Blood Dark (22 page)

‘I haven’t spoken to her yet, but I will. And the way I see it, I don’t think it’s going to take much to get her to talk when I tell her what I know. Especially when she’s facing prosecution for breaking her interpreter declaration by having practiced, let alone charges for covering up a murder of a human and abetting the vampire responsible. A murder her youngest sister was also responsible for abetting, as well as the other sister being wanted for attempted murder. If I offer all three of them immunity in exchange for confessions, my bet is she’ll jump at the chance – particularly considering I believe she went there under duress. And if Leila
doesn’t
play ball, I’ll send in forensics and dust the Dehains’ place for her fingerprints. If she was in the building, I’ll know.’

Kane exhaled tersely. He removed a cigarette from his pocket and placed it between his lips.

‘Do you have Leila or not?’ he asked.

‘I want answers, Kane, not more questions.’

For the first time in almost three weeks, he lit up in front of her. He exhaled a steady stream of smoke as he coolly met her gaze.

‘Just tell me there’s more to this,’ she said, her throat constricting. ‘Tell me you wouldn’t have done this to me, to us, if there wasn’t. I almost want it to be something momentous. Maybe even something to do with the prophecy. How bad is that? I need you to talk to me, Kane. If there is more to this … if you’re in some kind of trouble …’

He exhaled a terse stream of smoke and stood up. Worse, he sauntered away.

‘Kane, I’m the only thing standing between you and them.’

‘Why?’ he asked, turning to face her. ‘
Why
are you standing between us?’

Heat flooding her veins, she sprung to her feet. ‘Because I care, Kane! Because I’m here in a last-ditch attempt to salvage whatever it is that we might have! So for fuck’s sake look me in the eye and finally have the balls to be honest with me! You are well and truly fucked if you don’t!’

J
ask was
the only other one to have raised his voice to him, and that was nothing like this.

Worse, Caitlin glowered him down without an iota of fear or repentance in her eyes. He could believe her capable of anything at that point. He could feel her capable of telling him to go and fuck himself once and for all.

Not that she was leaving that room.

‘Please, Kane – treat me with some dignity and respect! An iota of trust! Prove that this hasn’t been one
massive
mistake! That I didn’t take a leap of faith on you whilst you never had any intention of taking one on me! I gave you those alibis because I believed in you; because I believed you were trying to do the right thing.’

‘I
am
trying to do the right thing!’ he shouted back, the first time he’d ever raised his voice in anger at her.

It showed.

Caitlin was silent for a moment. But the fearlessness and the grit determination still resounded in her eyes. ‘Then tell me what it is. Do you still trust me so little? Is your opinion of me
so
low after all we’ve been through?’

He exhaled another terse stream of smoke as he broke from the hurt in her eyes. But he couldn’t shift the nagging doubt that she wasn’t there because she cared. A confession could have been what she had been sent there to garner. She could even have been working independently to get it, especially now their trust was fractured. And it would only get worse because the truth remained that he
had
used her to get those alibis. He couldn’t look her in the eyes and lie about that. Just as she wouldn’t be able to deny that Leila had been taken during the course of the night – she would’ve had to have been in order for Jask to have already been on his way back. That meant Caitlin had already been suspicious of all of this when she’d turned up in Blackthorn the night before. When she’d turned up in her honeytrap outfit; when she’d persuaded him to expose who he truly believed was responsible for The Alliance killings.

‘
When
did you take Leila in?’ he asked.

Her gaze rested steadily on his. ‘Why?’

‘Caitlin …’

‘What? You want more from me, is that it? More from me and fuck all from you? Isn’t that how this works?
Not
any more, Kane.’

He moved back around the sofa and closed the gap between them, Caitlin not even flinching from the spot. She either no longer believed him capable of hurting her, or she’d gone past caring. He knew which worried him most. ‘If you want to save lives, thousands of lives, you’d better tell me what you know.’

Her frown deepened. ‘This
is
about the prophecy, isn’t it? And Caleb’s something to do with it.’

She hadn’t read him. If she’d read Caleb, she’d be brimming with even more rage than she was now.

‘Leila disappeared last night, before you came to me. You knew all of this then, didn’t you?’ he said. ‘You came to me asking me to let you in but
you
were holding back too.’

Her eyes flared. ‘Don’t you dare,’ she said, her tone dangerously steady. ‘Don’t you
dare
turn this around as me deceiving you. I didn’t take Leila in. All of the interpreters in this locale have been rounded up as part of a new task force to combat the fourth species. They’re hoping the interpreters can help work out how to defeat them. So as I said, not even Leila has a clue what I know.’

As he studied her gaze, she stared straight back into his eyes, no hint of a lie behind her proclamation.

Above all else, her claim made sense. It made unnervingly perfect sense.

‘Then who have you told?’

‘No one,’ she said, her glare steady. ‘Absolutely no one.
That’s
what loyalty does, Kane.’

And it was a statement that stabbed deep.

‘You think you have the perfect evidence to keep Caleb and Jake in yet you expect me to believe you’ve kept it to yourself?’

‘Why ask the question if you’re not going to believe me?’

‘Because you have to know you’re not getting back out of here again.’

‘I have a scheduled email with all that evidence just waiting to pop up in all the necessary inboxes should I not get back in the next couple of hours to stop it.’

And there it was: the loaded gun again, and
his
finger poised on the trigger – this time pointing right at his own head.

Cornered by Caleb and now cornered by Caitlin.

His hands clenched to fists by his sides.

The seconds scraped by like minutes.

‘This is your last chance to let me in, Kane.’

‘And you plan to get it by threatening me?’

‘That email is about me safeguarding myself – not a threat.’

‘Because you truly do trust me that much.’

‘Because you have left me with no choice. I told you back in that club that I can’t do this anymore if you won’t let me in. I thought something had changed since, but it hasn’t has it? There will always be us and then the rest of your world – a world you have no intention of me seeing. I have put everything on the line for you, Kane.
Everything
. And now I am here because somewhere inside of me, for some reason I can’t even comprehend, I still have some belief in you – and I am trying to make sure I don’t make the biggest mistake possible by blowing this up. If I
have
been a fool, then at least have the balls to tell me because I am
sick
of people wearing masks to their own ends. Tonight it has taken everything of me to believe you’re not one of them. Tell me the truth,’ she said, ‘or I
will
report everything I’ve worked out, just as I’ll tell them about the falsified alibis, and I’ll hand in my resignation in the process.’

His chest tightened. He stared deep into her eyes – the eyes that echoed more than a threat, but an ultimatum that he had no doubt she had every intention of carrying out.

‘Even now, you can’t do it, can you?’ she said, her tone painfully definitive. ‘With everything on the line, with
us
on the line, you
still
can’t let me in.’

Entrust her with the greatest secret right when she had Caleb in her grasp and him being able to do fuck all about it without either disclosing or confirming the truth of what Caleb might be. Disclose or confirm that she held the potential vampire leader in the palm of her hands, and hand over to her the entire fate of his kind when the trust between them was more fragile than ever. Because more than ever it was no longer about them: it was about the devastating consequences of both their actions from that point.

She instantly broke away. She shoved all her papers back in her bag. She lifted it across her body as she headed back across to the door.

As soon as she reached for the handle, Kane slammed it shut before grabbing her upper arms and turning her to face him.

Her breathing hitched up a notch as she stared back into his eyes. There was still no fear behind them though, just resolution.

Sad and tired resolution.

She was going to leave. She was going to leave him. And if she was telling the truth about the email, he had no choice but to let her.

He needed to know there was still something left he could appeal to.

Some truth in what she had said about her loyalty.

He ran his fingers across her lips, down to clasp the back of her neck, lowered his lips to hers.

But she turned away. For the first time since their two weeks together, she rejected him.

A rejection that proved more than he wanted. Because a smart agent on a job would have taken that kiss. A smart agent would have used it to draw him back in for the answers she wanted.

But Caitlin was genuinely hurt. Too hurt to let him in anymore. Caitlin was closing down on him. Caitlin
was considering leaving him at a time when he needed her most.

At a time when she needed his protection most.

He cusped her jaw with both hands, forcing her to look back at him. ‘A few hours, Caitlin,’ he said. ‘Just give me a few more hours.’

‘For
what
?’

To think. To rationalise. To work out how the fuck he was going to turn it all around.

‘I’m not asking you to do it for me,’ he said. ‘Just a few more hours or the implications will be horrific for us all.’

Her glossy eyes flared. ‘
Why
?’

She studied his gaze in the passing seconds.

‘Caitlin …’

‘So once more I take yet
another
leap of faith?’

She exhaled tersely. She reached for the handle. She turned around. She opened the door and slipped back outside.

Kane slammed it shut behind her. He flattened his forearm against it, rested his forehead against the back of his hand and punched the wood with the other.

I
t felt so sincere
. Whilst he stared deep into her eyes, she could feel the subtlest of tremors in his hands – something she’d never felt before. And even with the evidence in front of her, she had looked into his eyes and believed he was in an impossible place.

They had been right, all of them were right – her judgment was screwed. She couldn’t be around him. She couldn’t do her job properly around him. She was not an agent in that room – she was someone far too emotionally tied up with Kane Malloy. She was far too attracted to Kane Malloy. It was a response she had no control over – had never had any control over when it came to him.

She’d nearly let herself be swallowed by him. She’d nearly gone with his kiss just to feel close to him again – to feel his reassurance, his control, for it to be like it had those two weeks before, where it was just the two of them, no outside influences, in their cocoon, not enslaved by reality. Where she could pretend to be in a world where there was no division between the species, where she could love who she chose to love, be with who she chose to be with without question and discrimination. Where it was her choice and her choice alone. Where society didn’t dictate what was right and wrong for her.

A world where she could be herself with him. With Kane. With the only one she’d ever truly wanted. Where she felt enveloped in the safety of his arms. A world where she could trust him because there were no alternative motives. Where he wasn’t being pursued and hunted.