Love Me Dead (Lilah Love 3)

“I’m the chief now,” he says, settling his hands on his hips under his blue jacket, “that makes every office my office,” he adds. “And that makes every office, and case, mine.”

“You’re a young chief,” I comment, pretty sure that he’s not more than forty. At least that’s where my brain wants to place him, and the mildly present lines by his eyes and barely defined nasal folds framing his mouth, seem to confirm.

“I worked hard while you were gone, much, it seems, like you did, Agent Love. This isn’t an FBI office. Why the hell didn’t you come to me before taking over my case?” His voice is now a snap, hard with demand, that wasn’t there before now.

“Aside from the fact that your detective ran a shit show of a crime scene, and she’s now a no-show to the investigation?” I challenge. “I personally bagged evidence that’s now missing.”

“What the hell does that mean? It’s missing?”

“No one here seems to know it existed, and yet, I handed it off to Detective Williams. I have a responsibility to take control in a case of utter fucking incompetence and multiple deaths.”

“I’ve been in this role cleaning up for six months. You couldn’t come to me first and give me a chance to make this right?”

“I had a woman on the ground who’d just died in my arms after I’d been on that shit show of a crime scene, so no. I did what the moment demanded.”

“You already used the shit show line. Get a new money line.”

I give a fake laugh. “Haha. Aren’t you a clever one?” My lips press together. “You want to handle your own staff? Find my missing evidence,” I say. I move to pass him and exit the room, but I stop beside him on my way to the door. “And get rid of people like Nelson Moser,” I add, Nelson being a dirty detective who I recently linked to the Society. “As long as you have people like him close to you, I will rip your cases from your hands, often and freely.” I step forward.

He catches my arm. “Don’t make me an enemy, Lilah.”

“Hmmm. A subtle threat. I love that shit, especially when you lay hands on me. The main place my mind goes is really delightful. Your gun. My gun. Should we play or are you going to let go of my arm?”

“Fuck, Lilah.” He grimaces and lets go of my arm. “That wasn’t a threat.” He scrubs his jaw and moves, giving me space. “That was frustration. I’m trying to clean up. I’ll clean it up.”

“Good,” I say, handing him my card. “Now you have my number. Text me your number.”

“Doing it now,” he says, and I watch him type it in and then ping my phone. I have nothing else, so I say nothing else.

I exit the office and then this Godforsaken place, happily, too, the same way I was when I left here the first time. Back when I said goodbye to Roger with a plan to never look back. Suddenly, I wonder if all of this was a plan to get me back in the building, an idea as ridiculous as the one that had Detective Williams as Umbrella Man.

I step out of the station into a cool fall breeze, which feels damn good, because that office was hot and sticky, a miserable affair from start to finish. I pause at the side of the door, focused now on my investigation and where to next. I quickly decide that I want Mia’s boyfriend to feel scot-free, even to think that he’s not on the murderer radar. That means he needs this worthless crew working for Detective Williams questioning him, not me. On the other hand, I need eyes on him. I believe the same proves true of the security team for the morgue and its owner. There’s a connection there. I need to know what it is. I have an office of people at the station who I could have follow these men, but the problem is that I don’t trust any of them. I don’t trust anyone, but I retract that mental statement quickly.

I trust Kane. I have always trusted Kane. It’s me I don’t trust. It’s him I want to blame for that reality. All of those thoughts bring me to his Fifth Avenue office location. I’m going to ask Kane for another favor. The question is: what will he want in return?

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I walk into Mendez Enterprises to find it unchanged from the last time I was here years before, but why wouldn’t it be? It’s straight up luxury; the way Kane wanted it, the way Kane dictated that it be, and with reason. This is his castle, his creation. He made Mendez Enterprises one of the largest oil companies in the world.

Did he do it with drug money? Maybe.

But he took the money that his father invested, and no matter how much I might press him about his involvement in the cartel, I know this place is his baby. I know he really does pride himself on what he’s created. It’s why I’ve always defended him, it’s why I always got so damn pissed off at everyone’s whispers about his father. It wasn’t until that night that I hit a wall, and the other side of his two-sided life became an issue for me.

I cross the shiny tile floor of the lobby with a reception desk that matches its gray marble. There are sleek, high-back, brown couches and chairs to my left with an abstract tan rug beneath them and a dozen dangling bulbs above. I step to the front desk and wait for the pretty blonde behind the counter to disconnect a call.

She waves at me excitedly, because Cindy Newman is not only beautiful, she’s a sweetheart. She’s beautiful that someone else might be concerned she’d have Kane’s eye, but I really don’t have time to fret over such things, and I’m not insecure that way. If Kane wanted Cindy, he would have Cindy. He just wouldn’t have me.

“I can’t believe you’re finally back,” she says when she’s free. “Kane told me you might come by.”

“Did he now?” I ask. Obviously, Kane isn’t insecure either.

“He did. Is this—you know—are you back together?”

“Kane and I are many things. We are,” aware of the camera behind the desk that Kane watches a bit obsessively, I look at it, meaning him, and I add, “complicated.”

She laughs. “I’m sure he heard that answer, and you definitely made sure he knows you did. You two are something else.”

She has no idea. “That we are. Where is he now?”

“In his office. I’d suggest I buzz him, but we both know you’re going to go on back. He’d expect nothing less.”

Her phone rings, and I round the desk to a foyer that leads to a set of stairs. Kane likes to have a level of stairs between him and any enemy. I know this for a fact. He’s told me as much. He doesn’t like to have an elevator that could become his prison. His words, not mine. Because, of course, he’s his father’s son, and even if he were 100% legit, and we both know that’s bullshit, he is always a target. He was always his father’s son. The death of his mother proves that to be a valid concern. I don’t like how valid. I don’t think about Kane as vulnerable, but every once in the while, I remember that he’s human, even if I don’t feel that I am.

I reach the top level of the stairs and turn right to follow a hallway. His secretary here in the city is not at her desk, and I’m again reminded that I know Kane. This is by intent. That man is trying to clear a path and make me feel like I own this office, the way he owns this office. That I belong here and with him. And damn it, it’s working. I missed the sense of this place being an escape, even if he wasn’t here, because this place was him. I missed all the times I’d come by here and beat up the details of some investigation I was on while he listened, and he did listen.

I don’t knock.

I open his door and enter his office to find him standing with his back to me, facing a window that overlooks the city, his expensive gray suit fitted perfectly to his broad shoulders. This place, in all of its professional wonder, fits Kane perfectly, and yet, somehow running a cartel does as well. But the truth is, that air of danger that radiates off of him, that he wears like a second skin, only makes him all the more appealing to me. It always has. On some level, he knows this. I know this. You cannot love Kane Mendez and reject that part of him.

He turns with my entry, his phone to his ear, a glint of surprise in his expression that quickly turns to pure heat and satisfac

tion. He didn’t see me on the camera; he didn’t know I was on my way up, but he wanted me to show up here today. And I gave him what he wanted. I don’t seem to care either. He speaks to his caller in Spanish, and I pick up enough to know he’s dealing with a problem, and he’s not pleased.

I shut the door, cross the room and by the time I’m in front of him, he’s ended the call. “Problem?” I ask.

His eyes narrow slightly. He’s still surprised when I read what no one else does in him. “Nothing I can’t handle,” he says, but he doesn’t reach for me. That tells a story. He’s withdrawn, that wall between our worlds present and pissing me off. That wall always pisses me off. It means the cartel is in business, and he’s in the cartel’s business.

I press my hand to his chest, removing the invisible barrier he’s placed between us. “Tell me,” I urge softly, my eyes meeting his, and what I find is what I expect: the man who cannot escape being his father’s son. “Kane—”

“This isn’t one of those things we talk about, Lilah.”

“I don’t want it to be that way. It’s not that way.”

He arches a brow. “Isn’t it, Agent Love?”

Anger comes at me hard and fast, and I poke his chest. “Not that long ago, I threw away this badge. You convinced me to put it back on. I guess I know that something changed that night and now you feel like you need that layer of separation. Well, you have it. I should go. You’re clearly busy.” I try to turn away.

He catches my arm and pulls me to him. “If I told you the cartel killed someone and I’m dealing with the aftermath, then what?”

“If you told me? Is this a damn test, Kane? Is that where we’re at?”

“Answer, Lilah.”

“I’d ask what I need to do to protect you and then I’d make it happen. And then I’d beat your ass for being involved at all.”

He releases me, his hands settling on his hips under his jacket. “Fuck.” He turns away from me and faces the window, tension rolling down his spine. This is a man of control and power, and he’s tormented right now.

“Talk to me, Kane,” I say stepping to his side.

He scrubs his jaw and faces me. “You know I have a connection that I can’t break.”

“Family,” I say.

“Yes, beautiful, family. I don’t want this shit on my doorstep, and I damn sure don’t want it on yours, but I was born a Mendez. I will always be a Mendez.”

“I know who you are. You can’t protect me from that.”

“The hell I can’t. I am.”

“Correction then: you can’t protect me from that connection and us do us again.”

He catches my arm again, stepping into me, aligning our legs, his voice softening. “Is that what we’re doing, Lilah? Doing us?”

“I don’t know what we’re doing.”