Page 64 of Cops and Robbers

As the glow ceased, he glanced down at her hand touching him. “Almost. Thanks to you.”

“You weren’t going to pull over?”

“I was waiting to get somewhere a little more secluded.”

“Where?”

The SUV slowed. “Here.”

He parked. A dark lake stretched out before them. The single lamplight and the headlights reflected off the black, choppy surface. Feeling at ease with Raz away from the gala, she slipped her feet from the stilettos and hugged her knees to her chest.

The leather squeaked as Raz sank into the chair. “What happened back there? Why did you react to Matsuda so strongly?”

Lingering panic caused her fingers to shake, but she pushed it down. You can trust him. She stared down at her legs and plucked at her fingernails. “He knows me. Just not this face luckily. But I could have blown it.”

“One thing at a time, please. How well does he know you?”

She ducked her head into the gap between her knees, trying to keep the guilt floodgate locked. “When I first met Matsuda, I was young and naïve. Naomi and I were living in Japan, working small thieving jobs to make it by. He came into my life. A mentor. A confidant.” A lover. She let the thought hang between them.

When Raz put it together, his surprise strangled the link. “You and Matsuda?”

Heat flushed her cheeks. “He wasn’t who he is today. Though I guess that was just a con. He taught Naomi and me how to steal from the rich. Give back to the poor. Naomi never liked him, but I chalked it up to jealousy. All I knew was the other Matsuda. I trusted him with everything. Even that part of me.”

Raz stilled. “That you’re a Fallen?”

She nodded. A deep weight warred with a wave of heated anger. “He’s a liar. A manipulator. He encouraged me to use my abilities for some greater purpose. During a heist for supplies we’d give to Vietnam during war time, Naomi had a hunch about what we were stealing. They were weapons.” Kate snorted. “To this day I don’t know how I was so blind. He knew his power over me was slipping, but when we tried to steal the weapons back, he turned the tables on us. I escaped, but Naomi…” Her breath hitched.

That night ran through her head. Naomi’s searing glare of betrayal flashed through her mind as Matsuda only had to lift one finger to stop her. And Kate turned the gun on herself to stop him from controlling her too.

Tell him. Just tell him.

She opened her mouth but didn’t have the strength to force the words out. Raz wouldn’t understand why she left her friend behind, and then she became…Midnight—a killer. Naomi would never forgive her for what she did, and she couldn’t face losing a loyal man with a heart of gold she was beginning to fall for.

“He took her from me without blinking an eye,” Kate said. “And that kind of person…the power he had over me terrifies me.”

“Fuck.” He rubbed a hand over his growing beard. “Is that why you defend Midnight? You feel like she’s somehow stuck like you were?”

“I just—I just. He…I—“ She paused to catch a steadying breath, unsure if she could tell him who Midnight was without exposing the full truth. “He made me do monstrous things.”

“You and Midnight aren’t the same person, Kate. You’d never purposefully kill innocent people.”

The finality in his voice ripped her in half. Of course, that’s how he saw Midnight’s murders, because that’s what Matsuda wanted everyone to see—especially Kate, who feared Naomi would become an Archfiend if she kept killing. But she couldn’t argue with him without telling the truth, so she ducked her head. “You’re right.”

Raz sighed. “How can you trust anyone after that? Trust me?”

“You don’t try to be good. You are good. I saw that when I touched your spirit.”

He stared at her for a long moment before slumping back into his seat. “So why can’t he recognize you now?”

Guilt settled in the pit of her churning stomach at what she’d done in the past, and the alcohol was making her slightly woozy. She turned to the window, watching a tree sway in the breeze. “My Influence isn’t as strong as Caige’s. I can’t keep a different face for more than a few hours, so I forced my family line into different nationalities rapidly through four generations.”

“How? Wouldn’t you have had to die?”

Nausea burned at the back of her throat. She pressed her head against the window, and the seeping cold pushed away the darkness of the past. Her sigh fogged the glass. “I stayed Dormant, or in my dead body not reincarnating, while I trusted Bonnie to deal with my family and get them away from him. I couldn’t trust that if I reincarnated too early, he’d hunt me down. But if he recognized me today, he’d know something was up. And he’d ruin our mission.”

Raz’s hand on her back startled her, but she didn’t move. Gentle fingers tickled up and down her spine, offering a distraction, as calming reassurance flooded down the link, wrapping her in a security blanket.

“We still have the upper hand,” Raz said. “If you trust Clyde’s programming skills, then there’s nothing to worry about.”