He catches my arm. “They won’t go away because I move away.”
“I didn’t suggest we want them to go away. I suggested we lure them elsewhere, where we’re stronger.”
“I am stronger here. We are stronger here, where I own the power.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“It’s reality, but this is not the time for this conversation, Lilah. We do need to go. I want to be there when the mechanic I hired inspects our chopper.” He releases me.
I walk out of the room.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Kane lays out some ridiculous sum of money to buy someone else’s private chopper for the night, which assures us that no one believed we would ever be on it. After doing so, the new mechanic, Charlie, a tall dude with red hair and freckles, who speaks perfect Spanish—go figure—heads out to inspect the engine. Kit follows him. Jay has yet to arrive.
Kane and I step to the window, standing side by side, watching our team work.
“I’m going to have to offer her your protection,” I say.
“I assumed,” he replies.
We go back to staring out of the window again, an awkwardness between us that is not comfortable or usual. Seconds more tick by before he says, “I’d die for you, beautiful. You think I wouldn’t leave this Godforsaken place for you?” We turn to look at each other and he adds, “It’s not that easy.”
“Be honest with yourself and me, Kane. You have a hold on the cartel. They don’t have a hold on you. And you like it that way.”
“My connection to the cartel is why the Society fears me, Lilah. They don’t want me to turn the cartel on their people.”
That’s when a realization slaps me in the face. “Wait. Could the cartel’s enemies have been behind your crash?”
“I’m not standing in that fire right now. I’ve united, not divided, those who might otherwise see my uncle as an enemy. I’m not the enemy.”
I don’t ask why he’s so certain. He’s a Mendez. His father was the kingpin. If he says the cartel isn’t part of this, I have to trust that the cartel isn’t part of this. He’s a part of them and they are a part of him, whether I like it or not. And I don’t like it.
Jay appears by my side. At the same time, my cellphone rings with Houston’s number. I flash the screen at Kane, and then answer with, “Yes, she called me.”
“And you didn’t call me? I need to get a team—”
“No,” I say, walking a few feet from Jay and Kane. “She won’t talk to anyone but me. I’m not risking you spooking her. I’ve got this. I’ll be in touch. I have to board a chopper.” I disconnect.
Kit walks in the door and motions us forward. My eyes meet Kane’s and his are dark and unreadable, but no matter how suave Kane Mendez might appear, always and forever, how unflappably in control, there’s no way he’s unaffected by what happened last night. There’s no way he’s not nervous about getting on this flight.
I motion Jay onward to the chopper and close the distance between me and Kane, stopping in front of him to say, “I thought of part of my vows. It goes like this: at least if we die, we die together.”
His hands come down on my arms and he pulls me to him. “Yes. At least if we die, we die together.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Once our chopper is in the air, Kane lays his head back and shuts his eyes. It’s his way of being Zen, though I’m pretty sure Kane has never used the word Zen in his life. In short, he’s blocking out everything else, finding his place of calm.
As for the rest of us—Kit, Jay, me, and the pilot—you can feel the tension as we lift off and level to our flying altitude. I’m sure for Kit, his feelings are magnified by the fact that he and I have yet to have a confrontation about him shutting me out when Kane was off-grid yesterday. But it’s coming. Oh yes, it’s coming in a big, bad way.
Bottom line, the chopper is all but imploding with fear. It screams through the silence of our voices and cuts through the engine.
I can’t take it.
It’s making me crazy and despite Kane not moving, I know it has to be making Kane crazy, too.
Since I have no booze to offer up to calm everyone the fuck down, I pass a bag of chocolate—I always have chocolate—around the chopper. Yes, even to Kit. He and Jay, and even the pilot, indulge, and you can almost taste the stress melting away—it’s a bit messy, like a Hershey bar that’s been dropped on a hot sidewalk, but whatever.
When we finally land, alive and well—of course, we do, the chopper wasn’t even meant for us—we exit our ride and Kane catches my hand. He doesn’t speak. He just holds on tightly, like he thinks he’s about to lose me again over this cartel stuff. In other words, he’s not going to bend. And we are going to fight. I don’t pull away, though. I’m not interested in fighting with Kane, at least not now. My attention is on catching a killer.