Love Kills (Lilah Love 4)

Words I’ve already spoken when I hate repeaters. Repeaters are usually liars, trying to validate a lie. In my case, some part of me is giving him a reason to stop now, before he goes too far.

“But what you don’t know,” he says, “is where Umbrella Man got that poison.”

“It would be a lab or a facility that makes paint or varnish. It’s—”

His hand comes down on my leg. That touch and the intensity rolling off of him silences me. “I made some calls,” he repeats. “My uncle’s ‘company’ takes special requests for a hefty fee. He filled an order for barium acetate.”

My breath lodges in my throat, and I push it out. “You supplied the drugs that killed all the victims?”

“Not me, Lilah. I am not involved in what he does.”

I stand up and face him now. “And yet, it was you who just went and calmed a war the cartel was about to erupt inside.”

He stands up. “And you know the internal battle I had with the idea that I would have to take over, but you know me. Do you think I’d let that happen?”

“I guess this is the elephant in the room for us, Kane. Drugs kill people all the time. Drugs that your family sells.”

“I don’t want to be a part of this fucking world my father created, Lilah. You know that, like no one knows that. But they keep coming at me. They keep fucking coming. You were wrong when you said I can’t live two lives. I have no choice. You say you want to know about those lives. You say you want to be a part of them. Well, here’s your chance to change your mind. This can be it. From this point forward, you don’t have to know.”

“I’ve always known. Pretending I don’t has always divided us.”

“We feel pretty damn divided now, Lilah.”

I shove a hand through my hair and grab my bag, “I just need to think right now. I need to figure out how to fix all of this.”

“You need to fix it, Lilah? Just you? Not me? Not us?”

“No. Yes. I need to go to Purgatory.”

“Right.” His lips thin, voice hard. “Go to Purgatory.” He heads toward the bedroom door and disappears into the hallway, thunder rumbling the windows in his aftermath.

I turn and walk into Purgatory, sit down on the floor and pull out my computer, the Soap Opera Digest, and a stack of paperwork. I then grab the notecards and set them in front of me, but I do nothing but stare at them. Literally, stare at them. I have a million things pounding at my mind, and I want to talk to Kane about them. I want to talk to Kane. I never talk to anyone but that man, and I can say anything to him. And I just made him feel like he can’t talk to me. And, holy fuck. I stand up. Did he leave? Did he go to meet Ghost? No. No, he couldn’t have left like this.

I take off out of the room, and I don’t stop until I’m on the stairs and shouting, “Kane?! Kane?!” I charge down the stairs as he rounds the corner to the kitchen.

I close the space between us and stop dead in my tracks, and damn it, I’m breathing hard. “I thought you went to meet Ghost.”

His expression softens. The only time Kane Mendez softens is for me. That means something. “Not until seven, after dark.”

My hands go to his chest. “I need you to figure out how to fix all of this. I need you, Kane.”

He drags me to him and kisses me. “And I, Lilah, need you.”

“Then don’t go meet Ghost.”

“I’m going to meet Ghost.”

“I’ll go with you,” I counter.

“No.”

“Kane—”

“No, Lilah. For ten reasons, including your badge—no.”

He’s a wall of words. He’s not going to take me. I know the battles I can win. I won’t win this one. “Then kill him before he kills you.”

“If it comes to that, I will. I’m always ready.” The doorbell rings. “Pizza,” he says. “And a conversation about Roger in Purgatory.”

“Roger?”

“Yes. We never finished talking about Roger. I think we should.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Kane and I are quick to sit down on the floor of Purgatory, with our favorite chairs at our backs. We don’t immediately talk about Roger. For just a few minutes, we take a timeout and eat our damn pizza. A slice in, I ask, “Anything more on Jay?”

“The same,” he says. “I told him to get well so I can kill him for acting like a scared little bitch who was afraid of me.”

I laugh because he’s joking. “He wasn’t scared, not of what was in the alleyway. He was too damn much of a hero.”

“Who overreacted because he was scared of me.”

“Hmmm,” I finish off a slice while Kane does the same. “Why is that I wonder?”

“I’m good to the people who work for me.”

“Until they screw up,” I counter.

“Letting you get hurt would be more than a screw-up.”

“I can take care of myself.” I grab another slice and shift the topic. “What about Roger?”

He shuts the pizza box and shoves his plate in a trashcan. “He gets under your skin. He always has.”

“He was my mentor,” I argue. “I was learning from him, and he wanted fast results. Every second that I let pass, that a killer is free, is a chance for him to kill again. That’s my life. He was preparing me for that.”

He angles in my direction. “There you go. He put that on you. Do it now, figure it out now, or someone dies. That’s a big load to carry.”

“It’s part of the job.”

“He made you feel like a damn killer, Lilah.”

“Roger didn’t do that.”

“He mentally had you in a place that set you up for where you landed emotionally after your attack.”

“My attack alone did that to me.”

“No,” he insists. “You’d come home from working with him, frustrated, unable to figure out a case.”

“I was learning.”

“You had a mental block with that man. Once you were home, in Purgatory, once you were in your own head, you solved the cases. Not me. Not him. He didn’t make you better, and he’s not making you better now.”

I pull a knee to my chest, thinking about what I felt in that lab earlier. “You’re right. I felt that today when I was with him. There was something in my mind, and I just couldn’t reach in and pull it out. I still don’t know what it was. It’s like I have flipping daddy issues with that man. And with my own father, who didn’t even call after last night, and you know he knows what happened. He’s running for office in New York City.”

“Roger and your father. The only two people in this world I’ve ever seen fuck with your head.”

“And you,” I say. “You did, too.”

“Your issue was not with me, but my name and what it represents. And it never stopped you from telling me to fuck off or putting me in my place.”

I snort. “Like that’s poss

ible.”

“You sure as hell think you can.”

“Think?” I challenge.

He doesn’t take the bait, pulling me back to his point. “With them, you hold back, Lilah.”

“Daddy issues,” I concede again. “I get it. And apparently, so does the Society, since they used Roger to get me to the first crime scene, and Umbrella Man pulled the pig stunt at my father’s event.” I frown. “That was to screw with my head and get him press.” A bitter taste touches my tongue. “You saved me before they killed me after my attack. You denied them the sympathy votes they wanted for my father. They have to make them up now.” A vacuum of history starts to suck me under. Does my father know they intend to kill us? “God, I really do have daddy issues.” I try to get up.

Kane catches my arm. “Lilah—”

“Do not even think about fucking coddling me, Kane Mendez. I need to work. I need to find them. I need to kill all of these bastards. And I can bury my own bodies this time.”

His eyes darken. “Can I get you a shovel or some coffee?”

And just like that, my boiling point, which is at about an eight, rachets down to a four, and I laugh. “No shovel yet, but coffee would be lovely. See, since you’re being all proper and polite, I can say something other than fuck. And you can throw some manpower in my direction, too. I can’t use anyone in law enforcement.”

He releases me. “Get Kit details on whatever you need. He’ll make it happen. What else?”

My mind is back on Kane’s observation about Roger. “Roger keeps saying this is about him. I think they’re using his ego against him and me.”

“Meaning what?”

I stand up, and he moves to sit in the chair. I start to pace, pulling my thought all the way through, before I explain. “Roger has a thing for the new medical examiner who I’ve linked to the Society. Her brother works at a hospital that stocks barium, which is why I thought he might have supplied the drugs.”

His lips tighten. “He didn’t.”

“I know. I get it. I stepped in shit on that one, but that’s not the point. She was at a few events with Roger. They must have seen his interest in her. They also knew that if they involved him in this case, which explains the cigarette they left at the first crime scene, they needed to pull him into the investigation, so he’d know what I was doing on the case. They wanted to scare Beth away so that they could bring in Melanie and use her to extract information from him.”