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Her black eye is now fully swollen shut and dark color has blossomed down her cheekbone and jaw.
“Took you long enough.”
She huffs. “Pardon me for being tardy.” She points down to her bare feet. “Stepped on some broken glass.”
I’ll miss that mouth of hers.
“You have two options.” I swallow hard, my throat dry. “If you’ve got the energy left for it.”
She gestures for me to continue.
“One: You leave here, and I get a body that can be mistaken for you, dump it in the river and it will turn up eventually. Or two: I kill you now. A hit is a hit, Layla. They won’t let it drop. Broderick thinks it’s a done deal.”
It might be easier if she rages at me.
If she uses those hands on me and claws at my skin the way she did to Jade in the office.
Idon’texpect her to slowly walk past me into her galley kitchen. “Do you want coffee?” she calls back wearily.
This is worse. Much worse to have her be this beaten down instead of angry. Her rage I can handle; Iwantto see it.
I watch her go through the motions but when she hands me a mug and I take a sip, it takes everything in me not to spit out the jet fuel in there. “This is whiskey,” I choke in surprise.
She holds her mug out in a mock salute. “Yup.”
I force myself to drink the rest of the swill in the mug as Layla does the same. Both of us seem if not content then resigned to the angry silence.
“I’m not sure what you want me to say. You’re itching for a fight, Gabriel.”
I harden my gaze. “You deserve one. So do I.” I want to snap at her and it takes effort to restrain myself. There is no point in forcing her hostility. Even when it would be easier.
“You do. I should kick your fucking balls right up into your throat.”
“You’re so sure I had nothing to do with Jade.” That’s what’s plagued me since I followed her up into that office. “You know I fucked her.”
Layla looks like she’s swallowed a bucket full of nails. “I do.”
“How do you know I wasn’t in on it with her from the start?”
She pauses for a moment before she shrugs. “My gut, I guess. Or maybe it's a delusion. I wanted to believe, even after everything…”
“I had to make it believable.” I can’t resist the urge to touch her, to run my fingers down her arm, and I swallow my disappointment when she flinches.
“You can be as furious as you want, but Broderick himself put the hit on you. I’m being realistic. If I don’t eliminate you, then someone else will step up in my place. Then another. And another. There is no way to escape this unless we do it my way.”
“You bastard.”
“I am.”
That’s all I can say. We’re at a stalemate and we both understand there is no way out of this outside of my two options.
“Will Devan be safe?”
“As far as Broderick and the Syndicate know, you worked alone. I don’t think they care about anyone else right now.”
“Devan will never believe it,” Layla insists. She turns and heads back into the kitchen except there’s no hiding her motives this time. She doesn’t worry about the mug and goes straight for the bottle of cheap whiskey, swigging from it directly. “He’ll never believe I’m gone. He just saw me.”
“He can’t know you’re alive or he’ll be in danger.”
