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“You know, I didn’t pick you for a cat kind of guy,” she said.
He frowned. “I don’t have a cat.”
“Well, there was a black one in your backyard,” she said, her grin spreading across her lips.
“Not mine. Belongs to the people who live in the house behind me. I pet it occasionally as it walks the fence. I guess it’s comfortable now and roams my backyard,” he said with a shrug.
She gave him an odd look. “I have a black cat that looks just like that. Even has the same bell around her neck.” She paused, then chuckled. “It’s not Miss Casino, though—her collar is pink, not blue. It would’ve been funny if we ended up neighbors but we definitely are not.”
“It would be more convenient, that’s for sure. You could jump the fence and break in whenever you liked,” he said with a goading grin. “It would also save you trying to lose the men following you; there will be more, you know.”
The grin fell from her lips and she nodded. “I’m going to kill everyone he sends to watch me,” she said without remorse.
Jackson sighed heavily. “Why don’t you injure them instead of killing them? They don’t have to die. They’re men hired to do a job. I know that sounds hypocritical, considering we’re trying to take down Diaz and his men and there will be casualties. But, go easy on the trigger—for us both, yeah?”
She tilted her head. “For us both?”
Jackson raised an eyebrow. “My boss was not happy about your bloodshed today—it was done in broad daylight around families—and I can’t totally disagree with him on that,” Jackson said, pointedly. “I’ve been instructed that if it becomes known you’re helping us, it’ll be my mess to clean up. I’m not a good cleaner, Anna, and I don’t enjoy it. So keep us both out of trouble, yeah?”
“I could’ve killed them at the markets. The maze was a better option,” she said unapologetically.
He nodded, reluctantly.
She looked at him a long moment. “What would you have done?”
He exhaled a long breath. “Maybe the same thing, but if you find yourself in that situation again, try and lead them away from the public. A few hundred more yards away,” he clarified.
“I’ll try, but I’m not making any promises,” she said.
A smile warmed his face. “Thank you for trying. Now, I should drop you back to your car.”
But he wasn’t ready to say goodnight. Not yet. Though every minute counted, he wanted to hit pause for a moment.
He was in dangerous territory, resisting the temptation to pull her into his arms.
Regardless, he had more questions for her.
ANNA
“What do you know about the three bodies, not including Olivia, that were stuffed in the barrels?” he asked, and the fairy tale playing in her head came to a crashing halt.
“I didn’t know them personally,” she said, looking at her hands. “One of them was a street dealer. Diaz said he’d been taking a cut of the profits and was used as a warning to others. He was already in the barrel when I met Diaz. The other two... one was Diaz’s cousin and the other was the cousin’s girlfriend. Diaz made an example of them, tortured them, shot them between the eyes and put them in barrels like trophies. He said he kept them to remind his guys of the consequences of betraying him.”
Jackson frowned. “Why so many barrels?”
Anna lifted her chin. “That’s the number of men in his core team. He has a barrel for each one, ready if they betray him. And one for me,” she said, swallowing hard.
“That’s not your fate,” he said without hesitation.
“You don’t know that. He might have one for you now,” she said, desperately hoping those words would never become truth.
He shook his head. “That’s not how my life ends.”
She studied him a moment, taken aback by his confidence. They were playing with the devil and he said that like there wasn’t a doubt in his mind.
“Why are you so confident?” she asked, wanting to get inside his head. Jackson was unlike anyone she’d ever met. He was quietly confident and assured. He had a sense of self, a trust of this world that didn’t make sense to her.
A small smile spread across his lips. “Because I believe God brought us together for a reason—and that reason is not to die. Of that I’m sure.”
