Jayne drank the last before she answered. “No. There’s nothing left to warm me, really.”
Hadrian turned his glass over. “Cold to the deepest part of my being.”
And that was the truth. He’d been guarding himself and his emotions so long that he really didn’t feel things like others. He’d been forced to abandon his feelings. To bury them so deep that they were faint memories.
Until her.
She made him feel something else. Things he’d forgotten about.
Things that were dangerous as they could lead him to places he knew he shouldn’t go.
Suddenly, his comm rang.
Nero. He was the only one who ever called.
This won’t be pleasant.A part of him wanted to roll the call. But that would be a mistake as it would cause his brother to hunt him down immediately.
And kick his ass for worrying him.
Sighing heavily, he answered it. “Hi.”
“What the fuck?”
Hadrian smiled at Jayne’s shocked expression. Apparently, his brother’s voice carried. “Nice to hear from you, too. Been what? Fifteen hours? I think that might be a record.”
“Cut the shit, Hadrian. Are you safe?”
He ran his gaze over Jayne’s heavily armed, sexy body. “That’s a loaded question.” She was dangerous to him in so many ways, but none of them in the way his brother meant. “But I’m not being physically threatened at the moment. No.”
“Where are you?”
“Chasing down leads on who hates you.”
That caused Nero to back down for a second. “Pardon?”
“Well, no one knows me enough to like me, never mind hate me so much that they’d take out a hit warrant to end my life. I’m not worth the expense. What do you need to tell me, big bruh?”
“You think this is my fault?”
“No. But you have a lot more enemies than I do. You actually socialize and kill people who probably have families that don’t think too highly of you and would want to get back at you for what you did to their friends and family, by say . . . killing your little brother. Who would hate you enough to come at me?” Hadrian wasn’t expecting an answer. He assumed Nero would be as clueless as he was.
So when his brother answered, he was floored.
“Mordacity.”
“As in one who likes to bite?”
“No, dipshit. As in a caustic bitch . . . Mordacity Pride. She’s an incee.”
Slang for independent assassin.
Shit.
For a long, slow second Hadrian couldn’t breathe. “You know who did this?”
“Of course, I do. I don’t talk about you to anyone.”
“Except a caustic bitch?” Nero’s words, not his.
