Deep Under (Tall, Dark and Deadly #4)(46)

“Locations where he’s holding the women he’s kidnapped for his sex trade operation. I have them all. I know I do. And I need to know something good came out of this. I need to save them before he kills me. Or at least know they will be saved.”

“And we will save them. Together.”

“By you calling your friends now.”

I take a step toward her. “Give me the gun, Myla.”

She takes a step backward. “I will shoot you, Kyle.”

“Please don’t,” I say, “because, sweetheart, I’m highly efficient, but I happen to believe I can do a lot more to help if I’m not bleeding. And we both know, I’m not the one you want to shoot, anyway.”

“I’m going to do what I have to do to save my sister and those women.”

“This isn’t what you have to do.” I move quickly then, take two broad steps, and stand in front of her, my hand wrapped around hers and the gun. “Shoot me or let go of the gun.”

“And if I let go?”

“I hold onto you. I help you.”

“Give me a reason to believe that. Call in the list.”

I move then, taking the gun from her in a skilled movement I’ve used dozens of times, then disarm the weapon and drop it on the ground. My hands are on her waist, and I have her against the wall before she can barely blink, my legs shackling hers.

“Damn you, Kyle,” she hisses, her fingers closing around my jacket. “Why can’t you just call in the list and then take your payday?”

“Because you are not a payday to me,” I say. “And because I have to choose who we tell about anything to do with Alvarez carefully. One bad agent, one leak of this to Alvarez, and we’re dead, and so are those women.”

“Oh. Oh, God.” Her lashes lower and lift, her fist balling at her chest. “I…I didn’t think of that at all. I listened to my father’s stories. I’m smarter than this. I had to be smarter than this to survive this long. I should have thought of that.”

“I’m going to help you,” I promise. “But right now, I need you to talk to me. Tell me what set you off tonight, so I know what’s coming at us.”

“What happened was my realization that this fashion business is just going to lure Kara to me. The minute she sees the name “Alvarez” with “fashion”, she’ll think of me, and I don’t know why I didn’t put that together before. He knows that. She’s always been a liability to him. He’ll use this as an excuse to kill her and justify it to me. ”

“And you thought getting killed yourself somehow stopped that from happening how?”

“Then he won’t have a reason to kill her.”

What feels like years of cold, hard ice around my heart melts with the sacrifice in those words, and I cup her face. “Sweetheart. You aren’t going to die and neither is your sister. I won’t let that happen. And Alvarez will never touch you again. You have my word.”

“You can’t stop him. At any moment, he could walk through the door and then I’m his all over again.”

“He won’t be walking in, and if he does, he won’t be walking out.”

“It’s not that simple, or I would have killed him a long time ago,” she says, her fingers curling on my chest. “If he dies, those women will be moved and Juan takes over.”

“Not if he’s dead. And we’ll work this out. And we will get out.”

“I can’t leave. He’ll go straight to Kara.”

“Not if he thinks you’re dead.”

“You can do that?”

“Yes. I can do that and I will.”

“Because why? Who are you? And I mean really. Who are you?”

My gut tells me that if I tell her right now, in this moment, it will not be well-received. “A friend,” I say, my gaze lowering to her lush mouth and lifting. “And the man who wants to kiss you. Really kiss you. Can I kiss you, Myla?”

“You’re asking?”

“Yes. I’m asking. After all you’ve been through-”

“He hasn’t destroyed me. He hasn’t beaten me and I don’t like that you think he has.”

“I don’t think he’s beaten you.”

“He hasn’t,” she insists. “I’m not giving him that power and damn it, you better not either by treating me like I’m broken and fragile. So kiss me if you’re going to kiss me or let me go, if you don’t want-”

I cup the back of her head, and slant my mouth over hers, my tongue sliding against hers, stroking, caressing, and the taste of her, one part hunger I welcome, but the other part, the torment, I intend to drive away. I deepen the kiss, my hand pressing beneath her tank top, finding warm, soft skin. My fingers splay over her rib cage, while my mind reminds me that no matter how big she talks, she wants this escape for a reason. She has been abused, used, hurt.

I tear my mouth from hers, my breathing and hers ragged, my hands settling at her waist. “Myla-”

“Don’t do this,” she pleads, “Don’t be the kind of hero I don’t need. Give me something good to remember the next time he touches me, something that gets me through it.”

“I told you,” I grind out. “He will never touch you again.”