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“Good.” His features softened as he fell to his knees to collect the glass.
Watching him work it struck me how ridiculously sexy the man was. Clearing away the shards meticulously, he worked quietly and efficiently, all in the name of protecting me. Snuggling under my blanket, I tried to make sense of everything that had happened. He should be a complete anathema—an example of everything I loathed—yet every time Kade took me to a new limit, he managed to rip right through and push my boundaries even farther away. He’d drugged Lucas for no reason, yet even now, I was softening to the idea.
“There.” Rising, he put the dustpan on the counter out of the way. “I’ll need to vacuum, but it’s better. You should still watch where you walk for now, though.”
“Yes, Master,” I replied, watching as his attention drifted back to the detective. “What do you want to do with her?”
“I haven’t decided.”
That sounded ominous.
“We could let her go?” I suggested, even though it was hardly helpful.
Kade had made his insane choice, and she was already sleeping off a dose of whatever he’d pushed into her bloodstream. Whatever happened, letting her go seemed unlikely. A woman in her position would understandably go straight to the authorities. Hell, any sane person would.
“No.” Wandering to me, he perched on the arm of the sofa. “She’s a cop. She could never have walked away from Barrington.”
The knot of anxiety in my tummy tightened. “So, you plan tokeepher?”
How on Earth was this going to work? We’d only just started to make a decent go of our relationship—having another person in the house, someone he was holding against their will, sounded untenable.
“No.” His voice lowered. “She’ll have to go.”
“Master.” Alarm exploded in my chest, surging up my windpipe until it was difficult to breathe. “What are you saying?”
“You know what I’m saying.” He glanced at me, his expression neither triumphant nor sorry. “We need to be rid of her.”
“You mean k-kill her?” I didn’t know why it was so important that he say the words out loud, but I needed to hear them, to understand properly what he intended.
“Yes.” Again, there wasn’t a flicker of regret in his voice, but then I had to remember, this wasn’t Kade’s first time. “Don’t worry, little girl. I’ll deal with it. You don’t have to be involved.”
“But Iaminvolved,” I panted. “Master, I live here with you… this is our home.”
“Yes.” He nodded. “I’m well aware, having brought you here myself.”
“Under similar circumstances,” I mumbled, concluding the sentence for him.
“I never intended to hurt you.” His tone was emphatic. “Would never,couldnever harm you beyond the punishments we both crave.”
“Yet you can still contemplate murder?” Voice wavering, I signaled to Lucas. “She hasn’t done anything wrong, Master. She shouldn’t die, not like this.”
“Tiffany.” Sighing, he slid down the arm and landed by my feet. Reaching for my blanket covered leg, he held me. “If I don’t take her out of the equation, she’ll bring the whole house of cards down around us.”
“But she has no proof of anything,” I countered. “If she did, she’d have come with back up and arrested you.”
“She has an instinct.” His gaze locked with mine. “You heard her say it herself. She knows I’m guilty of something, and she won’t let it go until she’s uncovered my lawbreaking.” His brow furrowed. “The irony is, she’s a good cop. That’s her only crime.”
“Oh God.” Closing my eyes, I realized he was right. Detectives like Lucas reminded me of blood hounds. They wouldn’t lose the scent until they’d gotten to the bottom of it. Given enough rope, I had little doubt that she would use it to hang him. “But I can’t…” Grief swelled in my chest, threatening to rob me of breath.
“I told you,” he countered. “You won’t have to get your hands dirty. I’ll do the deed, little girl.”
“That’s not how the law works, Master,” I choked, opening my lids to meet his eyes again. “Involvement is complicity.” Why was I even discussing this? “If I simply sit back and do nothing to stop or report you, then I’m as guilty as you.”
“Look, I know you have a conscience.” Edging up the sofa, his hand snuck under the blanket and grazed my skin. “That and your passion are two of the things I love about you the most, Tiffany. So, you’ll have to take it from a devil like me—we cannot let her leave and report any of this. We don’t want to flag our existence to the authorities again, let alone our whereabouts. Barrington House is off the radar, and that’s the way it needs to stay.”
“Master, I know, but—”
“But nothing,” he interjected in the hard tone I knew so well. “She’s already unconscious. There’ll be no pain or suffering. Hell, she won’t even know what happened.”
