Page 55

I grinned up at him. “You’re really freaking cute, Kian O’Malley. Just a kiss? No trying to feel me up? No trying to fuck me in the back seat?”
His hand slipped from the side of my face and down my arm until his fingers tangled between mine. “As tempting as that sounds, I just want to hold your hand right now.”
I couldn’t remember the last time someone had just held my hand. No strings attached.
It was oddly nice.
He squeezed my fingers. “I meant what I said before. I think you’re a badass, just the way you are.”
“Do you truly mean that?”
He nodded. “Of course.”
I hoped he was serious. “There’s something I want to do before we go home. I know you’re probably exhausted.”
He shook his head. “I’m fine. Whatever you want, you got it. Breakfast, maybe? Oooh, or we could go for a run?”
I shook my head. “Your cardio obsession disturbs me, as usual. But I have something else in mind.” I pulled out my phone and checked the time on it. “Leonn has a shift at the hospital in about forty minutes.”
Kian’s smile fell. “Leonn who attacked you? That Leonn?”
“The one and only.”
“How do you know his work schedule?”
I stared at him. “I told you I needed to know everything about these guys so I knew how best to destroy them. A man’s work schedule isn’t that difficult to find out.”
Kian’s expression morphed into one of worry. “I thought you were leaving this whole revenge plan alone. After what happened at the Halloween party…”
“I never agreed to that. You all tried to make that decision for me.”
Kian opened his mouth to argue but then abruptly shut it. “We did kind of do that, didn’t we?”
“Yes.”
He sighed heavily; his breath just barely visible in the cold morning air. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t our place to do that, was it?”
“Nope. But you also don’t have to be involved in the next step if you don’t want to be. I know I’m asking a lot…”
Kian took the car keys out of his pocket and tossed them at me. “You drive.”
I caught them with a grin but really hoped he wouldn’t regret that. “It involves some illegal activity.” I unlocked the car with the beeper dangling from the key ring.
Kian opened his door and gave me a rueful smile. “Then I really hope you’ve planned it out enough that we don’t get caught. But you can’t scare me off. If revenge is still what you want, then who am I to tell you you can’t have it.”
God, he made me feel like I was invincible. And that even if I weren’t, he’d be right there behind me, ready to glue me back together. “If there wasn’t my junk bucket of a car separating us right now, I’d kiss you again.”
“Save it for after whatever it is we’re doing.”
We both got in the car, and I started the engine. It didn’t take us long to get to where we needed to be. Saint View and Providence shared a border, and the closer we got to Leonn’s fancy house in the center of Providence, the bigger and grander the houses became. Derelict properties gave way to middle-class suburban homes then mansions, until Leonn’s place loomed in front of me. I jerked my head toward the two-story mansion that sat in the middle of a large block of land. A short driveway turned into a circle that swept around the front of the property, Leonn’s black Jag sitting in the middle of it.
“Newer than our place,” Kian commented. “Sweet lawns. I wonder who their gardener is. I should get their number. We’re going to need someone.”
I frowned at him. “What? We are? What about you?”
He shook his head. “It’s not just the money in the household account that’s dried up. I haven’t been paid since Bart died either. I’ve tried getting it straightened out, but all my calls to Bart’s business partner go unanswered.”
I frowned. “I’ll talk to Vaughn. He can talk to Harold and get the money sorted out…”