Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 50820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 254(@200wpm)___ 203(@250wpm)___ 169(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 50820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 254(@200wpm)___ 203(@250wpm)___ 169(@300wpm)
“Neither one of them killed anyone. They’re both terrified little bitches.”
“That’s what I called your father.”
“I really do not want to think about you saying that to my father while alone with him.”
“Never underestimate your big bad bitch of a wife, Kane Mendez.”
He cups my face and tilts my gaze to his. “Do not underestimate him, Lilah. And if you’re ever alone with him again, he will try to make you pay. Kill him before he kills you.” His voice is as sharp as any knife I’ve ever stabbed someone with times ten.
My hand presses to his chest where his heart thunders. “I’ll kill him. You have my word.”
He holds me like that another beat that becomes three before he releases me, hands back on his hips, gazing at the sky, and I know that all is not well with my husband. “What happened with your father?”
His eyes meet mine. “Were you aware I have a Russian hacker working for me?”
“I knew you had a hacker.”
“He’s Russian. He’s in Russia and without boundaries. Before my father ever confronted you, I called him. I had him find my father’s money, and that’s exactly what he did. He emptied the accounts. In the meantime, I took my father to a private club that’s open until four am, and once we were in a private room, bought him an expensive bottle, and waited on him to get perfectly sloshed, beyond the drunk he’d gotten with the booze you gave him.”
I might be liking where this is going. “And then what?”
“I proceeded to show him his account balances, and informed him he now works for me.”
My eyes are wide. “And?”
“I told him I’d give him portions of his money back as he does my bidding then used his phone to call Brim, one of the cartel members who’d stab me in the back in a heartbeat, to get him.”
“To what end?”
“I wanted him to see his boss, throwing up and crying.”
“Holy shit, Kane. You didn’t waste any time. Now what?”
“We can discuss that later. You have two demon spawns to talk to and a killer to catch.”
I laugh because of the demon spawn comment when I’d been thinking about the same thing. We are a little too alike sometimes, and it was scary enough to keep me away from him. Just not anymore.
“Any idea who killed your victim?” he asks.
“I don’t even know who my victim is yet, which is why I need to go talk to my twin governors. Fear doesn’t equal innocence in my book. In fact, more often than not, it’s guilt.”
“I’d place a bet on innocent little bitches,” he says, his lips quirking, at our new little nickname for weak ass men. “Then again, I’d never bet against you.”
He won’t, but as I say goodbye to Kane, who’s going home to actually tend to his real business, I decide, the killer seems to have bet against me. He had to have known I was the governor-elect’s daughter, the FBI agent who caught the Umbrella Man. Unless he didn’t. Unless he was so obsessed with his kills and pointing law enforcement the wrong direction, that he missed the problem with his plan—me.
I need time in Purgatory. I need it now, but instead, I’m walking into my father’s house, about to force the twin governors to follow my rules.
Chapter Thirty-Four
I start with Money Mackey otherwise known as Holt Mackey, the Governor of New York, at least for a little while longer.
I walk into my father’s den where Kane has Mackey waiting on me, to find him pacing, his hand rubbing a knot at the back of his neck. “Governor.”
He whips around to face me, all six feet plus of fortysomething man in what is yet another expensive suit in a sea of expensive suits. Everything about the governor, from his jawline to his hairline, is well honed man, his hair thick and dark, his height towering. And I couldn’t care less. That’s not the reaction he’s used to getting though, especially from women and no doubt, intending to use his assets to sway my judgement of him, he rushes toward me with an outstretched hand. I ignore it, much like Leonard had Jack’s which tells me how much Leonard disrespects his co-workers. I don’t know Money Mackey, not beyond his panic attack over a case I was working some time back, when I was more focused on it than him. But either way, I don’t respect him or any politicians. They’re all liars. When he realizes I’m not shaking his hand nor am I impressed, his hand falls away.
“You probably hate me for all the jabs I took at your father on the campaign trail,” he says but he also doesn’t apologize. I like it. He owns his words, one hundred percent. Most people would lie or make excuses. And the truth is that the only reason my father beat Money Mackey was my mother. The world loved her and him by default.