“I’ve not promised him anything,” Cade dodged around the truth. “And you’re wrong, he did tell me something.”
“What?”
“He wouldn’t give me their name, but he said whoever it was planned to kill you.”
Both of them made a living out of violence one way or another, so Cade didn’t expect Marlow to faint. But he had expected more reaction than the shrimp’s brief pause in midair, dangled from cheap chopsticks, before Marlow popped it into his mouth.
“We knew that.”
Cade jabbed a chopstick in Marlow’s direction. “During the next full moon. In a week. You need to fail your next physical. Give us time to find more leverage on Piper.”
“No.”
“He thinks he has the upper—” Cade stopped as he realized what Marlow had just said. “What?”
“I’m Night Shift,” Marlow said. “I can take care of myself. Besides, I wasn’t on duty the first time someone tried to kill me. I’d rather be armed and combat-ready if anyone is going to try something. Not balls-out naked and half-asleep.”
It sort of sounded like it made sense. It didn’tfeelthat way, though.
“Stay at mine,” he said. “Out in the sticks. No one around but wolves.”
Marlow ate the last shrimp tangled in thick, ribbony noodles, and neatly boxed up what was left.
“If they try and kill me, we’ll know who they are,” he said as he walked away to toss his leftovers in the bin. “Then Piper won’t have anything to trade, will he?”
“Or you’ll be dead,” Cade pointed out.
Marlow considered that as he wiped his hands on a napkin on the way back.
“Well, then you can talk to Piper,” he said after a moment. “I won’t care anymore.”
Cade growled under his breath. He could feel the itch along the nape of his neck where it wanted to be hackles. The moon wasn’t full enough to turn him inside out and let the wolf out, but he could feel it turn under his skin.
“I’ll be careful,” Marlow promised. “Besides, if you couldn’t kill me, what hope do they have?”
Cade swallowed, the taste of spicy shrimp gone rancid on his tongue as he remembered the greasy puke he’dthoughtwas Marlow.
“That’s not funny.” Cade caught Marlow’s waist and pulled him closer. He leaned down until their foreheads touched, his mouth not quite against Marlow’s lips. “If you get killed, I’m going to make O’Hara’s life a misery. The whole SDPD is going to regret that I ever moved here.”
Marlow kissed him. It was rough and desperate, the only break in Marlow’s cool composure, and his hand dug into the back of Cade’s neck. Cade held his food clumsily to the side, the sauce hot enough to sting his fingers through the styrofoam.
“They already do,” Marlow said as he finally stepped back. “And I’m not going anywhere. Next date’s on you, remember? I want to see if you can actually ask me outwithoutinsulting me somehow.”
He grinned at Cade’s glare and left.
Cade watched him go for a heartbeat; then he tossed the remnants of his meal away. Sauce and shrimp splattered the sides of the bin and soaked down through the trash and discarded objects. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and called back into the office.
“Get Maria Cafolla off the streets,” he said as he headed away from the restaurant. “I want her safe, and I want her out of communication. It doesn’t matter how.”
He hung up before Lem could protest. It was time to turn the heat up on Piper.
Chapter Nine
“I WASN’T EXPECTINGyou tonight,” Captain Mila Gil, the Night Shift version of O’Hara, said as she stopped in front of Marlow’s desk. She narrowed her eyes, a spray of wrinkles creased into the corners, as she looked down at him. “Have they cleared you for duty?”
A casual tap of the mouse hid the files that Marlow had pulled up. No one had told him he couldn’t look into the recent spate of post-shift deaths, and that wouldn’t change as long as no one knew what he was doing.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m fighting fit.”
