Page 72 of Villains Never Die

“I am.”

“Why?”

He chuckled, raspy and half-hearted. “Because someone wants to kill you, and they’re getting loud about it. I’m afraid for you.”

“People always want to kill me,” I said. “You weren’t worried about it before.”

“No, I wasn’t.” That raspy laugh disappeared as if it had never happened at all. I’d never seen him look so stone-faced.He clasped my hand under the sheets and held it to his chest. “Things change.”

Rage, concern, anxiety—the masked man tied my emotions together in a knot, and Rook’s worry cut through them like a knife severing their hold on me.

“You don’t have to be afraid for me. I’ve handled worse, and if he kills me, I’ll just come back.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better. Besides, I’m kind of attached to your hands and tongue.” The joke didn’t land. I scooted so I could rest my forehead against his bare chest and he wrapped one hand around the back of my head, his fingers diving into the strands of my hair and massaging them in a way that soothed me.

“I’m the safest person on his hit list,” I said. “Everyone else will die the first time he kills them.”

“There will be two more,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Pope, Blackwell, Kathy the file clerk, he fucked up with Emmett, but will probably try again. One evil with seven faces. There will be two more before he gets to you.”

“You think I’m number seven?” I asked.

“If the giant collage of sevens on the front of your building is a clue, yeah, I’d say so.”

“This is too planned,” I murmured against his skin. “It isn’t random. There’s a list, an order. What is he trying to accomplish?”

“It isn’t the election, no matter how the Council is trying to paint it for the public,” he said. “Pope doesn’t fit the pattern, and neither do you.”

“Maybe. Wesley Lake and Emmett Graves have both approached me recently. Wesley specifically asked for my vote when the time comes. I’m Council adjacent now, whether I want to be or not.”

“And the masked man has been watching you since before that,” Rook pointed out.

“His proposed legislation goes out tomorrow. I can get a copy and see if there is anything there worth killing for.”

His hand stopped petting me. “It’s all worth killing for.”

“What do you mean?” I tipped my head up and tried to read his expression in the dark.

“Emmett disagrees with Wesley’s position. If he gets him out of the way, he automatically wins. It’s all about power.”

“Perhaps.”

“No fights on Mondays,” he said. “I could help you look it over.”

“That’s a very poor idea for a date,” I laughed. “Besides, I have that meeting with Gray in the morning, and then I intend to spend all day at my warehouse examining the death collection from Prague.”

“Good. Text me the address and I’ll meet you there. I can help you do boring, smart stuff.”

I snorted. “Fine. Warehouse at eleven. You can be my very attractive assistant for the afternoon.” I sighed and planted an open-mouthed kiss right over the heartbeat that pulsed in his chest. “Now, do we have to keep talking business tonight? Pleasure sounds much more entertaining.”

He grabbed my hair roughly and dragged me up for a kiss. “Pleasure isn’t something Italkabout. I’m more of an action man.”

So I stayed up all night letting him show me things far more important than the killer or the election.

***