Primal Pursuit - Page 159

He takes my face in both hands and lifts my head, brushing his lips against mine. It’s the softest, sweetest kiss.

Maybe it counts, this kiss. His words. Because if things were different…

He sighs, rubs my arms, and steps back. “Your uncle doesn’t claim a piece of you. Not in any way. The rest? You need to figure that out.”

“Like you and your past?”

“I killed my father when the time was right. And Idon’t regret it. I don’t live in the past. It doesn’t consume me. I know exactly what I am.”

“Which is?”

“Get in the car,” he says, straightening. “It’s cold.”

He lifts me down, and once we’re back in the car, he doesn’t speak as we drive the rest of the way. Not when we turn off the highway, and not when he parks halfway down a winding road.

We walk the rest of the way. In utter silence.

The estate is big. Huge. And for a moment, I’m in shock. Have my aunt and uncle moved up so far in the world they have a multi-million-dollar country mansion?

“Stay in the shadows,” he orders.

I don’t see what he does, but a minute later he slings the bag over my shoulders and leads me through a small door in the side of the gate.

There are lights on as we approach the house, sticking to the grass, then climb the wide, grand porch.

And to my shock, Davian rings the doorbell.

“What are you doing?”

“Shh.”

I’ve never seen the man who answers before in my life.

“Hello, Antonio,” Davian says. “Long time.”

The man, who’s in his sixties, frowns. “S-Stark?”

“Got it in one.”

Davian has his gun drawn. He’s so slick, smooth, I never noticed. That gun, like all the weapons he’s ever wielded, is like a part of him. And here I am thinking I can kill him.

I take the gun from my bag. Holding it makes me feel less…vulnerable.

“Antonio, meet Rabbit. Rabbit, this man is Antonio Cervantes, aka Fowler Industries, aka the man who put the hit out on your family.”

Everything inside me goes stiff and hot and full of ice.

This…this man… The gun shakes in my hand.

“Want to do the honors, Rabbit?”

Chapter

Thirty-One

DAVIAN

Obviously,my rabbit raises the gun.