Secrets & Submission

Kam raises a pistol with a silencer attached. I can’t see his face, but I can tell from his posture that he’s not unfamiliar with firing a gun or upset at all about doing it.

I glance at his target as my pulse races, a man I recognize from the dossier. He shakes his head, hands up, staring at Kam. He’s dressed to impress as well in an expensive tux, and not much older than me. Kam says, “Once you’re a threat, you’re always a threat,” and fires.

The bang is nearly inaudible but the gut-wrenching heave from the suspect is telling. The man looks down to what was once a perfectly pressed white button-down, quickly soaking up blood right in the center of his chest.

The man looks up at Kam, wordlessly dropping to his knees, then down flat.

A moment passes and then another as I stand there in shock. Ella’s closest friend peers down at the body and waits a few beats before stalking to the body, checking to see if the man is alive.

Kam turns his head and looks right at me. “He’s dead. You need to find the safe. The video’s going to be in there and it needs to be destroyed.” He holsters his gun. “The backup safety net’s already been secured.”

Backup safety net. I barely hear him. The shock of what I just witnessed is still sinking in.

For the first time all evening, and maybe in months, I’m uncertain about my assumptions. Not so much at Kam’s words, but his demeanor.

“You just killed a man in cold blood.”

“It was him.” Kam glances between the man and me. “We already confirmed it. You know that. His fingerprints were on the envelope. When I asked him how he wanted the money, he had the balls to smile and say, ‘The security firm is taking care of it.’”

The body cooling on the floor is evidence that I underestimated Kam. No signs of life come from the corpse.

“You’ve done this before,” I say to Kam, and the statement comes out flat.

“I didn’t do this. You did this.” It takes me a moment to register what he’s said as he comes closer, passing me the gun he used. “Give me your gun,” he demands and I only second-guess switching our weapons for a moment. My prints will be on a gun just used to kill a man, but as I look down between the one he’s holding and the one I have in my possession, I know he used my gun. One registered to me.

“Fuck,” I mutter.

I’d been holding this gun, one that’s slightly different but not enough that I questioned it, down at my side, aimed at the floor. For a single moment I hesitate, but it passes. I’m already in this with him. We’re in this together now.

With a chill settling down my spine, I swallow thickly before flipping over the gun and handing it to him.

“Don’t worry,” Kam says easily. “Your secret is safe with me.”

I give a humorless laugh. “You set me up?”

He shakes his head and with that small motion plus the look he gives me, I feel a sense of ease. “I didn’t. I brought you in. That’s what I did. I brought you in on one condition.”

“Brought me in?”

“In the circle with us. Like I said, on one condition.”

“What the hell’s that?”

A grin spreads across Kam’s face. “You marry her. A whirlwind romance. Legal only, if you want. The marriage can exist only on paper if that’s all you want it to be. I don’t care. But you’re going to marry her to protect you both.”

I stare back at him, searching his expression for some clues on what the hell his reasoning is.

Kam gives me a sad smile. “If you don’t want to marry her, you can leave. You’re in or you’re out, and either way, you’re not going down for this.” He gestures to the gun in my hand and adds, “That was just for insurance purposes, if you know what I mean.”

“If I leave her, you tip off the cops?” I ask for clarification.

“No,” he corrects me. “If you hurt her, I destroy your fucking life.”

We share a look of understanding before I nod, slipping the gun into the holster and telling him flatly, “We don’t have any problems then, other than how we’re going to cover this up and keep it from Ella so she doesn’t get hurt.”

“She knows it all, Zander.”

A soft rustle in the hall draws my attention a second before Trish comes into the room. She crosses the anteroom with measured steps and glances down at the dead body. Then she looks at Kam. “Is everything okay now?” She’s not at all afraid, only cautious.