But then she shook her head, snuffing it out. “This is the only shot we will ever have at getting DuPree. This is his misstep, Kellan. This is what we’ve been waiting for, and I can’t let him kill any more women. I need to go and take him down, and I need to do it alone. If you can’t stand by that”—she sent her gaze over his shoulder—“then you should go.”
Kellan stood in front of her, completely shell-shocked, for only a second before his defenses locked his shoulders into place and the rest of his body shut. “Fine,” he said, slamming down on his emotions until he felt nothing but numb. “Have it your way. You’re on your own.”
He turned on his heel and left.
28
Kellan got all of ninety feet from the back exit of Isabella’s apartment building before he realized he’d left both his cell phone and the keys to his Camaro on her kitchen counter.
Fuck.
He flipped his wrist, checking his watch with a frown. Okay, so it was barely twenty-hundred, which meant there were a solid four hours before Isabella was set to show up at DuPree’s penthouse. That would give Kellan plenty of time to get to a phone to call Sinclair.
Isabella would be furious, but at least she wouldn’t be dead.
Check that. She was already furious. If he told Sinclair about the phone call she’d gotten from DuPree and the plans she had to go with it, Isabella would never speak to him again.
You’re kind of already there, aren’t you buddy?
Kellan mashed back on the emotions brewing between his ribs. Kicking his feet into motion, he aimed himself toward the sidewalk and started to hoof it, eyes peeled for a payphone. One block turned into the next, which turned into a dozen more, and despite his effort, he couldn’t wipe the thought of Isabella from his head as he walked. The way she made at least five cups of tea in the morning, but only drank half of each one. The pure excitement that lit her face when she talked about things like the gun range and tactical weapons training. The way her body tightened and hummed just before she broke apart in climax.
The images rolled by on a continuous loop in Kellan’s head over and over, and damn it, screw it and fuck it all to hell, he couldn’t lock her away. He didn’t want to lock her away. So he didn’t.
He also didn’t hear the men behind him until one of them jabbed a needle into his neck, and the other threw a canvas bag over his head, turning his world pitch black.
* * *
Isabella paced over her living room floor so hard, she was shocked she didn’t carve a visible path in the hardwoods. Kellan had only been gone for an hour, but God, it felt like a thousand, and their argument welled up in her memory like a nasty cut. While she wasn’t shocked at his anger over her desire to confront DuPree, his mention of Marisol had smarted like a slap. Of course Isabella knew she couldn’t bring her cousin back—she’d tried just about everything to dull that pain. But now she could keep other women from being hurt, too. How could she refuse?
She owed it to them to do her job. And her job was to take down Julian DuPree. With or without Kellan’s blessing.
And despite the bone-deep ache in the center of her chest.
An electronic ringtone cut into Isabella’s awareness, sending her pulse through the roof. But her cell phone was right here, silent in her palm. So what the hell was ringing?
She walked into her kitchen, quickly realizing that Kellan’s cell phone lay sunny-side-up on her counter next to the now-cool casserole. The incoming call was labeled Gamble, and even though she hesitated for just a second, she scooped up the phone and put it to her ear.
“Hey, Gamble. It’s Isabella. I—”
“Is he with you?”
Fear laddered down her spine at the gruff urgency of the demand. “No. He left about an hour ago. Why?”
Gamble didn’t mince so much as a syllable. “Because he never checked in.”
Isabella’s chest constricted. “What? That’s impossible. Wait—” Her cell phone buzzed from the spot where she’d placed it on the counter when she’d traded it for Kellan’s. “Hang on, I’m getting a text. It might be…”
The rest of her words withered in her throat, her fear turning to sheer terror as she saw the image of Kellan, bleeding and blacked out and wearing the same shirt he’d left her apartment in an hour ago.
I have something you want. Midnight.
“Gamble,” Isabella said, her voice wooden in her ears. “I’m sorry, I have to go.”
She dropped the phone with a clatter and ran to the safe in her bedroom.
* * *