“Damn it, you sound like Kane.”
He arches a brow. I shake my head and start walking. Maybe getting rid of him isn’t the right answer. “You’re going to get properly trained. You’re not, or you wouldn’t have been shot twice. Do you know how many times I could have been shot and wasn’t? Because I know how to not get shot. You and Gabriel both need more training. Don’t respond. This isn’t a question.”
We arrive at the coffee shop which is really more of a diner, as are so many places in New York City, and he grabs the door for me. I don’t mind manners. But better he has them than me. I enter with Jay stepping to my side. There are clusters of red and white tables in the center of the room, and booths with the same left and right. The sign reads “Seat yourself, not someone else” and I glance at Jay. “The latter sounds so much more fun if I get to pick the person I seat.”
His lips quirk. “I think I’d enjoy watching.”
“Lilah.”
Andrew is standing beside a rear booth that allows him a view of the front door, a good choice that shows the skill of a seasoned law enforcement officer. Or just a brother trying to hunt down his sister. He’s also wearing a suit, which drives home the issue at hand—whatever meeting he had with Dad. Damn it to hell, he’s going to work for him. I know he’s going to work for him.
“Hang back,” I instruct Jay. “Order the café mocha and fries. You’ll thank me.”
He grimaces as if the combination is horrible. Maybe there isn’t hope for him after all. I close the space between me and Andrew. I stop in front of Andrew and just stare up at him and him down at me.
Andrew is a good-looking man, with blond hair and blue eyes, and always in tip-top shape, but there are changes in him that others might not notice, but I do. His face is pale, eyes a bit hollow, torment in their depths. He’s affected by burying that body. It’s eating away at him, acid burning through his belly and chest, and for a moment, I remember that feeling.
I remember waking up the day after I was raped and realizing Kane had buried a body for me. I remember the guilt. I remember the anger. I remember the pain that drove me to hate myself, fear myself, and fear Kane. We both sit down. It’s a thing with me and Andrew. We always seemed to read each other growing up. We always seemed to get each other. Until I don’t think he got me at all, until I became something I didn’t recognize and didn’t want him to recognize as me, either.
But he sees me now.
I think that’s the problem. And it’s a big one.
One that could get him, me, and Kane in some deep, alligator-infested waters and I’m not sure even I’m enough of a bitch to save us if this goes that swampy.
Chapter Ten
I’ve never been the touchy-feely person who offers delicate words and pep talks that say little and mean less. And I’m not going to try now with Andrew either, or he’d call my bullshit and raise me a handful of crap. The waiter approaches our table and I wave him off. Curly fries and hot joes are not to be wasted on drama.
The waiter swooshes on past us and I lean in closer to Andrew, wasting no time getting right to the nitty-gritty, dirty reality of the world we share, him and me, and have since the day I was born.
“Liam Neeson once famously said, ‘I have a very special set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you.’ Well, I, too, have a very special set of skills, Andrew, and I, too, am a nightmare for those who come after those I love. He tried to kill Kane. He killed a lot of other people. He would have killed more. He is not worthy of the hell that is living inside you right now.”
He arches a brow. “Liam Neeson? Are you serious right now, Lilah?”
“You love that movie. And why is that, Andrew? Tell me that. Why does that movie connect with you? Because you’ve told me before. Tell me now and don’t you dare lie about the reason.”
“Because he loved his family,” he begrudgingly replies, “and he would do anything for them.”
“Even kill,” I say.
“Yes,” he concedes. “Even kill.”
“Not trying to point out the obvious here, but you seem to need me to get that elementary with you and spell things out like you’re a child. We’re a family, you and me. And you did what Liam Neeson would have done for me. Whatever I needed you to do. And I did what he would have done for his daughter. He came after Kane. He tried to kill him. He would have come for you, too, so I killed him. And yes, I went a little overboard—”