Had Gill been right all along? Had she partnered with the Strategist long before she’d met him?
Lathan tried to force that square thought into the round hole, but he just couldn’t make it fit. Her fighting him didn’t fit either, and yet she’d done it.
Water leaked from his eyes, from where Honey had tagged him in the nose. He wiped it away and sat up. His balls throbbed so deeply he felt the ache in his chest. Blood flowed into his mouth from his teeth splitting his lip. He spit and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
He shifted to where she’d collapsed, eyes closed, chest heaving up and down. She smelled of dirt and sweat and adrenaline. And the fucking Strategist. Tendrils of hair adhered to her face. Barely touching her, Lathan brushed them back. Dirt crusted her skin, but through the grime, he could see the vulgar color of a bruise reaching out from her temple, swelling around her eye, covering half of her cheek.
“Holy Jesus.” He remembered watching her and Junior struggle. Remembered watching Junior bash the gun into the side of her head. Remembered watching her fall, unconscious and completely vulnerable.
“Honey?”
Her face scrunched up. Tears slipped from her closed eyes, cleaning a track to her temples.
“Honey?”
She shook her head, refusing him, denying him. And yet, the pussy-whipped motherfucker in him couldn’t tolerate her pain. He took her hand—she didn’t resist—and placed it on his tattoo. In the moment of contact, her back arched off the pavement, her face contorted with anguish, then she settled, her features relaxed, tranquil, and content.
Her skin, cold and slick with sweat, warmed beneath his touch. Some ethereal part of him entered her and began to repair all her hurts, while her coolness flowed into him, swirled in his blood, soothing the ache in his balls and the burn of his split lip.
Her eyes opened. Tears shimmered and spilled over. “Lathan?” Her voice broke, and yet it was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard. Her hand on his cheek flexed. “You’re dead.” The words didn’t sound like a question. Didn’t sound like a threat. Didn’t sound like a statement either. They just sounded wrong. What the fuck was going on?
Vanilla floated to him on a whispered breeze. From the darkened road, the Strategist emerged phantasm-like. A tiny piece of Lathan had been in denial that the mousy partner could actually be the killer, but his nose didn’t lie. Even if he hadn’t been able to smell the scent signature, he would’ve known something wasn’t right with the man.
His eyes were a chasm. Shark eyes. Snake eyes. Dead eyes—like Hell’s merciless master inhabited James Jonah’s body and looked out at the world through the man’s eyes. And those cruel orbs were focused on Honey.
Lathan pressed her hand more firmly onto his face, used his other arm to gather her tight to him, and rose to his feet. No way was he confronting death incarnate with his ass cheeks on the ground.
“James?” Honey’s voice jumbled with confusion. And a sickening familiarity. She knew him. Was comfortable with him. Not scared of him.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
The Strategist switched on a flashlight and held it backward, illuminating his savage gaze. “Let her go. I don’t want to—especially in front of her—but I will kill you.” Promise infused his tone.
“James, no! Oh my God. Lathan’s alive. He’s alive.” Honey’s voice rose with each syllable. She plastered herself against him, burrowed into him, held him so tight that she was nearly inside his skin. “I thought you were dead. I cried for you. I grieved for you. I almost—” Her words were soaked in sorrow. “If James hadn’t been there for me, I wouldn’t be here. I would’ve given up.”
“Fucker never should’ve taken you in the first place.” Lathan locked gazes with the asshole. “How long you been watching me?”
“He didn’t take me. He found me. In the woods.” The unscarred corner of her mouth tipped downward.
Lathan smelled vinegar—the pungency of her doubt. “He’s a liar. Look at him. He’s got that flashlight aimed at his face. He knows I have a hearing problem. That’s not something I advertise.”
“Let her go.” A gun materialized in James’s hand, barrel aimed at the ground but rising, rising, rising.
Life narrowed, pinched tighter and tighter, until all that existed were him and Honey and the Strategist with his gun aimed at Lathan’s head. Calm certainty hunkered down inside Lathan. If it came down to it, only two of them were going to walk away. One would die.
“James. No. You don’t understand. This is Lathan. My Lathan. The man I couldn’t stop crying over.”
“He knows. He doesn’t care.”
James’s inhuman eyes moved to Honey. He switched off the light, thinking Lathan couldn’t hear him. “I found you.”
Darkness swallowed James from sight until Lathan’s eyes adjusted to the dark. “You stole her.”
“I took care of you.” The Strategist ignored him and focused on Honey. “I kept you safe.”
“James? I don’t understand.” Confusion melted into her words, infused the air around her.
“I thought we were friends.” James voice swooped low on the word friends.
Honey flinched, sucked air like the guy had landed an invisible gut punch. “We are.” She gasped. “We always will be. Nothing has changed.”
“He’s fucking with your mind.” Lathan didn’t hide the disgust from his tone.
“I told you my secret.” The words were a shadow of barely audible sound. The Strategist’s shoulders sank. He seemed to hunch in on himself, diminishing. In a motion so slow, so deliberate, so fucking appalling, James swung his gun arm up, but the gun passed beyond aiming at Lathan and stopped when it was pressed against James’s own temple. “You want to leave me because of my secret.”