I stare at him, feeling like I’m in an alternate universe and everything is backward. “I don’t understand what’s happening right now.”
“What’s happening is that Declan is going to take you home.”
I look around in confusion. “But…”
“Here’s my number. If you need anything, call me. No matter the time.”
He holds out a small white card. I take it, blinking like an owl. The only thing on the card is a telephone number. No name, no address, no explanation as to why I’m feeling so deflated.
Seeing my expression, Killian’s gaze turns smoldering. He moves closer and leans down to murmur into my ear.
“Whenever you’re ready for that kiss, little thief, I’ll be waiting.”
He turns and strides away without a backward glance. The elevator doors slide shut behind him, and he’s gone.
11
Jules
When Declan drops me off in front of my apartment, I wait for the SUV to drive out of sight before heading back down the street to flag a taxi. The sun is rising by the time I make it to the hotel. I check in, head to the room, and leave a voicemail for Fin and Max on a number designated for emergencies only.
Then, dead tired, I drop facedown onto the king-sized bed and go to sleep. I don’t dream. I don’t move. I fall off a cliff into grateful oblivion.
When I wake, the sun is setting in a spectacular golden light show over the Charles River. I take a shower, order a steak and a bottle of red wine from room service, and get dressed again in the same clothes I’ve been wearing from before I broke into the Irish mob king’s diaper warehouse and my whole world was turned upside down.
When the hotel phone on the desk rings, I answer with the name I checked in under. “Katniss Everdeen speaking.”
“It’s me.”
Sighing in relief, I sink into the desk chair and take a big swig of the wine. “Max. Thank god. Are you guys okay?”
“We’re fine. How was the date?”
“Ha ha.”
“I’m only asking because you sounded so hot and bothered in your message. We figured you and the crazy beautiful evil gangster got down to more than canoodling.”
“Why don’t you sound the least bit concerned that I could be dead right now?”
“You picked up the phone, dummy. Clearly, you’re not dead.”
“You know what I’m saying. He could’ve killed me!”
“Listen. When a man looks at a woman the way Liam Black looked at you, the only thing she’s in danger of is a punctured lung from his raging boner.”
Dear god. The inhumanity. I say drily, “Thanks for your prayers, Mother Teresa.”
“Tell the truth. He likes you.”
I chug the wine angrily.
Meanwhile, Max is laughing. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. He doesn’t want to hurt you, he wants to play footsie with you under the table with his giant feet. Which reminds me, did you get a look at the size of those puppies? I noticed them in the bar. The things are enormous. If all his body parts are that large, he probably could kill you with his boner.”
“This isn’t funny, Max. He could have done very bad things to me.”
“But he didn’t. You’re safe. Not only did he keep his word he wouldn’t harm you, he let you go…again.” She pauses. “What do you think that means?”
“That he likes playing games.”
“Maybe. Or maybe that he’s got a soul under all that smoking hot badassery.”
I snort. “A soul? Let’s not get carried away. He is who he is, after all.”
Except he told me to call him by a different name than the one everyone else calls him, and he’s done the opposite of everything I’ve expected him to do up to this point, so I really have no idea who he is at all. Or what he is, except a notorious gangster.
“I didn’t say who, lass. I said what.”
Whatever the hell he meant by that is just one more question to add to the growing pile.
Max says, “So when are you seeing him again?”
I reach into my pocket and run my finger along the edge of his little white card. “Hopefully, never. Change of subject: you ditched your burner phones, right?”
“Yes, we got rid of the burner phones.”
“Good. And you’re at your alternate safe spots? You weren’t followed? No one knows where to find you?”
Max answers with exaggerated patience. “That is correct, Sister Neurosis of the Immaculate Order of High Anxiety.”
“You act like I’m being unreasonable.”
After a weighted pause, Max says, “Did it ever occur to you that all this stuff we do to try to make amends for being who we are is a total waste of time? That if we really wanted to make a difference in the world, all it would take would be for each of us to put a bullet in our fathers’ brains?”
I blink in surprise. “Wow. The conversation has taken a dark turn.”
Her voice grows hard. “We could save countless lives by doing that, Jules. We could end so much suffering. But instead, we’re playing at being these underdog heroes who do the wrong thing for the right reasons. Or the right thing for the wrong reasons, I don’t fucking know.”
“Max—”
“My dad is one of the worst drug traffickers in the northern hemisphere. Fin’s dad sells weapons to whichever global anarchist or authoritarian hungry for power who’ll pay the most. Yours makes Michael Corleone look like a crybaby.”
I listen to her breathe hard for a moment before saying, “What’s your point?”
“When the three of us met at school when we were thirteen, that was fate. It was fate that we made a pact to help people instead of turning into what our genes and our childhoods had in store for us. It was fate that out of all the people in the entire world, you chose Liam Black to target for a job.”
“Or maybe it was sheer stupidity.”
She ignores me. “And it was fate that he let you go not once, but twice.”
I crinkle my brow in confusion. “I’m not sure I follow.”
“You influenced him.”
She lets it sink in for a moment before continuing. “He didn’t hurt you. He wasn’t even angry about what you’d done. He followed you, and made smoldery bedroom eyes at you, and gave you his word you’d be safe with him, and kept his word by not using you in one of the million different ways a man like him could use a woman.”
This time her pause is longer. “Imagine if our mothers could’ve had any influence over our fathers. Imagine how much different so many people’s lives might have been.”
“Question: what have you been smoking?”
“Nothing.”
“Really? Because it sounds like you’re suggesting I should attempt to have some kind of influence over Killian Black’s evil empire.”
“I am. Wait—who’s Killian?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose between my fingers and close my eyes. “Smoldery isn’t a word.”
Max’s voice drips sarcasm. “Oh, look, another random change of subject. Could it be because you don’t want to explain to the smarter of your two best friends that you’re hiding something about the hot criminal you keep pretending not to like?”