I smirked. “That’s the guy.”
Kai gave me a curious glance, then returned his gaze to the road. “You have some very interesting acquaintances, beautiful.”
“I’ve been working as a mercenary for twenty years, Kai. You meet people along the way, and if you’re not a total moron, you recognize the ones who might become useful one day. And you cultivate those relationships with small favors and assistances.” Like Carlos.
Frowning at that thought, I pulled out my phone and sent him another text message. None of my previous ones had been read, though, which made me worry for his well-being. This didn’t feel like one of his normal disappearances.
“Twenty years?” Kai repeated, oblivious to where my mind had just wandered off to. “Since you were eight? That seems—”
“Did you forget the part where I was literally raised by the Guild?” I cut him off before he could say something stupid about how implausible it was for an eight-year-old to take mercenary jobs. “They have a hierarchy system in place, of sorts. That determines skill level and assigns contracts accordingly. Obviously, the highest paying work goes to alpha level.”
“I take it those are also the most dangerous?” he murmured, his brow creased with worry for past-me.
I shrugged. “No risk, no reward.”
He was silent for a long time, and I shifted my gaze out the window. It would take a few hours to get to Shadow Grove, but it wasn’t uncomfortable being in the car with Kai. Even after all his impassioned confessions in the shower, things weren’t awkward. Of course, part of that could be my flat refusal to acknowledge or discuss it. I was essentially just pretending he hadn’t said anything.
We stopped in Dogwood, and I picked out a new car to boost. A sleek black Chevy Corvette Stingray with less than five thousand miles on the clock. It was a whole lot nicer than the usual kind of car I would steal, but it also had a Death Squad bumper sticker, and Vega fucking owed me.
This time, I drove and Kai sat in the passenger seat like a little thundercloud, lost in his own thoughts while we got back onto the freeway.
“What’s on your mind, Big Man?” I finally asked with a sigh, pushing my foot down on the gas to test the car’s responsiveness. It was nice to drive something with more power for a change. I spent so much time driving nondescript rentals or stealing mid-range cars, I missed the smooth drive of something more expensive. I’d have to try not to crash this one.
Kai’s gaze was on me, like it had been from the moment we got into the car. “Why do you want to clear your name with the Guild?”
I flicked a frown at him. “Um, because I don’t particularly enjoy being on the run and constantly needing to watch for assassins?”
He rolled his eyes. “No shit. But clearing your name isn’t the only solution. You disappear and start over with a new identity. Fake your death.”
“I could,” I agreed, “but I wouldn’t. How the fuck would I ever be able to work again if everyone thought I was dead?”
He had no response to that, even though I had a strong suspicion what he wanted to say. How would I work? I wouldn’t. Given half a chance, Kai would happily shackle me back on his island and do his damnedest to get me barefoot and pregnant within the shortest space of time possible.
Well, the joke was on him. That would never happen.
Besides, I would be so bored within a week that I’d probably end up throwing knives at him just to bring some violence back into my life.
Due to the fact that my stomach was practically eating itself, because I couldn’t even remember my last full meal, I took a detour through an all-night burger drive-thru and spent the next half hour eating—while driving—until I felt a bit sick and sweaty.
I also couldn’t ignore the fact that Kai somehow managed to make eating a burger look incredibly sexy. Was this a new kink I was unlocking? Or just a result of going too long between meals? Probably the latter.
“What did you think my team could help with?” he asked after we both ran out of food.
I tapped my greasy fingers on the steering wheel. “Emmanuel Blanchet,” I said on a leap of faith. “That’s the name of the Circle member targeting me.”
I felt Kai’s surprise without needing to look over at him. “You know his name? Aren’t the Circle all cloaked in anonymity?”
I nodded. “They are. But… Leon knows things.”
Kai scoffed a derisive sound. “Of course he does.”
“Cool it on the jealousy, Big Man. It’s only hot until it starts becoming inconvenient. Anyway, Blanchet is on the Circle, so he will be next to impossible to track down. But every Circle member apparently has their own mini-circle. Lackeys that do their dirty work for them so they can pull strings from the shadows.” I couldn’t totally believe I was sharing this kind of information, but if everything he’d said in the shower was the truth… shit.
“So you want to track down a stepping stone?” he asked, seeming to consider the idea. “If anyone knows where to find the puppet master, it would be his puppets?”
I nodded. “Something like that.”
“And your hacker can’t help?” I’d have to be deaf not to hear the disgust in his voice.
I bit back a smile. “He can, he just won’t. Or he wanted me to wait until he could come along.”
Kai gave a low chuckle. “Sounds like he doesn’t think you’re capable of looking after yourself.”
More likely Leon just wanted to be there to watch and hand me knives because he got off on the violence and torture. It made me remember the way he’d held his knife to my throat, and the suffocating level of arousal despite the life or death situation. No, Leon knew perfectly well that I was capable; he just wanted to share the moment with me.
It was kind of romantic when I thought about it like that.
He had also asked for my help tracing Layla’s footsteps, too, which could potentially help Mo with her revenge scheme. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell Kai about Layla and the Project Remus research she’d been doing before her death, but I stopped myself. Leon had opened up to me, sharing the story of the only girl he’d ever really cared about… I couldn’t just spill all the details to Kai.
So I smoothly shifted the subject back to his team, asking how they’d all met. As it turned out, a lot of what he’d told me back on his island had been the truth. He hadn’t lied about… well… any of it. That in itself shocked me into silence, because all of a sudden I realized that my excuses were just that. Excuses. Yes, he’d been playing me… but he also hadn’t presented me with a fabricated personality like I’d done to him.
That was a bitter pill to swallow. That the man I’d lost part of my heart to… was still the man beside me now. They were one and the same.
“This is it?” he asked when I pulled up in front of the ornate wrought-iron gates of a Shadow Grove mansion. I arched a quick smile, then keyed in the access code that Zed had given me on the phone. “What’s the D for?”
I looked at what Kai was pointing to, examining the fancy monogram letter on the gates. “A dumb joke from the owner of this place. He moved out years ago but has been renting to Zed for the last eighteen months.” I drove through the gates, checking in my mirror to ensure they closed behind us without allowing anyone else in. “It stands for D’Ath. Arrogant son of a bitch that he is.”