Bloody Vows (Lilah Love #5) - Lisa Renee Jones Page 0,2

And so do I. I lower my head to the cushion when another time I’d pull out the cold case files that are part of my job. Murphy told me to pick my case, but what he meant was to look for cases that connect to the Society. I’m just not sure that really gets us anywhere, and I’m not exactly a spin-my-wheels-for-nothing kind of agent.

But my mind is on murder. Oh yes, it so fucking is.

The swoosh of the chopper blades and the hum of the engine lifting us off the ground transports me back to the moment when I’d launched myself at Roger and started stabbing him. Over and over, I stabbed him. And then he was dead. He is dead, there is no coming back from that, and the blood is still warm on my hands. He’d stabbed Kane. He’d bragged about killing all those innocent victims. He’d bragged about killing my mother at the direction of the Society, which means Pocher. And he’d assured me I was a killer like him. I’d happily proven him right.

My mind goes to my father, and his reaction to me being raped. “At least they didn’t kill you.” He knows the Society killed Mom, I know he knows, that statement tells me he knows, and still, still, he’s with them, using them for power and political office. I think of her beauty, her kindness, her goodness, that was too good for him, and me. I’m like him and he’ll know that soon when I make him pay for his part in all of this.

I’m not sure how much time passes before Kane squeezes my leg and I jolt awake, instantly aware of his warning me of the imminent landing. It’s not long before we’re on the ground, deboarding, and heading inside the airport together. There was a time when I’d have been concerned about the gossip we stir, but that time isn’t now. I still can’t say that Kane and I are good for each other, but I simply don’t care anymore. We fit together. I always knew this, of course, from the moment I met him, but that was the problem. I saw my addiction to a man as notorious as Kane Mendez as a judgement on my character. Back when I wasn’t willing to take responsibility for who, and what, I am.

Once our bags are in hand, we step outside, an early fluttering of snowflakes in the air and dusting our shoulders, but our pace is steady, relaxed. In control. I like this about Kane. He’s always in control. Control is good and it’s not long before we're inside the sporty black Mercedes he favors here on the island. He cranks the engine to a low, smooth hum and I’m remarkably happy to be here. It is the home to both of my crimes. My mind flashes back to the night I killed Roger. To me standing naked in the shower with Kane as he washed the blood off of me, my new diamond on my hand. We didn’t speak then, either. But when he pulls us onto the road, it’s hard not to be back on that boat where he proposed, and I killed Roger. “I don’t feel guilty.”

There’s a slight shift to the air, but Kane’s reply is nothing short of nonchalant. “And that bothers you,” he assumes. God, he knows me.

“I am an FBI agent. I should feel something different. I shouldn’t feel—”

He glances over at me. “I’m not the person you pause with, Lilah. You know that. Finish the sentence.”

“I felt guilt after killing that man on the beach. He raped me and I still felt guilt. I don’t this time, Kane. I feel happy he’s dead. That doesn’t feel normal.”

He halts the car at our front gate and punches in a security code, glancing over at me to ask, “Normal by whose definition?”

“My training. My textbooks,” I reply as he pulls us into the garage.

“All right,” he says, killing the engine and turning to face me. “Then per some books, you’re not normal. First of all, I doubt seriously anyone who wrote those fucking books faced a serial killer who also killed their mother. And if you were normal, beautiful, I wouldn’t be in love with you. And before you tell me how dysfunctional that is, how dysfunctional we are, you are not one of them. I know that’s what you think. That you’re one of the killers you hunt, but you are