“Okay, but we’re avoiding anything that makes you inherit the cartel. If your ability to control the man who runs it now is that strong, doesn’t that make you in charge already?”
His jaw tics. “We both know on some level I always have been.”
“What does that mean, Kane?” I ask, pressing him to offer up that marriage privilege.
“Tell me about your father and brother,” he says, bypassing a conversation he never wants to have with me. Apparently, marriage has changed nothing. We don’t talk about certain things.
“We can’t hide from this, Kane.”
“Later, Lilah. Tell me about your father and your brother.”
“My father wants Andrew to work for him as an advisor. Andrew wants to take the job to become an insider to take down the Society and to prove our father was involved with the murder of our mother.”
“Sounds like a good way to go to your brother’s funeral. Stop him.”
“I told him the same thing, but I can’t stop him. He won’t let that happen. He’s made up his mind. At this point, I can only offer him protection.”
“You can’t protect him from them. He’ll end up dead. Then you’ll kill everyone in your path afterward. Then I’ll kill everyone else. That’s how this ends.”
I shrug. “Then that’s how this ends. At least we go out with them all dead first.”
“Why did your father call you?” he asks, ignoring my vow to kill and be killed.
“I don’t know, but Andrew says he wants us to come to his final rally.”
“And you said?”
“No, but I changed my mind. We should go. I’m in the mood to see him and Pocher. I like to keep my targets in sight.”
His cellphone rings and Kane snakes it from his pocket, his eyes narrowing on his caller ID. “It’s your father.”
“I didn’t know my father had your number,” I comment.
“Pocher does, so he does.”
Because my father is a Pocher puppet.
Kane answers the call. “Kane Mendez.”
He listens a moment and then says, “I’ll tell her.” He disconnects.
“He wants you to turn on the television and then get to his apartment.” He backs up, picks up the remote from the nightstand, and hits the on button before flipping to the news. A female newscaster is live.
Reports of yet another serial killer in our city bring to light the safety of our great state. The governor will meet with the mayor tomorrow morning. There will be a press conference at ten. Additionally, reports have now surfaced that the challenger in the governor’s race, Grant Love, a former law enforcement officer himself, will also hold a press conference at noon. Many want to know if his daughter, the FBI agent who broke open the Umbrella Man case, will be the card he plays. If so, some believe that while another killer rocks our city, this may be the ace in the deck for Love’s win at the voting booths.
I grab the remote from Kane and turn off the television. “There’s no such thing as coincidence.”
“No,” he agrees. “There is not.”
In other words, at least some of what’s happening right now is planned, and for the betterment of the wrong people.
Chapter Sixteen
“I have to go,” Kane says again. We’re still in the bedroom, weeding through the bullshit that has bounded upon us since our return to the city. “What’s your move?” Kane asks.
“I’m going to change out of this white sweater so the blood stains won’t show.” I try to move away from Kane.
He catches my arm again. “What are you going to do?” he repeats.
“I’m going to keep my brother alive. If Andrew’s in the middle of my father’s bullshit, I’m in the middle of my father’s bullshit.”
He just looks at me with those dark, demanding eyes of his, as if I haven’t answered his question at all, compelling me to say more, so I do.
“If Pocher is partnering with your uncle, we need to know. The best way for me to do that is to get up close and personal with him. It’ll be uncomfortable for him, and people who are uncomfortable make stupid decisions.”
“He doesn’t have a brother with a finger for me to chop off this time, Lilah.”
“Then chop his off for all I care. Or I will. Go to your meeting, Kane. Come back alive.”
“I’m not dying anytime soon, bella. Of that, you can be certain.”
“I’d be far more certain if you told me your plan. You can remedy that tonight, when we’re home together, husband and wife, all secrets dissolved. And if you think I’m not pushing you to tear down those walls, Kane, you don’t know who you married.”
“I know exactly who I married, Lilah Mendez.” He catches my shoulders, drags me to him, and kisses me. “They die, you do not. Understand?”
“Completely.”
He studies me for a moment as if he doesn’t completely believe me. I’m about to ask him if he really even knows me—how can he question my intent against theirs—but without another word, he releases me and walks out of the room.