I start walking. Jay attempts to follow. I lift a finger at him. “Stay. I do not need your help to get upstairs and kill my husband. I can do it on my own.” Husband. The word flows readily, if not uncomfortably, from my lips, but it’s not unpleasant. It’s surreal.
Jay’s eyes widen. “Please don’t.”
I don’t even justify that comment with a reply. He knows damn well I’m not literally going to kill Kane. Kane may just feel like I did when this is over, whatever “this” ends up becoming. Confrontation is in the air, and I enter the building with every intention of letting it rule what comes next for me and Kane.
One might think a long elevator ride up would cool me down, but it does nothing but irritate me. This building is expensive. Why the fuck does the elevator creep upward, slow as hell, like a bad horror movie escape scene? Thank you, Jack. Now I have bad horror movies on my mind. I’m reminded of the clown I once tackled. I don’t like clowns. If one of the murders is some kind of It movie scene, I might have to find this guy and kill him myself.
For now, Kane.
I reach the front door and work my way through the insane security system Kane has in place, that while irritating now, is actually rather comforting. I don’t like pools of blood. I really don’t like pools of blood when they originate from my sleeping body. I clear the first door and enter the chamber that is the entryway to the main apartment. Another process begins and ends before I’m finally in the apartment, the scent of Kane’s cologne—spicy and ridiculously expensive—clinging to the air.
I enter the foyer and cut right to the kitchen to my left.
Kit is standing at the far end of the counter, facing one of two doorways, stuffing his face with a sandwich. “It’s called ‘to go’ for a reason,” I say. “It’s to go.”
He pauses mid-chew, studies me a moment, and then smartly wraps his sandwich. “I need to tell Kane I’m leaving.”
“He’ll figure it out. He’s smart like that.”
He deadpans me for two beats, chews again, and then shoves the sandwich into a bag. Without another word, he rounds the island and heads in my direction. When necessary, I back up into the hallway to allow him to pass. He halts in front of me and says, “I know you’re a badass, Lilah, but we’re all human, and Kane knows that more than most.”
“And why is that?
“Ask him.”
He walks past me and if Kit thought he was calming the beast inside me, he did not. I mean, why the fuck does he know all kinds of shit I do not? Including why Kane knows people are human more than most. I walk through the kitchen to the living room entrance and clear the archway to find Kane standing in the spot where he holds the world on his shoulders—the window. His jacket is gone, his back is to me, and appropriately so for a man holding the world on his shoulders, his muscles are tense, knotted up, bunched beneath the T-shirt he’s wearing. Only the world is not supposed to be on his shoulders but ours, together. And the secrets Kane keeps are the secrets that all but destroyed us in the past.
My cellphone rings and Kane rotates, a whiskey glass in his hand, his eyes meeting mine. I ignore the call, my lips pressing together as I close the space between me and him. I take the glass from him, down the contents, and set it on the table. When we are toe-to-toe, face-to-face again, I say, “Start talking, Kane.”
Chapter Fourteen
“What do you want me to say to you, Lilah?”
“The truth.”
“The truth,” he says dryly. “Because I’m lying to you?”
I narrow my eyes on him. “Aren’t we confrontational?”
“One of us is.”
“You want to push me back into my lane. My safety, my lane. Your safety, my lane. Or I wouldn’t be wearing this ring.” I hold it up, make him look at it, and remind him of every commitment we made to each other before and after we said I do.
“I spent most of my adult life trying to get that ring on your finger, Lilah. I know exactly what it means.”
“The truth, Kane,” I repeat.
“And what would the truth be, Lilah?”
“How about we start with everything I don’t know but should? Why did you sneak another man on me today?”
“A husband has a right to be protective.”
“Protective or possessive?”
“Why not both?” he challenges.
“Because one is the spawn of worry and the other is just plain creepy.”
His eyes burn into mine, and seconds tick by before he says, “We’re home now. Reality wins.”
“The one where someone tried to kill you and you have yet to kill them,” I assume.