Page 89 of Cops and Robbers

What he needed was to talk to Kate—what he should have done since Caige’s accident. He unlocked his door to a dark house and headed to the kitchen.

Orris and cookies slammed into his senses.

He stilled in the entryway. There’s no way…

He turned on the light.

Kate sat in the office chair in his kitchen, a dagger resting on her legging-clad thigh, pointed in his direction. A bubblegum-pink bob framed her face. A dazzling smile lit up her expression and those bright chestnut eyes. His dragon rammed, slashed, rubbed against his skin—wanting to claim what was his.

He sucked in a breath, but his lungs burned. Tribunal, if her confidence didn’t hit like a jet plane.

“What are you doing here?” He rested back against the island as his legs shook.

“Apparently I made rich friends while I was famous, so I am here legally. Well, only slightly legally, as I assumed you wouldn’t want my ankle bracelet tracking me to your residence.”

He wouldn’t, and he wasn’t surprised she found a way to transfer it without detection.

She continued, “I’m here to collect.”

His hand clenched around the note in his pocket. My heart. “How will you do that?”

She pursed her lips and balanced the blade’s tip on her leg. “Apologize and explain myself to you the way I should have when this started.”

He twisted the stool next to him and sat. Otherwise, his dragon might try to control his body. His dragon didn’t care for explanations—only action. But even if his instincts wanted her, his heart and mind weren’t on the same page. Though he couldn’t blame himself for what happened, Kate still had explanations to give for her actions. “I’m listening.”

“We were all we had. Naomi and I. We didn’t know any other Fallen and reincarnated into broken families. She found me, and we stole together to survive. And then Matsuda crossed our paths.” She swallowed and dropped her gaze, confidence shaking for once. “Everything I told you was the truth. He wanted us for our abilities, but when we decided to steal back the weapons, he knew he had lost us and devised a plan to take control of us. Naomi separated from her body for missions, making her an easy target, but I preferred to stay in mine.”

Her gaze darkened and became distant. “He hid Naomi’s human body, and when she confronted him, he tortured her to comply. When he used her against me, demanding I hand my body over or he’d…” Her voice grew thick and scratchy. “…hurt her, I knew I had to escape to save us both, even if that meant abandoning her. So I picked up a gun and forced myself to reincarnate away from him.”

Her words robbed him of breath. He couldn’t fathom what it took to make that decision. He’d left his clanmates to kill the Centurion, but only because he thought it was safe for them. Naomi perceived it as Kate abandoning her, but Kate just wanted to give them a chance. The truth wasn’t in black and white, but he couldn’t fault her for the choice she felt she had to make.

“I defended her as Midnight because I knew he was making her kill people,” she continued. “Matsuda’s rich…he didn’t need to steal Lucifer’s Bell, but he used that as a way to send me a message. Each kill she made was targeted at me, mocking me by making her suffer. And I feared that if she kept killing, she might make the choice to become an Archfiend.” The glistening tears in her eyes shook him to the core, and his own eyes stung. “My biggest regret is that it’s taken me fifty years to hide from him, figure out what he did with her body, and save her. I couldn’t risk that he’d recognize me for a moment because he would have used Naomi against me, and I don’t know if I would have been able to abandon her twice.”

His blood ran cold. “I didn’t want to believe it at first, but Matsuda really can’t be…”

“Eighty-seven? He is. How do you think he’s as powerful as he is?”

“Fuck. But how?” He looked barely a day over thirty.

“He most likely forced her to perform miracles on him to keep himself young.”

“But what about her? She didn’t look fifty?”

“We can’t grant miracles to one another, so she had to have reincarnated. We only reincarnate within one family line, and if that one dies out, we’d go to the closest family tie…like a mother-in-law’s sister. I tried to track hers down to see where she would be born again, in case she found her body and escaped like I did. But her family disappeared. He beat me to them. I don’t know how, but he must have kept her family in hiding and raised her from within his ranks. A child.”

That stone-cold bastard. “What about you? How did you hide from him?”

She took a shaky breath and swallowed hard. “I found Bonnie and Clyde shortly after I escaped Matsuda, and they both helped me. There’s a reason Bonnie drinks. I asked her to meddle with my family line, so she kidnapped the last female child in my line and fled to America. When that girl was old enough, she married her off to the best person she could find. She did this for generations, taking the female offspring as she knew they’d more than likely be orphaned, anyway. She was only willing to help me because Matsuda had taken her entire family away from her. To minimize the chance of Matsuda finding me, and to hide my face, I refused to reincarnate for years, hoping the genetic manipulation would work.”

The smell of blood tinged the air. The blade’s tip, slightly digging into her leg, also dug into his heart. Red rose from beneath the sharp edge. Even withdrawn from the link, it boiled as if she were subconsciously treating her own thigh as if it were Matsuda.

“Kate.”

Her eyes focused. She lifted the blade and crossed her legs, hiding the minor cut. “I had to free Naomi. She didn’t deserve to suffer. I didn’t tell you the truth because I knew Naomi took out someone close to you and you would only see her as a murderer—and if you knew the truth of why she did it, you’d blame me. See me differently. I was a coward, and I hated lying, knowing that your friend had used you in the past. But I knew we could destroy Lucifer’s Bell, and that finding the LRAD replica required Naomi’s help. I just…I didn’t know if you’d agree to help Naomi.”

“You should have known I wouldn’t have stepped back.” Tribunal help him. He would have helped Kate. Not just because of the Bell, but because no one should have to go through what Naomi did. And for her to blame herself for what Matsuda made Naomi do was absurd. But he understood how she might have thought he’d see her differently.

“I couldn’t risk it. I needed you and your crew.”