Chapter 17 Kat
KAT
PLAYLIST: DON’T LET ME GO – RAIGN
Idon’t know why I even bothered coming here. I should’ve let her in the dark and just walked away.
But I couldn’t.
I had to set it right.
I had to know the truth.
I had to speak what had to be said before I go.
I had to know, she understands.
Understands that I have a reason for all I have done.
But the way she looks at me right now, the horror-struck eyes with the sad shimmer in them, I don’t need that.
I don’t need her sympathy. Not her pity.
I don’t need anything from her. I have sworn myself to never need anything from anyone.
Just as much as I have sworn to never speak of what has happened to me.
And yet, I told her.
Yet, I long for her.
Her.
Her lips, to embrace me.
Her touch, to electrify me.
Her desire, to burn through me.
One last time.
My body acts of its own accord.
I cup her face and pull myself close to her.
Somewhere, far away, I hear a gun drop to the floor, but my focus is nowhere but with her.
Her lips meet mine.
An explosion erupts in my chest as I devour her.
Goosebumps spread all over my body as I close my eyes. For this infinite moment, it’s just me and here, nothing else.
Me and here, as nobodies in nowhere.
Her tongue finds mine; she longs for me as much as I long for her.
Endless moments.
Just us.
No past.
No present.
Until reality catches up with us.
Her fingers dig into my chest, and I smile against her lips as we end the kiss that should never end.
I have to leave, and this has to be goodbye.
I keep them close for just one infinite moment and lean my forehead against hers.
A moment that I’ll take into endless space with me.
“Take care,” I say as I open my eyes, let go of her, and take a step back. I want to see her one last time.
Those ice-blue eyes. Staring right through me into my soul.
I bite my bottom lip. Her cheeks are flushed. I’ll never forget the day I made cold and perfect Lilian Anne Knightly flush.
“No,” she says and grasps my hand.
“I have to,” I say. “They will come for me. And I’ll take them down with me. That’s the plan.”
“Well,” she says. “You'd make a better plan then, because there is no way in hell I will let you go.”
“Watch me,” I say and turn.
“Gods!” she curses and rolls her eyes at me. “You are such a stubborn little brat!”
I snigger.
“No,” I say, and my voice gets dark. My eyes flash through the room, and I see Hanningan backed off by the door, pretending to be stone and not listening. Not that I’d care. “You don’t tell me what to do. I played brat for you, but I am a dominant. There is my way, and none other.”
She stares at me, and her gaze strips my soul bare. The one I didn’t even think I had until I met her.
She tilts her head slightly, and I see a fire lit in her eyes. One I have seen before whenever I am about to be challenged.
“Really,” she says sardonically, and sinks to her knees without breaking eye contact with me, and I can’t believe what is happening.
The moment her shins are on the floor, she places her hands on her thighs, palms up, and her eyes snap down.
I bite my lip so hard it starts bleeding, because I can’t believe she really did that. I close my eyes briefly and slowly shake my head as I process what she just did.
She knows I can never walk away now.
Never.
I walk up to her and grasp her chin to pull it up. The world around me has disappeared.
It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
“You…” I breathe out as I shake my head in disbelief.
The corners of her mouth turn into a knowing smile.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” I say. “How can I ever walk away now?"
She says nothing but grins in pride.
I can’t help myself anymore. I know she is hurt, but otherwise, I would have thrown her on her desk and made her come until she screams my name.
Instead, I lean down and kiss her on the forehead.
I take in her scent.
This wonderful prepossessing scent of devouring presence.
Only then do I tilt my head and whisper in her ear.
“The moment you are healed up, I’ll give you twenty with a cane for that and make you come three times in a row because you earned it.”
I listen to her breathing change over my words, and I enjoy every moment of it.
She turns her face slightly to my ear and whispers, “Whatever you wish, Mistress.”
A huff escapes me, and I shake my head in more disbelief as a wide grin appears on my face.
Oh, we are going to have so much fun, little princess. If we’re still alive in forty-eight hours. And I know I won’t, unless we find a way to kill the Lords all in one shot.
“Get up,” I tell her.
“Can’t,” she says, “My chest.”
I laugh, and she looks humiliated.
“I’ll have to mark this day in my calendar,” I say as I bend down to lift her up. “The day I ruffled Lilian Anne Knightley’s feathers, not once, not twice, but thrice.”
She curses me and flattens her clothes.
“So,” I say, “Now that you made me stay, what’s your plan?”
“First of all,” she says. “You tell me your real name.”
I snort and say, “Kat.”
“Now, you tell me exactly what you found out and how,” she says, and I see her switch back to the bossy baddie I got to know her as.
I tell her how I tracked down the little present for her and how it all started.
“Thanks for that, by the way,” she says sardonically. “Never had a better gift.”
“It was unique,” I say and laugh. She wants, too, but flinches immediately. Her chest is still healing, and she should be anywhere but here. “Please tell me you run prints on him.”
“Doug,” she says, and Hannigan unfreezes.
“We did,” says Hannigan, and I hold him in highest regard for not showing an inch of judgment of what he had just overheard. “And he was in contact with the employee we uncovered.”
“They’re all part of the Lords,” I say and carefully add, “I had Zeus create a movement map on them. They triangulated in a warehouse, where I got into a little dispute with the Lords.”
I open Lilian’s laptop with the closed Zeus system, enter the password, and show them the rest of what I found.
“How the hell did you crack that password?” she asks me.
“I saw you enter some digits, that’s what sped up the process,” I say, shrugging. She stares at me.
“So what are you? Hacker? Contract killer? Vengeance murderer? Spy?”
I snort out. If I only knew. I am everything because I learned from the best. Rosalia Vittare.
A shadow herself, who came to take what was never meant to be owned by men.
And I became not only her protegee, but her biggest success.
Because I am everything I had to become to do what had to be done. Nothing and everything.
“If I knew who I am, I wouldn’t be here,” I say, because she can never know who Rosalia is. No one can ever know. “But I’d say I am decent in my profession of equalizing and everything that comes with it.”
“Equalizing, huh?” she says. “Nice way to say you’re on a fucking murder spree.”
“Anyway,” I say with a grin, “This is the warehouse they use and have set up with alarms. Some of the kind I was unable to detect.
I murdered three of them to get to the boss or whatever he is.
I was taken by car, and I slipped a transmitter in it, so we can track them via—“ I open a software on my computer. “This here.”
“So,” Lilian says, sunken in thought, “You convinced them you’d kill me?”
“Yes. I told them I could get to you, and they were missing an inside man. I had leverage.”
“You didn’t find out who’s the bankroller by accident?” she asks me, and I keep my mask on to tease her, before I crack into a grin.
“Accidentally, I did,” I say.
“Who?”
“The President of the United States,” I say, and watch Lilian have the same reaction as I had.
“But—“ she stutters.
“But why? Why endorse and fund it and then come after you?” I ask. “There is only one reason. It was used against him; Zeus has something on him. If I were to have a guess, I’d say Sutton used Zeus to blackmail him, because blackmail was Sutton’s main business.”
“Believe me, I know,” Lilian says darkly as she sits down on her chair and slides herself to the desk.
She takes the laptop I took from her.
She stares at it for a moment with her elbows on the table, her hands in a triangle in front of her mouth as she is considering something.
“There is a solution,” she finally says, and she types the President’s name into Zeus.
“Don’t,” I say the moment I know what she’s up to. The thought has occurred to me, too.
“It’s the only way,” she says. “I’ll uncover what Jared had on him, and then I’ll blackmail POTUS to go public in case anything happens to me.”
“He’ll vanish you and every public figure who learns of it.”
“They can’t vanish the entire press,” she says, “I have many favours to call in.”
Her finger lingers for one moment over the key, and then she presses enter.
It takes a moment, and the air gets more tense with every second passing.
What we find is not a single thing but everything. And by everything, I mean everything. Things that put the President in a highly volatile position.
“Doug,” she says after scanning through the files. “We need to get an audience with the President.”
“You are not going into the lion’s den in your state!” I tell her angrily.
“Don’t you dare tell me what I can and can’t do,” she hisses back at me. I mean, I would’ve done the very same, but that’s not the point. I came here to save her, not the other way round.
“And what if he uses the moment and tells the Lords?” I ask. “You may not even get there.”
“I’ll be there too,” says Hannigan in his deep voice.
“Yeah, because one person will help against the lot of them,” I snap and lean onto the desk next to her. “Let me—“ I begin, but Lilian cuts me off.
“No, I will not let you,” she says sharply. “You will let me do this,” she adds, anger in her voice, as she carefully gets up from her chair.
I groan and am ready to discuss it until she gives up, but she crosses my plan by grasping my face with one hand and kissing me.
Whatever I wanted to say is gone. Lost in her and her touch. Her lips. That kiss.
A kiss that only fires what I already know: I am not going to let her sacrifice herself. I am going to hit the Lords with all the force I have, whatever the cost, even if it means walking away from her.
Lilian stands in front of the wall with her certificates. I remember what she told me about them. They’re an illusion. My eyes unfocus. Illusions are what I do best.
And suddenly, I know what to do.