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)
“You do know me.”
“Better than even you believe, bella.”
Not really, I think. Kane knows me with an irritatingly accurate assessment, which is exactly why I’ve tamed my kill instinct. They say your other half should make you a better person and considering I’m really trying to arrest people before I end them, I think he’s succeeding. I’m just not sure it’s actually making the world a better place in the process. We reach the end of the hallway and Kit and Jay step in our path, twinning in black suits, with black ties, and crisp white shirts, the uniform of sorts Kane has established for his security team at one of my father’s events. Not that Kane or Kit and Jay are running the event. It’s all Enrique, who is only working security for my father to please Kane. He’s as loyal to Kane as Kit is, and probably more lethal. He’d rip my father’s throat out if Kane told him to, and yet my father feels safe when Enrique’s near.
The more I think about that fact, the more I think my father and Pocher are far more at odds than we believe to be the case. My father, I decide, is hiding behind me and Kane, and doing so despite the fact that he can’t possibly be delusional enough to believe I hold some inherent need to protect him. We join Jay and Kit right about the time a blonde woman in a black snug fitting dress steps in front of me. “Lilah, can we get you on stage with your brother to talk to the crowd?”
I don’t know this woman. I don’t want to know this woman. “Who are you?” Jay asks, and I’m not sure if it’s to save me from her or her from me, but I suspect the latter.
Her gaze shifts to him and her eyes go wide, before lingering on the scar down his cheek, I don’t even notice anymore nor do most people who meet him, certainly not DD, the medical examiner he’s fucking. Or dating. Whatever on that. I don’t really want to know. The point being that this woman notices and it tells me far more about her than she likely wants known. She’s superficial. She’s self-centered. She straightens, regaining her composure before answering with, “I’m Serena Rogers. The new governor’s image manager.” Her gaze shifts to me. “If we could get the first son and daughter on stage—”
“I’m here,” I say. “That’s the closest to support you’re going to get from me. If my father didn’t tell you that, you should work on his communication skills.”
She pales a creamy white. “Apologies. I’m sure Andrew will be enough.” She backs away and disappears.
Kit moves in closer and we sure up a huddle. “None of them can really believe you’re here for this, right?”
“One would think,” I say dryly.
“Maybe he’s hired us to ensure you at least appear involved?” Jay asks.
It’s an interesting take, but I don’t even have to look at Kane to know he’s dismissed this possibility as readily as I have. My father and Pocher agreed to breed a positive environment for Kane’s oil business, which seems to indicate they came together on the plan to control Kane, and me, by default. Only would Pocher really believe that to be possible? No, is the answer. Just no. So what is really going on?
A few minutes later, my father is on stage, a splint on his finger, as he tells the world he slammed his hand in a door, just the way he plans to slam the door on red tape and crime. I’d roll my eyes but I’m too nauseous with his cheese factor to do it. I’m also distracted by the why of him hiring Kane to run security. He calls it a favor he will pay back in his favor to the oil business. We call it an opportunity to get close to Pocher and takedown the Society. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, though for my father it could be all about political posturing. He needed his daughter, the FBI agent, to look like his ally. Pocher needed me here, too.
But as my gaze shifts and lands on Pocher where he stands at the bottom of the stage, he grimaces at something my father says to the crowd. There’s trouble brewing between these two and I wonder now if my father manipulated Pocher into wanting us close, into believing this is how he controls us.
And if my father believed we were his smartest move, he’s desperate.
Why else would he think we’re his answer to anything but a shovel and his grave? I decide to freak Pocher out. I break away from Kane and walk up the stairs to the stage.
Chapter Three
Kane’s only reaction to seeing me up on that stage is a raised eyebrow.