. Seems like all he has to do is make you do something stupid to win.”

  He’s right. “Damn you.”

  “Damn him, Lilah. Stop fearing the hesitation. Let it make you stronger. Let it make you smarter. Let it lead to the death of Umbrella Man.”

  The idea that there is more to this story, that Umbrella Man might know about that night, about my rape, starts to fester. And I’m good when I’m angry. The idea that he wants to come at Kane, that he is and has, provokes even more anger. “He wants to be the death of you,” I remind him.

  “And?” he prods, because he’s good at prodding, at knowing when I’ve only given him half of what’s in my head.

  “And,” I say, “I’m going to use that against him.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I’d throw my damn wet and bloody clothes in the trash, but they represent tonight’s memories, and I need every trigger I can come up with that might help me kill or catch Umbrella Man. But I’m not putting them back on. I walk buck naked to the bedroom, right along with Kane, but I detour to grab my bag and badge. They belong in Purgatory. I belong in the shower.

  Fifteen minutes later, we’re both in T-shirts and sweats—yes, Kane Mendez and his arrogant self wears sweats—in the kitchen at the island. I’m filling a bowl with Rice Krispies because there’s just something about the snap, crackle, and pop that does my heart good when I set the box down.

  “Oh shit,” I say, thinking of my bloody clothes again that I almost threw in a trash bag. “How is Jay?”

  Kane grabs the box and continues to fill our bowls. “Good enough to tell me to tell you ‘Fuck you, Lilah Love.’”

  “Well, that’s good,” I say, pouring milk in our bowls, proving, once again, that anyone who says I can’t work well with others is full of shit. The snap and crackle that follows is instant music to my ears and stomach, considering how hungry I am. “Kind of sad how scared he is of you,” I say, sitting at the barstool next to me and taking a big bite of cereal.

  “Anyone protecting you needs to be scared of me,” he says dryly, claiming his stool, too, and digging into his cereal as well. “But they’re usually scared of you.”

  I snort. “Whatever. It was you who freaked him the fuck out. He was a problem tonight. It affected when and how I dealt with that situation.” I take another bite and wave my spoon at him. “Your ability to create fear in others might not always be your best foot forward.”

  “You never thought I was scary.”

  “I always knew you were scary, Kane.” I soften my voice and mumble, “I just liked it a little too much.”

  “Enough to put a ring on your finger.”

  “That I took off,” I counter, that night still there between us, and it’s a barrier, it is, it has been for years, but it’s shrinking.

  “Because I buried a body for you. Some might think that’s romantic.”

  God, I sort of do. “Most would not.”

  “And then there’s you, Lilah Love.” He hesitates and gives me one of his “I still have the ring” looks.

  He still has the ring. I flashback to the crime scene and set my spoon down. “Are we really going there right now?”

  “You know me well enough to know that I wouldn’t go there over Rice Krispies. I’m just stating a fact.”

  My chest punches with the memory of taking off that ring and how damn much it hurt. Kane has always had a way of making me feel more human and less human than anyone else on the planet.

  “I thought of that damn ring while in a dead woman’s apartment tonight with her dead sister in her bed.”

  “He put this one on the bed, not the floor?” he asks, proving, as always, that the facts of my cases phase him not one little bit and that he goes where I go mentally with an ease I expect from no one else.

  “Yes, and that’s a message I haven’t figured out, but we’ll come back to that. The ring—”

  “Yes, the ring. Tell me why you thought of it in that apartment.”

  I turn away from him and take a bite of my cereal, thinking about the question, thinking about the past. “That night,” I glance over at him. “I was really happy you were coming home early. In the past, every time I think of that night, I think of all the bad, I think of the body and the knife and—that exchange we had before I was grabbed—that familiar wonderful way we were—”

  “We’re still those people.”

  I reject that idea. “I’m not the same person.”

  “You’re better.” He turns me to face him. “You are better, Lilah.”

  I turn to face him. “I found out I could kill and like it t
hat night.”

  “No,” he says. “That’s not who you are.”

  “And what if it is?”

  “You know what I think?”

  “Why are you asking? We both know you’re about to tell me.”

  “You use the moment you killed him to block out other parts of the night. It’s easier for you to accept that part of you, to even vilify yourself in a broader way than it is for you to accept what he did to you. You’re not that upset over who and what you are, Lilah. That person makes you damn good at your job. The monster you’ve made yourself is a way to hyperfocus on anything but the rest of that night. That’s what I think.”

  He turns away from me and starts eating. I want to be angry or reject his words, but I can’t. I don’t even try. I’m not sure if they’re right or wrong, but they don’t feel wholly wrong, that’s for sure. And so, I, too, turn away from him, and I start eating. I don’t linger on his opinion, I can’t. There are other words in my mind. The words on that poster, the song lyrics. That damn song was playing in the parking lot. And I didn’t remember it until tonight because he’s right. With all I’ve remembered about that night, there is still a lot I’ve blocked out.

  “I hate when you’re right,” I say.

  He glances over at me. “Because you hate to be wrong.”

  I give him a small smile. “I do hate to be wrong, don’t I?”

  He laughs, a low, deep rumble, before he says, “Understatement of the year.”

  I laugh, too, and this is one of those moments with Kane I missed so damn much. The moments when we find a way to laugh in the middle of hell burning around us. The laughter never lasts though. It can’t last now. I shove aside my bowl, and I stop avoiding the past and where it took me tonight. Where it takes us. “He knows. Umbrella Man knows.”

  Kane shoves aside his bowl, and we rotate our stools to face each other, the massive apartment fading away. There is just me and him again. “He knows what?”

  “About that night.”

  “He can’t know about that night.”

  “And yet, he does, and he wanted me to know that he does. The victim who was in the apartment. She was naked, and he left her clothes in the closet in front of a U2 poster, with the lyrics for ‘With or Without You’ on it. I doubt it was organic to the apartment. He put it there. When I was grabbed, that song was playing on a radio somewhere in the parking lot or the car, I’m not sure which, I was too damn drugged.”

  He doesn’t react. He just sits there, processing, and I know him. I let him. He needs to think. Seconds tick by, and he says, “He can’t know.”

  “What other explanation is there?” I don’t give him time to answer. “I thought about the Society setting all of this up to kill us both, but they wouldn’t leave me a clue to figure out this is them.”

  “If you’re right, and he was there—”

  “I am. He knows.”

  “Then it’s the Society,” he concludes.

  “He wouldn’t warn me if it’s the Society,” I repeat. “But what if it’s a rogue member or someone they hired to help that night? There were multiple people involved in my kidnapping.”

  “Or your first instinct was right,” he says, “and the Society, not some rogue member, really is behind all of this. If they just kill me or you, for that matter, my people come after their people. If one of your cases appears to turn south on us, they avoid that.”

  “But they wouldn’t leave a clue for me to figure it out,” I repeat, more firmly this time.

  “No one kills pigs and people who isn’t really a killer,” he says. “They hired someone capable of those things. Perhaps he sees you as a challenge. He left the clue because he’s enjoying the game and because he thinks he’s smarter than you. He feels like he can taunt you and still win.”

  “Maybe,” I say. “That feels more right than wrong.”

  “It feels a lot right,” he says. “The Society would also have access to Ghost and the money to pay him.”

  We share a look. “The Society,” I say. “I knew we shut them down too easily.”

  “The Society doesn’t want a war. That interferes in their bigger picture.”

  “Which is?” I ask.

  “To quietly rule the world behind the scenes. Pocher’s our problem. You take out Umbrella Man. I’ll deal with Pocher.”

  He’s right. They both need to go down, but something is bothering me. There’s something in my mind, something I need to realize. “I need to go to Purgatory,” I say, ready to seal myself in my thinking spot, the room off our bedroom. I push off the stool and start to walk away.

  Kane catches my arm and looks up at me. “You aren’t going to ask how I’m taking out Pocher?”

  He’s asking me if my badge is going to get in his way. “If Pocher’s behind Umbrella Man, he’s just as responsible for the murders as the killer himself.”

  “He’s behind your father’s political campaign.”

  “My father is a fool asking to end up dead. This isn’t over. Someone else is going to die. I’d prefer it to be Pocher. I want it to be him.”

  And I guess that means I’m done hiding or turning myself into a monster.

  Because I feel no guilt at wishing Pocher dead to a man who will make it happen nor do I mind one little bit that the man who will make it happen shares my bed.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I’m on my headset, on the phone, calling Tic Tac by the time I make it to the bedroom. “I’d yell about the time,” he answers, “but I heard you have three dead bodies tonight. Fuck. Yes, I said it. Fuck. What can I do?”

  I pass through the bedroom and open the double doors to Purgatory, which is basically an office, but it’s my office. It’s my place to lock myself away until I catch this asshole. “What time is it?” I ask, entering the room.

  “Here in LA, it’s midnight, which means it’s three there in New York City.”

  I’m not even sure how long it’s been since this all went down. I sit down in one of the two chairs that decorate Purgatory. There’s a desk and bookshelves, too, but the chair wins. “My ‘I need’ list is about to start,” I say, “so take notes.”

  “Camera feed for every location you can get it. A history of everyone in the building who connects to the victims. I have the names. Murphy got them for me.”

  Murphy clearly had quite the talk with Houston. “You sound remarkably proud of yourself when Murphy told you what to do. I also need—”

  “A profile for all victims. I’m on it all.” Kane walks in, holding some sort of box, and sits down next to me. He opens the lid to display my favorite brownies. God, I really do love this man, like a fat kid loves cake.

  I pick up a brownie and give him a pleased look. “Thank you.”

  “Did you just say ‘thank you’?” Tic Tac asks incredulously.

  “Yes,” I say. “And don’t say I don’t say thank you. If you bring me brownies, I’ll tell you thank you, too, unless they suck.” I take a bite and make a fairly orgasmic sound before adding, “And these do not.”

  Kane smiles and winks, taking a bite of a brownie himself. I almost laugh because the truth is this man does scare the shit out of people, as proven by Jay tonight. And yet, right now, he’s eating a brownie and looks like a little boy in a candy store doing it. “Kane brought you brownies?” Tic Tac asks.

  I frown. “How do you know about Kane?” I demand, giving Kane a side eye and smiling.

  ‘You told me about Kane, Lilah.”

  “He better know about me,” Kane says. “Or I’ll have to kill him.”

  “That’s not funny,” Tic Tac says. “Tell him I said that’s not funny. No! No, don’t tell him I said that. Ask him what I can do for him.”

  “Are you really that much of a suck-up, wuss?” I ask incredulously.

  Clearly, Kane hears because he says, “Tell him I have my own people who I trust,” Kane says, never looking over, half done with his brownie.

  “He can trust me,” Tic Tac argues. “Pl
ease tell him he can trust me. Director Murphy said—”

  “What the hell?” I ask. “Murphy talked with you about Kane?” I glance at Kane who looks amused.

  “He said Kane will help you, so we help Kane.”

  “Kane doesn’t help you or Murphy.”

  “But he helps you.”

  “You need to freaking help me. I need a list of anyone involved in this that might have gone to a U2 concert. And, the year I relocated to LA, did they tour?”

  “What does the year you relocated and U2 have to do with this?”

  “Just find out.” I disconnect, set my phone down and take a bite of the brownie. For several minutes, Kane and I sit there, lost in thoughts, each eating a full two brownies. Actually, I don’t think much at all. The exhaustion of rain, blood, and murder is taking hold.

  “Murphy really thinks he’s hired you through me. Once you kill Pocher, I think I’ll quit. After I kill Umbrella Man, of course. And this time, I’m not going to ask you to bury the body.”

  “You didn’t ask me last time.”

  I pick up my badge from the table between us where I’d placed it earlier, and stare at it before looking at Kane. “I’m talking about killing people, Kane. What the hell is happening to me?” I set the badge back down on the table, between us, where he always says it exists. “I’m not even processing the damn case.” I bury my hands in my hair and lean forward.

  Kane goes down on a knee in front of me. I drop my hands and his settle on my knees. “You watched two people die tonight and dealt with a third in our own building. You faced down two killers: Umbrella Man and Ghost. You saved Jay’s life. You visited the past. Of course you want the people who did this dead. You’re human.” He stands up and takes me with him. “It’s three-thirty in the morning. I know how this works. You need to be at the station early. Let’s sleep for a few hours.”

  “I should try to work the evidence.”

  “You will. After you sleep.”

  “You know if I didn’t live with you—”

  “You’d fall asleep on the floor,” he says. “That’s why Purgatory is right next to our bed.” He leads me forward, and I don’t fight him. He’s right. I’m human. I’m exhausted. The heaviness in my body and the fog of whiskey, brownies, and too much adrenaline is winning.