Page 91 of Ashes

I groaned and sat down, hoping he’d let it go, but it didn’t take long before he spoke again.

“You like her,” he stated, not missing a beat. He sounded amused, his low chuckle filling the kitchen.

I watched him from the corner of my eye and his grin widened the longer I stayed silent. I broke a piece of bread and scooped some of the omelet up with it then brought it to my mouth.

I could deny it and change the subject, but what was the point? So I swallowed and turned to face him, taking a deep inhale. “How did you know?”

Kai laughed. “It’s pretty obvious.AndI haven’t seen you smile like this in…” He paused, as if he were sifting through all his memories starting from the day we met. “Ever, actually.”

Kai was a pain in my ass most of the time, but hewasright. Again.

Although at first I had found Sienna to be infuriating, I knew now that I only thought that because of what she’d stirred inside me the moment I’d laid eyes on her.

“I smile,” I started, but when he pinned me with a glare, I added, “Sometimes.”

“Heavyon the sometimes,” he deadpanned before placing a bite of his own into his mouth.

We ate in silence for a few minutes before he spoke again.

“Have you told her?” he asked softly.

I knew exactly what he was talking about and the answer to his question was, I hadn’t. I’d opened up to her about losing my parents, even told her my real name, but I never told her more than the fact that they’d died. So many things were still a mystery to me and I didn’t see the point in dragging her into it.

She’s already dragged into it,my brain chimed in, but I ignored it.

So I shook my head in response.

“Is she worth it?”

“Yes,” I answered immediately, not needing to think about it.

She’s more than worth it.

“Then can I give you a piece of advice?” He continued before I could decline. “I know you want revenge for your parents, but don’t let it get in the way of you finding happiness.And from what I see, she makes your grumpy self happy.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat and scooped another bite with bread, cutting a piece of bacon and adding it to it.

Not wanting to dive into this any further, I changed the subject. “Anything new on the Barrera front?”

Kai’s face fell and I knew it only meant bad news. Which seemed to be the only kind we’d been getting since I started all of this.

“We’ve been hitting a wall for the last week,” he explained. “Nothing Valentina throws at his systems works. Every time she finds a new lead, it comes to a dead end or she discovers something we already knew.”

“What do you mean?”

“Anything before your parents’ deaths is a dead end because the money trail keeps cutting short and we can’t trace it to its original sender,” he added.

Frustration clawed at my chest because we’d been at this for the last four years and still nothing. The only way to get to the end of this seemed to be getting Barrera alone to get the information out of him, but his security was ironclad.

I’d tried on several occasions in the past, but whenever I got too close, we got burned. Add his son to the mix and it made everything more complicated than it already was.

A few months after I learned about the true nature of my parents’ deaths, I’d found who had lit the flame that blazed what I once knew. He’d become my first kill. Butmy raging anger had taken the best of me and I’d killed him before I got the chance to ask who’d hired him.

My attention went back to Kai and my eyes roamed over his face. I could tell he wanted to tell me something but was debating on whether or not he should.

“What is it?” I asked, worried.

“It’s probably nothing,” he said, brushing off whatever he wanted to say.