Turn On A Dime - Kade's Turn (2 page)

Her hair was soft, the locks slipping through and over his fingers like silk. Her neck felt fragile and delicate in his grip. Too delicate. But then again, she’d just escaped from that guy like a pro. Maybe Kade had pegged her wrong.

After a few moments, her breathing slowed and the tremors eased. When she pushed back on his hand to sit up, Kade reluctantly released her, allowing his fingers to trail slightly through her hair as she sat back. Then she looked up at him with wide, innocent eyes as pure blue as the summer sky.

And he was lost.

Crouching down next to her, he asked, “Are you all right?” Now that he was closer, he could smell her perfume. It was like spring after a thunderstorm, and Kade knew he’d never smell that fragrance again without thinking of this moment and the color of her eyes.

Kathleen just stared at him, open-mouthed, before finally nodding. Kade wondered if he should get the paramedics over to her. She was obviously still reeling and in shock.

Reaching out to the still oozing wound in her throat, he brushed away the warm blood. It felt almost intimate, her blood on his fingers. Soft was too dull of a word to describe her skin. “You’re bleeding,” he said. No shit. Nothing like stating the obvious, but he had to give some excuse as to why he’d touched her.

“Just a scratch,” she murmured.

Kade smiled a little at that. Sounded like something he would say, actually.

“Nice move,” he complimented her, wanting to prolong the conversation. She just looked confused. “What you did to get away,” he said. Had she hit her head?

Kathleen just shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal. “Thanks,” she said, then jerked her chin to indicate the guy on the floor. “Will he be okay?”

Okay, that was certainly
not
something Kade would say. Who gave a shit if he was going to be okay? He’d used her as a human shield. He was lucky Kathleen had done what she had or his brains would be splattered all over the hallway right now, courtesy of Kade. It still wasn’t a bad idea, the motherfucker.

But still, she seemed worried. Kade gave an inward sigh. Innocent, naive, and way too soft-hearted. Nope. Not his type. At all. He needed to keep thinking about that and not how he felt as though she held a magnet inside her body that was focused solely on reeling him in.

“Yeah,” he assured her. “The wound isn’t deep and the medics got here quickly enough.” Kathleen was too little to have caused any serious damage with the knife, and Kade thought it more than a little amusing that she thought she might have really hurt him.

She closed her eyes in relief. Kade knew he had to take the opportunity to leave. If she looked at him again with those eyes that made him wish she’d be impressed by his hand-to-hand combat skills or his aim at fifty yards, he’d do something stupid and no doubt juvenile, like ask if he could buy her dinner, or ice cream, or a car, anything just to be around her a little while longer.

God, he was really losing it. With one last glance at her, memorizing every last detail, Kade stood and melted into the crowd.

One Week Later

He could kill her so easily.

Kade Dennon stared down at the sleeping woman. She was a plant. She had to be. There was no other explanation for it.

She’d bolted from Blane’s house in the dead of night into a car waiting at the curb. She’d known enough to wipe the hard drive he’d coerced from her, pretended innocence and got Blane to sleep with her, ran off once she’d realized Kade was on to her, and hid here with a known prostitute.

And
she’d fired at gun at his brother.

Kade’s hands curled into fists. If Blane hadn’t shoved him, following Kade down as they’d hit the deck, she might’ve shot him.

The switchblade was in his hand before Kade had made the conscious decision to pull it. A flick of his wrist exposed the razor sharp edge.

Blane’s weakness: women. This one in particular seemed to have gotten under his skin, and Kade could see why.

She was beautiful in a too-innocent-to-be-true kind of way. Kade had been taken in as well, from the moment he’d first spotted her in the courthouse, so he could hardly blame his brother. It appeared this particular woman—this Kathleen Turner—had managed to squeeze between the armor of not just one, but both brothers.

That alone was a compelling reason to kill her and the events of tonight just added to the list against her continued presence among the living. She’d taken the code from the drive and then fucked his brother. Now she knew that he and Blane were working together, which was a threat to not only Kade, but Blane, too.

And the list kept growing.

Blane would be pissed, but he’d get over it. Yeah, Kade was just supposed to check on the girl, make sure she was there in this chick’s apartment, but Blane didn’t have to know she was dead. Kade could break the news later. A quick flick of his knife and it’d be done.

The more he considered it, the more logical it seemed, until there wasn’t any reason Kade could think of to
not
kill her. Yeah, she had the code, but he’d gotten a look at the neighbor’s apartment and seen the computer equipment. Kade would bet a thousand bucks she was in on the TecSol plan, too. He’d hack into her stuff and get what he needed. Easy peasy.

A pillow over the face would be less messy, but it was also more personal and took longer. A slice to the carotid was efficient and slightly more merciful, in Kade’s opinion, not that he cared much. It was a shame she was so pretty, but as she’d already proven, beauty was only skin deep.

Kade slowly drew back the covers she’d pulled to her neck. Luck was with him, she was sleeping on her back with her head turned to the side. Her hair was in the way, but it only took a moment to move the silky strands aside. There it was. If he looked closely enough, Kade could see a faint pulse underneath the delicate skin.

She made a slight noise and Kade froze, holding his breath. It had always amazed him how people could sense another human being’s presence at times, no matter how silent he was. Science said there were five senses, but experience had proven to Kade that there were really six, though not everyone listened when their intuition told them things their mind didn’t want to believe.

The girl made another noise, something like a whimper, and Kade watched in disbelief as tears leaked from her eyes to slide down her cheeks.

She was crying in her sleep.

But wait, was she asleep? Maybe this was a ploy, a tactic to get him to relent. Kade reached with the hand not holding a knife and gently touched her cheek with the backs of his fingers. It was like brushing against warm velvet, the track of her tears wet on his skin. She didn’t so much as flinch at his touch, which told him she really was sound asleep.

Kade frowned, softly wiping away her tears until he caught himself doing so and jerked his hand away. What the fuck was he doing? He was here to kill her, not comfort her. But she’d stopped crying and part of him was glad of that, though he refused to dwell on it.

Back to business.

He held the knife to her neck, finding just the right spot before the artery split on its way to the brain. Then, inexplicably, he hesitated.

Maybe the girl had gotten caught up in this without her consent. She was young and tiny. What defense did she have against people like the Santini brothers if they wanted to use her? They could have threatened her, hurt her, done all matter of vile things to ensure she did as she was told. Was Kade going to deliver her final judgment to a sentence that may not have been of her choosing?

Kade was familiar with being made to do something against your will, and there were few he hated more than those bullies who forced others to do their bidding. He’d once been a victim of men such as those, and he’d vowed to never let it happen again. But he was stronger, colder, than the woman who lay innocently oblivious beneath his blade.

Slowly, he withdrew the knife. Another flick of his wrist and the blade disappeared.

He’d let her live, for now, and dig into who she was, her past, her friends, every move she’d ever made, every mistake she regretted, every guy she’d fucked, every friend she’d betrayed—Kade would find out. And so help her, if she wasn’t everything she appeared to be—what he couldn’t help hoping that she was—then she’d pay, and pay dearly.

CHAPTER ONE

Two Months Later

“Kathleen is in danger.”

Blane’s words ricocheted inside Kade’s head as he drove. It took about seven hours to get from Buffalo to Indy. A quick glance at the clock said Kade would make it in six.

He didn’t want to go, but Blane had left him no choice. Kade couldn’t refuse Blane’s plea for help, and wouldn’t. If his brother needed him, then he’d be there, no matter what. It had always been that way, and it always would be that way.

Alone in the dark silence of his Mercedes, the road nearly empty of cars, Kade allowed himself to acknowledge the ridiculous surge of anticipation inside at the thought that he’d get to see her again.

Her. Kathleen. A woman who’d haunted him since he’d first set eyes on her. He remembered now how close he’d come to killing her that one night, the night she’d ran from Blane’s house, and a chill ran down his spine.

She’d become his obsession after that night. He’d found everything out about her that was possible to know, determined to dig up something that would prove she was a fraud, something concrete he could take to Blane.

But there was nothing.

Born an only child, she’d been raised by two seemingly happily married people. Her father was a cop who died in the line of duty; her mother a stay-at-home mom who’d passed from cancer not long ago. Though she’d grown up in a small town, she’d left soon after the death of her mother to move to Indianapolis, selling the family home and using the money to try and make a dent in the mountain of bills left from her mother’s cancer treatments.

She’d done well in high school and even spent some time at college studying prelaw of all things, before her mother had taken ill. Then she’d left to go back home and care for her. Working as a bartender in the small town of Rushville, her time had been consumed with work and nursing her mother, friendships falling by the wayside. Not one of the popular kids in school, all accounts said she’d been quiet and reserved, though everyone had seemed to like her well enough.
Kind
and
sweet
were the adjectives most often used to describe her.

Such an out of character thing for her to do, selling the home and moving away from everyone she knew. It puzzled Kade. Why had she done that?

Kade had been intrigued by her, absurdly glad that she’d come across him holed up in the law office that night he’d been snooping around. Of course, she’d been on a date with James-the-douche, but God she’d felt good in his arms. He’d thought it was pure coincidence, a twist of fate, then she’d shown up again the day he’d been following Mark.

Wincing a little at the memory of Kathleen cracking him over the head with a chair, Kade’s lips twisted at how she’d gotten away from him that day. She’d listened to that little voice inside her head warning her that Kade was dangerous, and had taken steps to escape. From time to time Kade had wondered which “guy on TV” he supposedly looked like because those teenage girls had swarmed like flies. He’d even had to scrawl a dozen or more illegible autographs—he’d drawn the line at posing for photographs—before he’d managed to extricate himself.

Seeing her do the dead-on Britney impression on Halloween in an honest-to-fucking-god schoolgirl costume had just sealed Kade’s fascination and infatuation with her.

He’d been betting that night, betting she was a do-gooder bleeding heart who’d do what had to be done to protect her friends rather than put them in danger by asking them for help. That bartender had looked like he might interfere, so Kade had showed her his gun. As he’d expected, she’d gone all martyr, waving away help. Not that Kade had complained. Do-gooders were the most easily manipulated, they were so predictable. She’d been half-crocked, too, which was probably why she hadn’t put up a fight when Kade had kissed her.

The kiss.

Kade had replayed it over and over inside his head. If it had been a photograph, the image would have been worn and faded from too much handling. Her taste, her scent, the feel of her body in his arms, the softness of her lips and warm slide of her tongue against his…

His cock twitched at the memory and Kade cursed under his breath, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. He shouldn’t dwell on it, especially if he was going to be in close proximity to her. The last thing he needed was to be sporting a constant hard-on for his brother’s girlfriend.

Which was what he concentrated on as he neared Kathleen’s apartment building.

From what Blane had said, it looked like Kade might be pulling bodyguard duty for Kathleen, which really sucked. He’d had to do that a couple of times before and didn’t like it. Throwing himself in the path of a bullet meant for someone else just wasn’t Kade’s thing, even if that someone was five-foot-nothing, weighed half what Kade could bench press, and made Cinderella look like an ugly stepsister.

Habit made Kade park a block away from Kathleen’s apartment building, the instinct for secrecy too ingrained to pull up to her door. Glancing at his watch, he saw dawn was still a ways away. Might as well case the joint ahead of time, get a look at the surrounding area and possible escape routes and hiding places. He automatically checked his gun and magazine before sliding it into the holster attached to his hip.

Kade shrugged into his black leather jacket as he exited the Mercedes, locking it before pocketing the key. He never had more than one key if he could help it. Keys made noise, even inside a pocket.