Dead Drop (The Guild #2)(19)

Swallow, obviously.

“I didn’t know that,” I responded carefully, gritting my teeth and holding a tight grip on my temper. Fuck, I wanted to kill that bastard a hundred times over, and hearing his name on her lips made me see red. “What did he say?”

She gave a small head shake. “Nothing. He tried to get my attention by abducting Stanley.”

My brows rose before I could control my reaction. “Stanley. You care a lot about this… Stanley.”

Danny’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah. I do. And I had stupidly told Kai about him while I was playing my dumb twit character. So he had Stan abducted and thought it would make me return to his fucking island or something.”

I swallowed hard. I wanted to know everything about Stanley. I wanted him dead. How dare he elicit such loyalty and adoration from my DeLuna? He had to go. She was mine and I would not share.

“I’m thinking his stupid plan didn’t succeed, or we wouldn’t be discussing this so casually right now,” I said instead, schooling my tone to calm lest I alarm her by my inner thoughts.

Her answering smile was smug. “I had it handled. Stanley is safe and out of Kai’s reach.”

Hmm. What did that mean? If he was out of Kai’s reach, was he also out of my reach? Clearly she’d shared more about her life with that prick than she had with me. I hated that.

Understanding dawned and I hummed an amused sound. “That explains why I saw you meet with Hermes earlier. I didn’t realize he had diversified his portfolio so much.” As far as I knew, Hermes dealt in jewels, artwork, and priceless trinkets. Not people. Then again, maybe he’d made an exception for Danny. She had that effect on people.

She arched a brow. “So… your turn. Tell me something real.”

My mouth went dry. Something real. She wanted to know me, and the thing that scared me the most about that concept was that it didn’t scare me at all.

No one ever accused me of making sense.

“I thought I loved someone… once. Her name was Layla.”

As those words passed my lips, I tensed up like I was afraid the roof would collapse or a bomb would detonate or something. But instead, Danny just reached out and softly traced the line of my jaw with her fingertip, and her gaze gentled.

“Was,” she repeated in a whisper. “What happened to her?”

I hardened myself against the deeply repressed grief I’d experienced over losing Layla. “She died,” I said. “She was Guild, too.”

Danny gave an understanding sigh. “Hazards of the job, for some of us,” she murmured. “I’m sorry, bunny.”

A flash of amusement cut through my melancholy. Bunny. She was just begging to get spanked for such disrespect, knowing full fucking well I was no mere tech bunny.

“You wanna explain the rest of that statement?” she prompted, dragging her thumb over my lower lip like she was fighting not to kiss me. I could understand that feeling.

“Hmm?” I gently grabbed her thumb with my teeth, teasing.

She held my gaze, tugging her thumb free. “You thought you loved her. What made you realize you didn’t?”

I stared back at her, totally unfazed by the gravity of our conversation. She was bewitching me completely. Somehow, she made me feel safe, and that was a totally foreign feeling to me.

“You, DeLuna.” I brought my hand to the back of her head, my fingers tangling in the soft weight of her hair. “The love I thought I had for Layla pales in comparison to the raw obsession I feel for you. You utterly consume my thoughts, day and night. Do you have any idea how dangerous that makes you?”

Her breath quickened, shallowing out as her pupils dilated. “That’s the real reason you thought about killing me?”

I inclined my head in confirmation. “Someone on the Circle tried to use Layla against me once. Tried to hold her safety hostage to force me to comply. Now she’s dead.” Both the Circle member and Layla. No one fucking blackmails me. Not if they want to stay alive.

Danny wasn’t scared, though. She just gave me a wicked smile and smoldering stare. “I didn’t know Layla, but I guarantee I’m harder to kill.”

My grip on her hair tightened, tilting her head back. “That, I’m sure of,” I agreed. Then I brushed my lips over hers in a tauntingly chaste kiss. She gave a frustrated whimper, trying to lean into me, but I held her hair firm as I chuckled.

“You wanna kiss me, DeLuna?”

“So fucking bad,” she groaned, tugging against my hold on her hair. “And more. Bunny…”

A grin pulled my lips at that stupid nickname. If she ever called me that outside of the bedroom, there would be hell to pay.

“Make me a promise,” I ordered, my voice already husky with desire. My dick seemed like it’d been permanently hard since Prague. Fuck knows I’d jerked off enough times during those three weeks in Kraków, while I spied on her from the apartment above.

Danny gave a small sound of frustration. “I don’t make promises lightly, Marx. What do you want?”

What do I want? Forever.

But she wasn’t ready to hear that from me. Not yet. She still thought we were playing a game, and in a way, we were. Wasn’t everything in life just one big game, and dying meant you lost?

“Promise me,” I implored her, holding her gaze steady and serious, “that you won’t trust anyone within the Guild until Blanchet has been dealt with. No one can be trusted, not even your friends.”