Dead Drop (The Guild #2)(81)

It was Kai’s turn to be rendered speechless, his eyes wide as he stared at me for confirmation.

“I thought you knew,” I croaked. “I told you…” My words dried up as I cast my mind back. I hadn’t told him shit. I’d assumed he knew, just like he clearly assumed otherwise. Well, fuck.

Kai shook his head, skepticism and disbelief crossing his face. “No, we scanned you for trackers when we took you to the island. If you had an implant or IUD, it would have shown up. And you sure as fuck haven’t been taking the pill.”

I barked a laugh, because it was such a normal train of thought. Such a reasonable, logical method of deduction. “Kai,” I said softly, stepping out of Leon’s hold to cup the shell-shocked man’s face. “Did you forget what I do for a living?” My voice was gentle, all fight and anger having ebbed away. We could deal with the startling revelation that he’d been actively trying to baby-trap me later. Right now, he needed a softer touch.

His brow was drawn tight, and a thin line of blood seeped from below his dressing. But the confusion and denial etched across his face was confronting and painful to see.

“Big Man,” I coaxed, leaning into him more and rising up on my toes to try and lessen the distance between us. “I was raised by the Guild. I made my first kill when I was eight. By the time puberty came around, the higher-ups already had me marked as a honey trapper. The Guild doesn’t play fast and loose with assets, Kai. They cover their bases, and not with something as temporary as birth control.”

Outrage twisted his features. “They sterilized you?” His disgust was enough to make me feel sick to my stomach, and I jerked back a step.

Leon was right there, catching me in his warm, secure hold, but Kai’s venomous gaze just shifted over my head to center on Leon.

“Why?” Kai shouted. “Why would you do that to her? You sick fuck.”

“What?” I exclaimed, twisting my head to look between them. “Leon had nothing to do with it. He’s—”

“He’s one of them!” Kai barked, his teeth grinding together as his chest swelled with indignation. “He might not have been then, but he sure as fuck is now. And I bet my own balls that nothing has changed. Has it, Leon?”

Now I was really confused. “Kai, take a fucking breath and explain what in the shit you’re accusing him of.”

Kai’s gaze darted back to me, regret flashing across his face briefly, then he was sneering at Leon again. “Siren, baby. You’ve been sleeping with the devil. Leon Marx is on the Circle.”





35





Those words just fell out of my mouth faster than I could catch them, the slippery bastards. The second they were in the air, though, it felt like a huge weight lifted off my chest. Now she knew. Now she could kick him to the curb or shoot him or whatever the fuck a vicious little creature like my woman did when people betrayed her.

The last thing I expected, though, was for her to start laughing.

Bewildered, I flicked a glance at the dickhead still holding her hips possessively, but his face gave away nothing.

“Siren, I dunno what you think I just said… but Leon is on the Circle. He’s one of the seven psychopaths that runs the Guild. Everything they’ve made you do, all the years of exploitation, they’re his fault.” I simmered down my rage a few notches in an attempt to get my point across. Because she clearly hadn’t heard me the first time.

“Oh my god,” she groaned, scrubbing her hands over her face and stepping away from him.

Good. That fucking cunt needed to keep his hands off my woman, anyway. But she also stepped away from me, and that was unacceptable.

“Danny,” I tried again, because goddamn it, this was important.

“No!” she shouted, pinning me with fire in her eyes. “Enough! I have heard e-fucking-nough. I expected this meeting to go badly. I knew neither one of you wanted to tolerate each other. I knew eventually someone was going to get heartbroken or killed. But was it so fucking much of me to hope that could wait until after Blanchet was dealt with? Until after the world’s best mercenaries weren’t coming for my blood?” She was shouting at us both now, her cheeks pink with fury, and my jaw hung open in shock.

Leon must have seen the need to try and calm the situation, too, because he stepped forward with a calming gesture. “Beautiful, I think we should—”

“Shut your fucking mouth, Marx,” she snarled, shifting her blazing glare his way. Ouch, I didn’t envy him being on the receiving end of that. “You are far from an innocent bystander here.”

That snapped me free of my shock, and I scoffed. “Quite the opposite; he’s the enemy.”

Danny’s glare snapped back to me, and I straightened my spine. “You’re delusional. Let me guess, your mystery Guild mole told you that? Did you ever stop and think that they could be feeding you false intel to further their own agenda? Fucking hell, Kai, grow a brain. Just because your interests align on Project Remus, doesn’t mean they’re not using you.”

Leon cast me a curious glance but didn’t seem even slightly offended by my accusations. Was I wrong? Fucking hell, I hadn’t even considered the validity of that tip. Everything else our mole had provided was serving to be true… and this information had rocked me so hard I’d just accepted it.