“So I’m supposed to believe that you wouldn’t traffic women.”
“Never.”
“And yet my brother got involved in a human-trafficking ring.”
“It was a favor for an important man. But I didn’t peg him for moving human cargo.”
“Another human trafficker? Did my brother know about this guy?” I ask, immediately wondering if there’s someone still out there that Kane and Rafe don’t know about.
Magnolia shrugs.
“Who?”
This question doesn’t come from me, but from Kane as he steps out of my bedroom and into the living room.
Every drop of blood drains from Magnolia’s face. When she unfreezes, she crosses herself.
“You’re a fucking ghost. I know you’re a ghost.” Her head whips to me. “What the fuck is going on, Temperance? Why you got a fucking ghost in your apartmentwho killed your fucking brother?”
She tenses on the couch, looking ready to spring into action at any moment—either attacking or running out the door—but I’m stunned by her questions.
How could she possibly know that Kane took the shot to kill Rafe and then was shot and killed? Magnolia wasn’t there. The news never reported on the incident at all. Mount covered it up.
So how can she know?
“No ghost, Mags. I’m real, and I want a name. Now.” Kane’s tone brooks no argument, but Magnolia doesn’t seem to hear the threat as clearly as I do.
She vaults off the couch, and before I realize what she’s doing, she has a small pistol in her hand, pointed at Kane.
“No!” I spring out of my seat and throw myself in front of him, blocking his body with mine, giving Magnolia my back. I tense, waiting for a bullet to rip through me, but it doesn’t come.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Kane grips my shoulders and glares down at me. His blue eyes are as dark as thunderclouds, and his lips are pressed into a hard line.
“I can’t let her—”
He grips my shoulders and peels me off the front of his body, exposing himself once more to Magnolia. “Youneverput yourself between me and a bullet.Never.My life isn’t worth even a second of yours.”
“Someone better tell me what’s going on right the fuck now.” Magnolia’s voice shakes, and I glance at her.
The gun is still in her hand, and it trembles in front of her as her finger caresses the trigger.
“How the hell did you hear about what happened at the airport?” Kane asks her.
“Doesn’t fucking matter, does it? It especially won’t matter when I make sure you’rereallydead instead of just faking it.”
“Rafe isn’t really dead either.” I blurt out the truth, because there’s nothing I won’t do to get the barrel of that gun away from Kane. “He’s alive. I talked to him yesterday. It was a setup.”
The barrel wavers. “I don’t believe you. But I do believeSaxonhad no problem collecting the rest of the fee for his hit after he pretended to take a bullet.”
“Put the gun down, Mags,” Kane says. “There were no real bullets.”
All his order does is make her level the pistol on him again.
“You better prove it right the fuck now before I pull this trigger and end you where you stand. I don’t miss.”
I try another tack. “You think he wouldn’t already be dead if Rafe wasn’t alive? I would’ve killed him myself. In fact, I tried before he told me Rafe wasn’t dead.”
Magnolia’s gaze darts from me to Kane and back again.