“You really are perceptive,” I murmured.
Next to us, the tea kettle started to whistle. Neither of us looked. “Whatever you did, you fixed my lock. That door turned like silk. Thanks.” She spit the last word out, abandoned it. “By the way, I noticed you skulking around last time, like I was stupid enough to leave the letter sitting out on my table.”
At least she didn't know I'd crept into her room while she slept and investigated her phone, too. “Why are we having this conversation?” I asked.
“Because it's been on my mind!” Unfurling her arms, she tugged at her hair. “I need to know what you and Jacob have planned. How do I know you'll really help me find the guy I'm after?”
The fury in her stare had my heart thumping. I'd been avoiding this girl for three days, and here she was, inches away and filled with a wildness that intrigued me. So little scared her. “Marina, what are you afraid of?”
Flinching, she leaned over to turn off the stove. The tea kettle's scream was becoming too much. “Lots of things.”
“No,” I said, curiosity on my tongue. “What are you afraid of?”
She rubbed her inner wrist. Her silence stretched, so long I thought she wouldn't answer me. When she did, her voice was a whisper. “I'm afraid you'll kill me... before I can kill him.”
“Failure scares you.”
She snapped her glare to me, held it there. “I'm getting deja vu,” she muttered.
I'd moved closer, we both noticed it at the same time. I stood over her, my shadow darkening her toffee skin. Marina's skull tapped the wall, her body arching away from me.
“You're really not afraid of dying?” I asked.
She swallowed loudly. “After I avenge my family, what else is left? I don't care what happens to me.”
She didn't care?
Staring her down, I realized I didn't believe her.
From where I was, I could see the indent in her lower lip. “You want to know what we plan to do with you.” The center of my brain was tingling with her nearness. “Tell me what I could say that would soothe your frazzled nerves.”
Her lashes touched her cheeks, she looked away. “I'm not nervous.”
My fingers closed on her throat. It was a soft touch, just to feel her blood flutter. Her gasp was small and delicious. “Yes,” I whispered. “You are.”
Her hands came up, grabbing my forearm through my jacket. Something spiraled in her stare, a passion and pain that fought to escape. Marina studied me with expectation, and I hovered and waited and ached to push forward.
But I didn't. I don't know why.
She said, “You seriously want to know what would calm me down?” She clamped down on my wrist, gripping like I'd fade away. “Say... say that before this is all done, you and Jacob won't turn around and murder me. Promise you won't kill me.”
What the fuck was this situation we were in? I was bent over the angelic face of a woman who walked the line between wrecking me and buckling under my presence.
“You know what I'm capable of. In your gut, you know what I am.” Cupping her chin, I would have forced her to look at me... but she already was. “What about you? Could you promise that you'll give us the letter before you get yourself killed? If you don't, Jacob and I are screwed.”
Under my fingers, her plump lips became a wry grin. “The letter really is all you think about, isn't it?”
I said nothing. How could I admit there was something—someone—that I thought about constantly? Someone who dared to say she wasn't scared of death and refused to back down from me.
Marina Fidel owned more of my brain every minute.
Screwing her eyes shut, she let her hands fall from my arm—to my chest. “Yes. I'll promise that. Before anything happens to me, I'll get that letter to you, somehow. I won't let my revenge ruin you both.”
Her nails dug in, pulling me to her so our foreheads touched. Her warmth and her smell—raindrops and cocoa powder—assaulted me.
In our tiny corner of this filthy city, Marina swore that she would not abandon me. It was what I needed from her. Yet it left me feeling hollow.
“Give that bastard to me,” she hissed against my lips. “Get me that man, let me pull that trigger, and I promise... Kite... I swear I'll give you that letter.” Her voice scraped over my heart. “But only if you promise me.”
Gliding my palms upwards, I held Marina by the nape of her neck and turned her so she could see the intensity in my eyes. I wondered what else she saw there, because she licked her lips and shuddered. “I can't promise you—”