Chapter Fifteen
We dress, Kane in black jeans and a matching sweater, while I opt for leggings and a fluffy white sweater, despite the fact that something tells me I might get it all bloody tonight. But then, tempting fate is a Love family tradition, proven first by me being an FBI agent who is now married to a would-be cartel leader. Then there is my stupid ass brother, who decided to date the bimbo Kane was fucking while we were apart just to make a statement to Kane, who Andrew knows damn well is a would-be cartel leader. My mother apparently wasn’t immune to the tempting of fate in the Love family either, choosing to have an affair with another man while my father was having his own version of an affair with Pocher.
The Love family is a fucked-up bunch.
Of course, the Mendez family is no better, so truly, there’s no hope for me.
I’m a wild card. I might as well embrace it and wear the white sweater.
“I need to go,” Kane says, glancing at the most recent addition to his watch collection—a blue Panerai Luminor he bought in Italy for a ridiculous amount of money. We meet in the middle of the bedroom in front of the bed we haven’t slept in together in two weeks.
“I can guess what this is about,” I say, aware of the late hour, not pleased with where I know this is headed.
“My uncle has demanded a meeting,” he says, confirming what I’d already suspected. “And the timing doesn’t sit well.”
He means the day we returned to the city, a bit like the murder today and Jack’s call. It’s all a little too coincidental, and as Roger taught me, there is no such thing as a coincidence. His serial killer status does not make this any less accurate a lesson to learn. “Demanded?” I query, as not many people, even his uncle, dare demand of Kane Mendez.
“Yes,” he says tightly. “Demanded.”
“Obviously you’re going to handle him.”
“I am and I’ll enjoy every damn second,” he assures me.
I study him, noting the flex of muscle in the hard line of his jaw. “You think this meeting has something to do with me,” I say.
“Among other things, such as convincing me he had nothing to do with my chopper going down.”
“Why didn’t you just say you were worried he’d come at me today, instead of sneaking an extra man on me?”
“You have a murder to solve. I have an uncle to control. One shouldn’t press upon the other.”
“And yet, it does. If he’s targeting me, I need to know.”
“Not if this meeting goes as planned, you didn’t, but you, as always, end up in the middle of everything.”
“I’ll pretend you didn’t say I didn’t need to know because neither of us has time for how pissed off that would make me. How are you going to handle him?”
“That, bella, is something you need to leave to me.”
“We’re married now. That’s a sacred bond even the government can’t break. I’m protected. You’re protected. So, on that note, I was thinking he really needs to go away.”
“We’ve had this conversation. There’s no coming back from that, Lilah. And you know that.”
“I know you believe your uncle killed your father. Have you considered the idea that Pocher and your uncle worked together to get rid of him and you?”
“Yes,” he says. “Quite extensively, but it’s led nowhere.”
“And if I can connect your uncle to Pocher?”
He catches my arms and pulls me to him. “Are you trying to push me to the cartel, bella?”
“I just want an excuse to kill them both for the better of the whole damn world. These are two people who kill and hurt too much, and too many for me to regret killing them.”
“My father would have killed either one of us if it served him well. He isn’t a good reason to kill anyone.”
“Your father would not have killed you, Kane. You were his pride and joy.”
“He would have killed you. Same thing.”
Those words, spoken low and rough, radiate through me and speak to me on so many intense levels. It’s these moments with Kane, when he says things like this, that I realize how insane I was to walk away from him over the buried body of the man who raped me and intended to kill me. But the intensity of his mood also tells me that the war between him and his uncle is razor sharp, and it won’t take much to push Kane to do something that, as he’s pointed out, we both might regret.
At least after the fact.
“He needs to go away,” I say. “Accepting we’re captive to anything or anyone is not who we are.”
“He doesn’t need to go away. He needs to be controlled and I intend to do that.”