“I can handle it,” Kayden assures him. “I’m good at cutting through red tape, as you saw today. We both know I didn’t threaten you.” His arm lifts from around me and he leans forward, his powerful forearms resting on the table. “By the way. While you were trying to trump up ridiculous charges against me this afternoon, your boss begged me to work for him again.”
Gallo stands, his hands pressed to the table, his stance a threat, his glower a promise. Kayden’s lips quirk in feigned amusement. “Problem, detective?”
“You are not above the law.”
“Neither are you. Don’t let bitterness turn you into something you don’t recognize as you anymore.”
“Speaking from experience, are you?”
“Damn straight, man. Let this go.”
Gallo glares at Kayden and I hold my breath until he says, “No.” Nothing more. Just . . . no, and then he pushes off the table and heads for the door. And while he might be leaving, and my identity has been protected, dread and certainty fill my gut. He’s coming for Kayden and he won’t stop until someone ends up dead. I am left with one question. What did Kayden do to create this kind of hatred in this man?
The silence between Kayden and me is absolute as Gallo disappears into the night, my unasked question in the air, a pin about to drop. Kayden doesn’t let it fall, but neither does he face me as he speaks. “Just before Callisto—Adriel and Giada’s father—died, I aligned The Underground with the police department, trying to take us to as ethical a place as I could get us. Not an easy task when the money wasn’t what my people expected to get paid. My contact for our first job was Gallo and a woman named Cira.” He hesitates. “I fucked her. She was just a nameless escape that would be gone when the job was over. I had no idea she and Gallo were in a relationship. She didn’t tell me and there were no signs.”
“So this is all because you were with his woman?”
He looks at me, his expression taut with the promise of more to the story. Something bad. Really bad. “Gallo walked in on us. He and I fought. She left in a fit of tears and proceeded to have a car accident.”
“Oh God,” I murmur, feeling the blood run from my face. “Please tell me this doesn’t end how I think it does.”
“I wish I could. She died, and he blames me.”
“But you didn’t kill her. It was just one of those horrific things that happen in life. His anger is illogical.”
“A need for revenge is rarely logical, but too often it feels like the salve that will heal the wound.” There is deep understanding in those words that make them more a confession than a statement. “He thinks he needs it to survive.”
“Does he?” I ask, and I’m not talking about Gallo any more than he is.
“Yes. He does.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I leave it alone. “You aren’t going to take the job you mentioned, are you?”
He laughs without humor. “No. My people would dethrone me if I went down that path again. No matter how any of us frame our hunts as honorable, it’s always about money.”
“Is it to you?”
“I have more money than I know what to do with as it is.”
“It’s about Kevin.”
“It’s about a lot of things, none of them money.”
Revenge. I think he’s just told me it’s about revenge, and I want to ask for more, but he stands and faces me, offering me his hand, and I have this sense of the gesture being his silent question. Am I still with him? Has he scared me away? Perhaps that’s why he told me the story, but it hasn’t worked. His honesty, his willingness to share what is not easy to speak about, let alone live with, has done nothing but draw me closer to the flame that is the fire in this man. I slide my palm against his and he helps me to my feet, and when our gazes meet, I see in his eyes what I know myself. My decision to stay with him is a choice, and good, bad, or ugly, I’m staying with Kayden Wilkens. We’re both destined to live with the consequences that may follow.
seventeen
Kayden answers my silent reply by cupping the back of my head and kissing me hard and fast before wrapping my hand in his and leading me to the exit. We step outside and I shiver with the night that has turned colder, and Kayden responds, cocooning me in the warmth and shelter of his body, but I think that it’s him who needs shelter.
We fall into easy steps together, silence settling between us in that comfortable way it had over dinner last night. Blocks pass, and even with the absence of conversation, I can feel the heaviness of his
thoughts, but I also believe he just needs me to be with him. I know this, and I don’t know why but I have this sense of togetherness with him that, beyond the emptiness of my past, I do not believe I have had before in my life. Even if I have, what matters is this man, and having it with him.
His cell phone rings, and for some reason, the sound fills me with dread. Without his pace faltering or his arm moving from my shoulders, he digs it from his pocket, answering the call and listening a moment before replying in Italian. It’s a quick, terse exchange that ends when we reach the entrance to the castle, his expression unreadable as he releases me to slide the phone back into his pocket and punch in a code to open the gate.
“Two-seven-two-seven,” he says, giving me the gate code, and I remove my phone from my purse and type it into the notes.
“Got it,” I say, as we cross to the private grounds of the castle. “I’ll delete it once I get all these numbers straight in my head.”