But there were no electronics. If she was wearing a wire, it was installed someplace that would require exploration to find. That thought sent a surge of blood against his zipper, but a wave of anger flowed right behind it. Kara Chandler was no blushing virgin. She was the Assistant District Attorney in a major metropolis, a woman who’d taken him to court once for murder and whose boss was committed to ruining Gene Montiel. And she was playing a game. Luke didn’t like games when he didn’t know the rules.
He coiled the mass of gold around his hand and tightened
the slack, tipping her head back to expose a pale stretch of throat. “You think you’re safe, presenting yourself to me like this? Perhaps you don’t know what I’m capable of.”
“I know exactly what you’re capable of,” she said, through clenched teeth. Tension rolled off her in waves. “It’s the reason I mailed a letter today that identifies who I’m meeting, when, and where. It’s somewhere in the US Postal Service’s channels right now so there’s no use trying to find it. And, it contains a piece of evidence against Montiel that would be the final straw. If you let that letter be opened, your boss will be finished. So will you.”
Luke was careful not to react, but inside, his gut tightened. She didn’t know that Montiel was untouchable; Luke didn’t give a damn about him. But if there was a letter, even if it only contained enough to get police sniffing around, the drug shipment would be dispersed instead of being unloaded at the mill. Eight-and-a-half tons of levamisole-laced cocaine would hit the streets and thousands of people looking for a short-term high—junkies, yuppies, kids—would come down with fever and find their skin turning black. Some would die.
Like Seth.
Luke’s jaw ground, even as the backs of his knuckles brushed the warm flesh on her neck. Damn her. She could fuck up everything.
“You’re lying,” he said against her ear.
“Maybe,” she acknowledged, and despite that her voice sounded firm, a breath shuddered between her lips. “I’m fully aware that you have Gene Montiel’s resources at your disposal, and that you can disappear on a moment’s notice to a nation without extradition. But understand that if I am murdered here tonight, nothing short of disappearing will keep you from being arrested.”
Luke tightened his grip on the gold hair, and Chandler’s nearly naked frame came against him. “Murder wasn’t what I had in mind,” he whispered. A bit of bald truth in a tangle of lies. He waited for a shiver of fear, but instead, Kara Chandler jerked from his grasp and whirled, teeth bared.
“For God’s sake, do it then.”
Luke stared.
“You think I don’t know what kind of man you are? You think I didn’t know before I came here what you might demand? Your mistake is in thinking I care. If sex is the currency you want, then get it over with. It’s hot out here and it stinks.”
Luke was stunned. Kara Chandler stood in front of him in an alley with nothing but scant inches of silk and lace between them. She didn’t care about her own safety or what little money she had left. If she was telling the truth and this was a personal matter, then she didn’t care about her job anymore, either.
It made him wonder what she did care about.
Warning bells went off.
Walk away.
He’d spent too much of his life waging war against the Rojàs cartel in Ecuador to let this woman and her groundless accusations against Montiel get in his way now. He couldn’t let any more bodies pile onto his conscience. Seth’s weighed too much already.
So, don’t ask. Don’t wonder. Walk away. Let Kara Chandler find someone else to play games with.
Luke stepped back, his body now wound as tight as hers. He scooped up her clothes and fired them at her chest. “Count yourself lucky that I’m partial to brunettes,” he said, but didn’t bother turning away while she hurried back into her clothes. He tried not to notice the sense of
loss in his gut when she covered herself, tried not to wonder what—besides a set-up—would drive a woman of the law to try to hire a hit.
That thought snapped Luke back. She grabbed her bag and started to step away, but Luke stopped her with his voice. “Ms. Chandler,” he said, “you never told me: Whose boat and whose death?”
She looked him straight in the eyes. “Mine.”
One Scream Away
Last to Die
Front Sales TK (5 Pages)
DISH TK (6 Pages)
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Kate Brady
Excerpt from
Twice Dead
copyright © 2013 by Kate Brady
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ISBN 978-1-4555-0204-2