But in reality, the moment she moved in across the street from me, that was it for her.
Even if I’d never become obsessed. Even if she’d never baked me a single thing. She still would’ve been across the street from me. And that man would’ve been in her yard tonight.
Spots of red trickle into my vision.
If tonight had happened, and we hadn’t built this bond between us, what could’ve happened then?
You could’ve moved after she bought 1304 Holly Court.
Then I remember Mexico.
How I almost lost her only days ago.
How that had nothing to do with me. And how if I hadn’t been there…
“Hans.” Cassandra’s voice is quiet as her hands slide up and down my arm.
My chest is heaving.
If I hadn’t been there.
I was too mad about the whole situation to appreciate how scared I was. I was too angry to even think about what the world would be like if Cassandra Cantrell’s light had been snuffed out.
It was so close.
She was so fucking close to slipping out of my grasp.
“Hans, Baby.” One of her hands slides over to press against my chest. Pressing over my racing heart. “It’s okay. I’m right here.”
Another swell of emotion fills my body.
Baby.
No one has ever called me by an endearment.
No one except Cassandra when she called me a grizzly bear.
No one has ever had the right to.
No one I wanted to hear it from.
Her knee presses into my thigh as she turns toward me, and the arm not reached across between us twists around mine, hugging my arm to her body even as my fingers dig into her thigh.
Until now.
I force my lungs to fill, my expanding chest pressing against her palm.
“Call me that again,” I rasp.
Her hand moves in a small circle. “Baby?”
I nod.
“It’s okay, Baby.” Cassandra presses a kiss on my shoulder. “I’m right here. I’m safe.”
Her sweet breath is close enough for me to taste.
My favorite girl with a mouth flavored like my favorite candy.
My exhale is rough, but my next inhale is smooth.
Her hand makes another circle over my heart. “That’s it. You’re good, Baby.”
She kisses my shoulder again, then rests her temple against it.
My muscles start to loosen.
I take another breath.
I’ve never had a breakdown, or whatever that just was, in front of anyone before. But if decades of working to rid the world of evil has taught me anything, it’s to embrace the good.
I haven’t had much good. But the woman next to me, she’s my good in this world.
And losing her would destroy me.
After a moment, Karmine breaks the silence. “What do you need me to do?”
My voice is steady when I speak again. “I’m going to need intel. When we find out who he works for, we can cross it with names on incoming shipments.”
“They might be expecting you,” Karmine points out. “If there are breadcrumbs to follow, we’ll have to assume it’s a trap.”
“If we’re ready for it, then it’s not that good of a trap.”
She huffs but doesn’t disagree.
I don’t want to throw myself into a setup. But I also don’t want to spend the rest of my life hiding.
I’m not exactly sure how to make that possible with all the different people out there who would love to kill me. But I can’t give up the woman at my side. Can’t give up how she makes me feel.
“Alright, I’ll send you what we get for any upcoming deal in North America. As soon as you have details on the dead guy, send them my way.”
“Will do.”
“When are you dropping the body off?”
The mile marker sign I’ve been looking for flashes in my headlights.
I lift my foot off the gas and start to depress the brake. “Now.”
“I know you guys came up with a little truce or whatever that shit was at the restaurant. But maybe hurry the fuck up.”
A small smile tugs at my mouth. “I don’t plan to linger.”
Karmine ends the call, and when a narrow gravel road appears on our right, I turn down it.
We sit in silence as the tires crunch down the path. There are no signs, nothing to signal that something important is back here. But there is. And if we were able to drive through the property, we’d see crushed cars, piles of shit you’d expect in a junkyard. And a building. An unassuming building that looks as run down as the rest of it.
But it’s not run down.
It’s a cover.
And it belongs to The Alliance.
An organization run by three ruthless men. Nero, the unhinged devil who has been the known leader of The Alliance for years. King, the rich guy turned mobster. And Dom, the head of the Chicago mafia who married his way into the deranged family last fall.
They aren’t good men. But they aren’t exactly bad either. Not by my standards, at least.
They did, however, spend a year or so under the impression that I was behind the recent increase in human trafficking.
It was an honest mistake. My name gets thrown around a lot.
But my name was mentioned in relation to the transactions because I was showing up and killing all the men, not because I was in charge of selling the women.
Usually I wouldn’t mind the confusion.
Confusion is good. It’s easy to get lost in.
But it became obvious that The Alliance guys weren’t going to sit back idly while shit went down in their territory. And I don’t expect to die of old age, but I didn’t really want one of them to put a bullet in my brain because of misinformation.
So, last Christmas, when I happened to be in Chicago for a hit, I also happened to get wind of an ambush that was planned for the mafia leader and his new wife. It also just so happened that Karmine was in town, too, with some of her closest friends.
We didn’t get there in time to prevent the ambush, but we did get there in time to kill the attackers. And while Karmine’s army obliterated the opposition, I found myself doing a little field triage that saved Dominic Gonzalez’s life.
Of course, he was too close to death to know I was even there, so when he’d recovered, I found my way into crashing a dinner The Alliance men and their wives were having at a little restaurant.
The grenades were just a precaution. I only wanted to pass on a message.
And that message was simple. I wasn’t the man they were hunting for.
It’s been more than seven months since that night. And I haven’t heard any whispers from them. Neither that they believed me nor that they’re still looking for me. So I’m not really sure whether it worked.
I’m leaning toward it worked. But I’m not quite willing to bet my life on it.
Not yet.
Cassandra lifts her head from my shoulder, seeing the same thing I do.
A chain link fence, with a gate padlocked shut.
CHAPTER 68
Cassie
Hans slows as he pulls the truck off the road to the right, then turns the wheel and makes a U-turn before backing the truck up to the gate.
He puts the truck in park, then turns toward me.
His eyes bore into mine. The night’s darkness hides the color but not the intensity.