Bloody Vows (Lilah Love Book 5)

It’s Thanksgiving Eve, and for many, that’s a good time to put up a tree. To me, it’s a good time to stuff my face with chocolate, Cheetos, and strawberries while watching TV, preferably naked with Kane. That’s the plan. And it’s a good one. But first, comfy leggings, a warm sweater, an airport and a chopper out of the city and to the Hamptons. Because, in an odd twist of events, just one week after I stabbed Roger Griffin, my former profiling mentor turned serial killer, to death, we’re having Thanksgiving with my police chief brother. Logically, you’d think that’s because Kane and Andrew getting rid of Roger’s body together was a bonding experience, right?

Wrong.

They did whatever they did with the body and then they went back to hating each other, especially after Andrew saw the big rock Kane had put on my finger—that’s still on my finger, where it will stay. “Are you crazy?” he’d demanded and then scowled. “Never mind. You just stabbed a man twenty times. Yes. You are fucking crazy.”

“Fucking?” I’d challenged. “Now you’re cursing like a sailor, Andrew. Shame on you.”

He’d glared at me and then Kane before charging away to fight crime, but two days later, he’d still taken my call, and agreed to join us for Thanksgiving dinner. And Kane agreed to such an invitation for one reason and that reason is not me. He’s worried Andrew is flipping the fuck out over the dead body. He wants to assess him. Still, I say it’s the bonding thing. It’s going to happen. I feel it in my Lilah fucking Love bones. At least, in some alternate universe.

Kane, looking just as much the hot Latin king of the oil world that he is in jeans and a sweater as he does his custom suits, catches my hand and we head toward our departure gate. An hour from now, we’ll be out of the city and in the Hamptons and that much closer to Thanksgiving Eve paradise. We make it all of two steps toward the doors leading outside and to our chopper, when my cellphone rings. I snake it from my favorite Chanel trench coat and grimace at the number. “It’s Director Murphy,” I say and decline the call. “I’m not taking it. I’m on vacation.”

“Good decision,” Kane approves, but already my cell is ringing again.

“Damn it.” I grimace, and my gaze lifts to the television above the waiting area.

I catch Kane’s arm and drag him to a halt. “Kane,” I say, my voice strained.

He glances down at me and then follows the lift of my chin, where a ghost of a man that should be dead is now on the TV. Pocher, our sworn enemy, a powerful man in the Society, or what some call the Deep State, is being interviewed by a newscaster. Pocher, who Kane’s man killed under the guise of the Umbrella Man killings.

“Tell me that’s a rerun,” I say, my throat thick with ten flavors of anger just seeing that man’s face. “It has to be a rerun,” I add. “He’s dead. He’s been dead for seven weeks.”

Kane's expression tightens and he motions to a member of the staff to turn up the volume, already guiding me toward the screen. My cell is ringing again and I’m still ignoring it.

“The world is shocked right now,” the newscaster is saying. “We all thought you were dead.”

“My brother is dead,” Pocher says. “He was staying at my house at the time of the attack. Everyone simply assumed it was me who was murdered.”

“Then why not just tell us that?” the newscaster asks. “Why let us believe you were dead?”

“An abundance of caution,” he states. “The person who killed my brother was assumed by authorities to have been the serial killer called the Umbrella Man.”

“He’s dead,” the newscaster points out. “Any residual danger has been removed for weeks.”

“While that is true, someone in my position is an easy target. My private security team has assured me I’m safe, thus why I’ve now resurfaced.”

Pocher ordered the assassination of my mother. She’s dead. He’s alive “That bastard just won’t go away. He won’t die.” I glance at Kane. “That man made a deal with the devil. Maybe he is the devil.”

“The devil we know, Lilah,” he says. “I can handle Pocher.”

I don’t like that answer. It implies a line between me and him, my badge between me and him, which has always been his way of dealing with things, all of which was to end when I put this ring on my finger. “Of course. You can handle him. King Kane.”

“Lilah—”

“Do not tell me I wear a badge, Kane, which makes this yours to handle, because I swear to you that if you do, I will lose my shit. Honesty no matter what the cost,” I add, repeating our vow to each other.

He grabs my jacket and pulls me to him. “Careful what you demand, beautiful. You might not like the results.”

“You promised me.”

“I know that.”

“Do you?” I challenge but I don’t give him time to reply. “No more secrets, Kane.”

His eyes darken, a tic in his jaw.

My cellphone rings. “That will be Murphy again,” I say. “Obviously we now know why he was calling me. I have to take it.”

His expression tightens and he releases me, and he does so a little too easily. He doesn’t like this conversation. He never does.

I’m angry with him and like the perfect adult I am, I give him my back glance at caller ID and confirm my caller before I answer with, “Director Murphy. How did we not know this?”

“A man with money and power can make a lot of things happen. Speaking of, does Kane know?”

The question almost certainly confirms what Kane has been telling me all along. Murphy, a high-ranking member of the FBI, supports my relationship with Kane, someone the FBI has long tried to prove is a criminal as was his father, with motive. He sees Kane’s power and influence as a weapon to use against the Society. “Kane doesn’t work for your task force, Director,” I say offering nothing more.

“Of course not,” Murphy says dryly. “And as for what comes next. Death was too good for that man. We’ll make him pay for his sins.”

“Is that your grown-up Christmas list or do you have a plan?”

“A question for after the holiday. Happy Thanksgiving, Special Agent Love.” And with that, the asshole hangs up.

I rotate to face Kane, who hasn’t moved, the very stubbornness of his position in denial of any withdrawal on his part. He never gave up on me. Ever. And when he put this ring on my finger and I said yes to marrying him, I made a decision to do the same with him. I’m still pissed at him but to hell with fighting. I step into him. “The sooner we leave, the sooner we can be alone where we can fight this out properly, and I can win just as properly.”

His eyes darken with approval and his arm slides around me as we head to the chopper.

Soon we’ll be in the Hamptons, and no doubt, so will Pocher.