Before Danny could respond, I stupidly shifted my weight, and a board creaked.
We both moved equally as fast, our guns pointed at one another before I even stepped out of the shadows, and Danny gave a furious snarl.
“No, Moana, I’m fucking not satisfied,” she snapped to the phone still in her hand. She’d drawn a Smith & Wesson M&P from her hip and held it like an extension of her own body as she glared pure death at me.
I smiled. I couldn’t help myself. She was so fucking beautiful, and I’d been dreaming about her every night since she ran from me. “Tell Mo to leave,” I ordered Danny. “You and I are overdue a little chat.”
“Is that Kai?” Mo shrieked, her voice bouncing out of the phone. “Fuck. Fuck. Danny, I swear I didn’t tell him—”
Danny didn’t react, just ended the call, cutting off my sister’s apologies. As smooth as silk, she rose from the floor and tucked her phone away, never taking her eyes or her gun from me.
“I wish I could say I was surprised,” she told me in a hard-edged voice, so totally different from the Danielle I’d known. The only sign of the chilled air around us was visible in the vapor when she spoke. “You must have some kind of death wish, Malachi.”
Her use of my full name made my eye twitch. No one called me that anymore, not since my father had died. Hearing it on her lips sounded so impersonal, like she was deliberately pointing out the fact that we were strangers.
“Funny,” I replied without even a hint of amusement. “I think we both know you only called Moana so you could see me. So here I am, ika ātaahua.”
I’d be willing to bet she was irritated not to know what I’d just called her. According to our research, she spoke seven languages damn near fluently, but te reo Māori wasn’t one of them.
“I’m amazed you managed to sneak up on me; with an ego that large, you must have had trouble getting up the stairs.” Her words dripped sarcasm, and I didn’t even try to hide my answering smile. She loved my smile, and I didn’t think she’d been lying about that. She’d told the truth about Stanley… I clung to the hope that she’d been genuine with other things too.
I stepped closer, and she didn’t flinch.
“You told Mo that you needed her help. I guarantee you, ika ātaahua, I’m the one you need.” I tilted my head to the side, holding her gorgeous gaze as I took another step closer. Could she hear the deeper meaning behind my words? Could she hear how badly I wanted her to need me? The way I needed her back in my life?
Fucking hell, if this didn’t work, my team would shoot me themselves. They were thoroughly sick of me pining for a ghost.
“Kai!” Moana yelled from the street below. “Malachi Arden, I’m going to fucking kill you if Danny hasn’t already done it.”
Danny’s perfect lips twitched with a micro-smile, and I gave a small sigh.
“Fuck off, Moana!” I shouted back, letting my voice boom through the bell tower.
“Screw you,” she shouted back. “Danny, are you okay? Did he hurt you?”
This time, my siren’s smile spread wide, and mirth sparked in her sapphire eyes.
My pulse raced and I wet my lips, almost dizzy with the need to touch her. “Yeah, Danny,” I mocked, “did I hurt you? Did you feel like you’d been stabbed right in the chest with a poison blade that day in Venice when you realized I’d been playing you?”
She scoffed. “You fucking wish, Malachi. I called Mo because I wanted her help. Not yours. I suggest you tuck tail and run before I decide to complete my contract and kill you.”
Victory swelled my chest, and satisfaction settled over my shoulders like a warm blanket. She had been contracted to kill me and chose not to follow through.
I took a step closer, near enough that I could almost reach out and touch her. Almost. But I was still undecided whether she would shoot… even a non-fatal shot would be unpleasant.
“Malachi, back the fuck off,” she ordered me with a slight edge of frustration. “Don’t make me kill you for being a stubborn prick. I seriously doubt your sister will help me if I shoot you tonight.”
I gave a small laugh. “You’re right about that, kaikohuru iti.”
Her jaw clenched as she gritted her teeth, and I took another step closer. We still had our guns on each other, but with every step I advanced, I grew more confident she wouldn’t use hers.
Bang.
Shit. That answered that. She’d fired, but it’d been at the wall behind me instead of through my chest. I’d call that a victory.
The gunshot echoed through the air, and Moana shouted something from out in the street, but best of all? Danny had just terrified a small colony of bats living in the rafters. They all took off from their silent perches in a flurry of black leathery wings, causing both Danny and me to flinch and duck.
The second her focus was off me, though, I knew I’d never get a better chance. I darted forward, grabbing her wrist to disarm her gun and spinning her into my body in a tight submission hold.
“Got you,” I rumbled with amusement. Her small frame was against my body, and it took all my control to stay alert and not melt into her scent.
“Seriously?” she hissed, refusing to drop the gun despite how hard I pinched the tendons of her wrist together. “Do you really think you can hold me this time, Kai? I could—”
Whatever she was going to say, she cut off in a strangled yelp when I kissed the side of her neck. Her black top had a high neckline, but the strip of skin between her jaw and the collar had just begged for my lips.
She froze, tension running through her whole frame, but she didn’t pull away. Encouraged, I spun her around in my arms, lowering my face to kiss her. It was an all-consuming thought, a visceral need to feel her lips on mine, to taste her sweet breath and hear those angelic sighs as she turned to liquid in my arms.
But my mouth simply brushed across her cheek in a glancing touch as she twisted smoothly out of my grip.
“Nice try,” she said with a laugh. “But let me spell this out for you, Karitoki, I’ve returned to the sea, and I won’t fall for your tricks again.”
My heart thumped harder. She remembered the legend of Pania. It distracted me enough that she darted past before I could grab her again, leaping into the void below the old church bell and disappearing from sight in a flash.
“Danny!” I screamed, “No!”
For a gut-wrenching moment, there was no response except the flapping of bat wings and the echo of my own shout. Then the bell lurched and clanged with a deafening peal.
I flinched, covering my ears as best I could while holding a gun, but the sound was reassuring. She’d caught the rope and slid to the ground floor. Slippery siren. She wasn’t going to get away from me that easily. Not this time. Not ever again.
12
There was only one logical conclusion that I could come to as I slid down the bell rope, my pulse racing and my breath held. I was losing my edge. I’d lost my edge. Before this cursed mission to honey trap Ares, I would never have been taken by surprise like that. I would never have been so stupid as to let Bryan the bastard nearly strangle me to death after hiding in my room service cart.