For the Bond (Romantic Suspense) (Beyond Blood, #3) by Nora Flite Page A

name. “She was a stripper at the club we bounced for. I mean, she was more hooker than dancer but—it doesn't matter.” I asked Jacob to kill her. Long ago, that memory caused nothing in me. The cold ache of guilt I felt now was different. I would have said I was a bad person. Probably a monster. But thinking of the girl who had done nothing wrong but see our faces—a girl no different than Marina—and how I'd suggested her doom...
    Shit. I was more evil than I considered. Marina was exposing me to some deeply buried shame. “Jacob was the one that started everything.” In more ways than one. Beyond just this story. Eyeing Marina, I tried to read her face. “He offered to have the pimp killed that was beating her and some of the other girls. He played it off, pretended he knew a guy.”
    “That guy was you,” she said.
    “Yeah. Me.” Chuckling cynically, I lifted my coffee. It was empty, so I just held it. My hands needed to do something. Anything. “We did that one together. Jacob followed the guy to his home. I made sure no one followed us.” The face of that man entered my brain. The pimp... his name had been Emilio. He'd been an ugly guy with uglier habits. Sure, we'd killed him. I guess that didn't make us saints. But Emilio—he was a bastard. “The shithead lived alone. Cornering him was a cinch.”
    Her lower lip vanished between her teeth. “How did you guys do it?”
    My smile was strained, there was a wild heat rising in me that I fought to bury. This kill, it had been a reminder of what I was capable of. Emilio's death had felt satisfying. Unlike the time with Culver, I didn't want to scare her. Protecting her from my demons was a joke, but I still yearned to try. “Plastic over his head, suffocated him. Jacob held him down and I squeezed the bag. It wasn't pretty.”
    Her eyes were bulging. It was eerily similar to how Emilio's had looked. He was dead in the ground, the case never solved. I'd called it ugly, but we'd still been careful. “Sorry,” I mumbled. “That was too much detail. You didn't need to know all the tiny parts.”
    “Yes, I did.” That time, she took my hand. It was electric, I sat straighter. “Kite, you murdered the man who was hurting those girls. I had no idea that your first kill was so... heroic.”
    If I'd still had coffee in my cup, I would have watched it spill everywhere. It was a wonder I caught the container after it bounced off the tabletop. “Heroic?” Fuck, there were so many things wrong with what she'd said. I wasn't a hero.
    And Emilio hadn't been my first kill.
    Shaking my head, I studied her—checked for pity. I didn't want or need that from anyone. Nothing glowed in Marina's eyes but warmth and appreciation. “You're wrong,” I sighed. “I did it because Jacob said we should do it. The money was too good, we needed to get out of the slums. That man was trash, but not everyone we killed was.”
    Wrinkling her brows, she held my hand and didn't wrench away. God, I was thankful for that. “Unless you plan to list every contract for me right here, right now, so that I can judge... then all I can go by is what I know.” Turning my palm over, she traced the lines, tickled the invisible scar she couldn't see. “That man beat women, Frank helped kill my family, and the guy I'm after is a certified monstrosity.”
    I didn't know what to do. Was she really arguing that I was a good person? “And Culver? You don't know what he did or didn't do.”
    She held her gaze steady. “You do, though. Was he a saint?”
    My head moved, shaking side to side. I couldn't stop it. I wanted to deny everything she was reaching for. “Not from what I saw. But that changes nothing.”
    “For me, it changes a lot. Some people... they're better off dead.” I swear, she was trying to pour her strength into me. She was as determined as Jacob to open my eyes. Marina believed what she was saying, just as Jacob had so long ago.
    I wanted to believed it, too.
    Sliding my arm