I flex my fingers against Cassandra’s leg. She isn’t going to like me sharing this, but if there’s anyone I can be fully transparent with, it’s Karmine. “I have a body that I need identified.”
“You back home?”
Cassandra tenses at Karmine’s question, probably not liking that she knew I was out of town.
“Yeah.” I resist the urge to smile. I always dreamed of a world where my Butterfly would let me touch her. It never occurred to me to fantasize about her being possessive of me.
And I fucking love it.
I slide my hand over the top of her leg, then shove it between her bare thighs.
She follows my unspoken command and presses her legs together, squeezing my palm between her warm flesh.
Karmine makes a humming sound. “Sandra is on a job in New Mexico with the R Team.” Sandra is her go-to for finding IDs, and if she’s working with the Rescue Team, that means they intervened in something big. “And I’m on a hit with the K Team in Utah.”
I grunt my approval. The Kill Team in action is always good for humanity.
“Can you keep him on ice?” she asks.
“No. It can’t wait.” I sigh. “I’m on my way to The Alliance Kill House.”
I can feel Cassandra’s gaze on me, but I need to pay attention to the road now. I know we’re getting close.
“I’m letting you know because I think this might be what you warned me about.” I refer to Karmine’s warning that people were looking for me.
“Shit, man. Was he at your house?”
“Not exactly. He was at my neighbor’s.”
Karmine lets out a low whistle. “The girl you’re stalking?”
I keep my eyes forward. “I’m not stalking her.”
“Uh-huh.” I can hear her damn eye roll. “You get the guy before he could touch your porridge?”
“Porridge?” Cassandra whispers, but not quietly enough.
“I’m not fucking Goldilocks,” I grumble to both of them. “Can we focus?”
It’s silent for a beat, then Karmine snickers. “She with you?”
I glance over at Cassandra, and she bites her lip, pretending innocence.
I sigh. “Yeah, she’s here.”
Karmine’s laugh is more of a snort this time. “If you didn’t want me to out you, you shouldn’t have put me on speaker.”
“That was me.” Cassandra squeaks out the admission. “Sorry about the invasion of privacy.”
I shake my head. Only she would apologize in this situation.
“No worries. Just one question.” Karmine is talking directly to Cassandra now. “Are you with Hans willingly?”
“Um, yes?” she says like it’s a question. “Sorry, are you asking if he kidnapped me?”
“Yes.” Karmine doesn’t mince her words.
“Oh, well, thanks for checking. But I’m happy with Hans.”
I push my hand farther between her legs until I’m able to slide my fingers under her closest thigh.
I can’t get her close enough.
I can’t touch enough of her.
“Okay, then.” Karmine accepts her answer. “So, what happened? Did you get him to say anything before he died?”
“I didn’t—”
“That was also me,” Cassandra cuts me off. “It was an accident.”
“Well, this keeps getting more and more interesting.”
I lean down and press a kiss to Cassandra’s hair. “I’ll give you the particulars later, but the man was in Cassandra’s backyard, acting like a fucking predator. When she came over to tell me what happened, I swept the woods around our houses. No sign of anyone else, so I think he must’ve been a scout. But he had no ID on him. And I need to know who he’s working for.”
“You do have a lot of enemies,” Karmine adds helpfully.
“He had a phone on him. I’ve disabled it, but I’ll see about digging through it to see if he reported anything.”
“Either way, if they’re on your street, they’ve found you.” She says what I already know, but it twists something inside me.
I just got my Butterfly. Finally got to touch her. Hold her in my hands. But if they’ve found me, then my life living on that quiet little cul-de-sac is over. And…
My lungs hitch.
She can’t live there either.
I’ve put her in danger.
I’ve done the one thing I never wanted to do.
Small hands close around my forearm.
I look down, and all I can see are her fragile fingers against my body full of violence.
And I hate myself for bringing her into this.
It was never my intention.
But in reality, the moment she moved in across the street from me, that was it for her.
Even if I’d never become obsessed. Even if she’d never baked me a single thing. She still would’ve been across the street from me. And that man would’ve been in her yard tonight.
Spots of red trickle into my vision.
If tonight had happened, and we hadn’t built this bond between us, what could’ve happened then?
You could’ve moved after she bought 1304 Holly Court.
Then I remember Mexico.
How I almost lost her only days ago.
How that had nothing to do with me. And how if I hadn’t been there…
“Hans.” Cassandra’s voice is quiet as her hands slide up and down my arm.
My chest is heaving.
If I hadn’t been there.
I was too mad about the whole situation to appreciate how scared I was. I was too angry to even think about what the world would be like if Cassandra Cantrell’s light had been snuffed out.
It was so close.
She was so fucking close to slipping out of my grasp.
“Hans, Baby.” One of her hands slides over to press against my chest. Pressing over my racing heart. “It’s okay. I’m right here.”
Another swell of emotion fills my body.
Baby.
No one has ever called me by an endearment.
No one except Cassandra when she called me a grizzly bear.
No one has ever had the right to.
No one I wanted to hear it from.
Her knee presses into my thigh as she turns toward me, and the arm not reached across between us twists around mine, hugging my arm to her body even as my fingers dig into her thigh.
Until now.
I force my lungs to fill, my expanding chest pressing against her palm.
“Call me that again,” I rasp.
Her hand moves in a small circle. “Baby?”
I nod.
“It’s okay, Baby.” Cassandra presses a kiss on my shoulder. “I’m right here. I’m safe.”
Her sweet breath is close enough for me to taste.
My favorite girl with a mouth flavored like my favorite candy.
My exhale is rough, but my next inhale is smooth.
Her hand makes another circle over my heart. “That’s it. You’re good, Baby.”
She kisses my shoulder again, then rests her temple against it.
My muscles start to loosen.
I take another breath.
I’ve never had a breakdown, or whatever that just was, in front of anyone before. But if decades of working to rid the world of evil has taught me anything, it’s to embrace the good.
I haven’t had much good. But the woman next to me, she’s my good in this world.
And losing her would destroy me.
After a moment, Karmine breaks the silence. “What do you need me to do?”
My voice is steady when I speak again. “I’m going to need intel. When we find out who he works for, we can cross it with names on incoming shipments.”
“They might be expecting you,” Karmine points out. “If there are breadcrumbs to follow, we’ll have to assume it’s a trap.”
“If we’re ready for it, then it’s not that good of a trap.”
She huffs but doesn’t disagree.
I don’t want to throw myself into a setup. But I also don’t want to spend the rest of my life hiding.
I’m not exactly sure how to make that possible with all the different people out there who would love to kill me. But I can’t give up the woman at my side. Can’t give up how she makes me feel.
“Alright, I’ll send you what we get for any upcoming deal in North America. As soon as you have details on the dead guy, send them my way.”
“Will do.”
“When are you dropping the body off?”
The mile marker sign I’ve been looking for flashes in my headlights.
I lift my foot off the gas and start to depress the brake. “Now.”
“I know you guys came up with a little truce or whatever that shit was at the restaurant. But maybe hurry the fuck up.”
A small smile tugs at my mouth. “I don’t plan to linger.”
Karmine ends the call, and when a narrow gravel road appears on our right, I turn down it.
We sit in silence as the tires crunch down the path. There are no signs, nothing to signal that something important is back here. But there is. And if we were able to drive through the property, we’d see crushed cars, piles of shit you’d expect in a junkyard. And a building. An unassuming building that looks as run down as the rest of it.
But it’s not run down.
It’s a cover.
And it belongs to The Alliance.
An organization run by three ruthless men. Nero, the unhinged devil who has been the known leader of The Alliance for years. King, the rich guy turned mobster. And Dom, the head of the Chicago mafia who married his way into the deranged family last fall.
They aren’t good men. But they aren’t exactly bad either. Not by my standards, at least.
They did, however, spend a year or so under the impression that I was behind the recent increase in human trafficking.
It was an honest mistake. My name gets thrown around a lot.
But my name was mentioned in relation to the transactions because I was showing up and killing all the men, not because I was in charge of selling the women.
Usually I wouldn’t mind the confusion.
Confusion is good. It’s easy to get lost in.
But it became obvious that The Alliance guys weren’t going to sit back idly while shit went down in their territory. And I don’t expect to die of old age, but I didn’t really want one of them to put a bullet in my brain because of misinformation.
So, last Christmas, when I happened to be in Chicago for a hit, I also happened to get wind of an ambush that was planned for the mafia leader and his new wife. It also just so happened that Karmine was in town, too, with some of her closest friends.
We didn’t get there in time to prevent the ambush, but we did get there in time to kill the attackers. And while Karmine’s army obliterated the opposition, I found myself doing a little field triage that saved Dominic Gonzalez’s life.
Of course, he was too close to death to know I was even there, so when he’d recovered, I found my way into crashing a dinner The Alliance men and their wives were having at a little restaurant.
The grenades were just a precaution. I only wanted to pass on a message.
And that message was simple. I wasn’t the man they were hunting for.
It’s been more than seven months since that night. And I haven’t heard any whispers from them. Neither that they believed me nor that they’re still looking for me. So I’m not really sure whether it worked.
I’m leaning toward it worked. But I’m not quite willing to bet my life on it.
Not yet.
Cassandra lifts her head from my shoulder, seeing the same thing I do.
A chain link fence, with a gate padlocked shut.
