Page 57 of Darkest Kiss

Her eyes go soft and serious at once. "I swear. I’ll stay in the car."

"Good girl." I press my mouth to her forehead and hold it there, breathing her in, trying not to catalogue every way this is a mistake. Beast has gone quiet.

That doesn’t seem like a good sign.

She catches my wrist as I pull back. "Hey. Same as before." Her thumb finds the pulse there. "If you die, I'll reanimate your corpse just to kill you again."

"I believe you." I kiss her once, hard. "Get your shoes. You stay glued to me until I hand you off."

For her to be safe, I have to finish this. The only thing that's changed is she's coming to watch me do the one thing I'm good for. Some craven part of me is glad, because it buys me two more minutes with her in reach.

I steel myself as we head out the door.

Chapter Thirteen

Rian

Ransom picks a decommissioned meatpacking facility two blocks from the Vitelli compound for the meet. The crew owns it, along with the two lots on either side and the parking garage across the street. The whole block belongs to a shell company owned by another shell company that eventually rolls up to us. That's how Ransom has taught us all to do everything. Layered, quiet, expensive and difficult to unravel.

It smells like rust and old blood, which suits me fine. It would have to be multitudes worse for me to complain.

Six soldiers arrive with Ransom, vetted well past the point of comfort. These are our best guys, all decked out in head-to-toe tactical gear. Hale comes in last, with a duffel over each shoulder, and lays his equipment out without greeting anyone.

"Two teams," Ransom says, once we’re in a group. "Hale's charges go on the secondary structure, the Gloss lab, once we've confirmed it's clear."

"Charges go where I say they go," Hale says.

"On the secondary structure."

"We'll see. I want to feel out the situation first."

Ransom pinches the bridge of his nose. He does that a lot around us. I'm fairly sure his nose is load-bearing for his whole face. "Rian, you've got the entry. Don't go off-book the second you see Andreas."

"Me? I would never."

"You did exactly that at the auction. You spent two million dollars."

I shrug. "It worked out."

"It cost me the mayor."

"You didn't even like the mayor," Hale says.

"That is not the point of having a mayor in your debt." Ransom pulls up the compound on his tablet. Two buildings, a covered walkway between them. "Eight perimeter guards minimum, probably doubled since the photos hit every news desk in the city this morning. They're scared and short-handed. We confirmed with thermal an hour ago."

Scared men, Beast says, with the satisfaction he gets when a hunt is close. Scared men can be dangerous. But not as dangerous as me.

Tonight, you get to come out, I tell him. We go find the man who tried to make her disappear.

He howls his agreement. I don't like handing him the wheel. When Beast drives, I go somewhere else, and I don't always know whose flesh I come back holding.

But he's an efficient fucker.

"Rian?" Ransom asks. "You with us?"

"I'm here."

"He's talking to his imaginary friend," Hale says. "I'm jealous, frankly. Tell him I said hi."