The grip on my mouth loosened by a tiny bit. I felt like it was my time to try to do something, to try to fight, while this guy was in shock.
But Esteban didn’t leave anything to chance. He moved, quick as lightning, and there was a burst of light and a dull pop of noise.
The man loosened his hand around my mouth, slowly easing away until he fell away to the ground, collapsing in a heap.
I leaped back, falling back on the bed as I tried to get away.
Suddenly Esteban was at my side and he was holding my arms, trying to get me to look at him. It was still dark and I couldn’t see him all that well, but I knew enough. There was a dead man at my feet. I’d almost been killed. Esteban somehow shot him with a teapot.
He was talking to me, but I wasn’t listening. He shook me. “Lani. Please. Are you okay?”
I nodded absently, trying to find the words to speak. “Who . . . who was that?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Was he your job? Are you a contract killer?”
He shook his head. “No, I’m not. That’s someone else’s job, but he’s been gone. This wasn’t supposed to be this way.”
“You killed someone,” I said in horror, the realization slowly coming over me.
“I had to,” he said. “You would have been killed. Raped and then killed, that’s how these people work.”
“These people,” I repeated. “You are these people.”
“Lani . . .”
“You killed Natasha.”
“You don’t know who Natasha is. She was no better than he was. There are things about my job that I don’t like, but we all take loyalty very seriously. We also take our safety seriously. For ourselves and for others.”
He sighed and looked away. “I guess I should have told you. But I was hoping to spare you the knowledge. This man and Natasha, I was supposed to . . . fix them last night. I’d only gotten Natasha. This man had left. I would have found him tonight . . . I was supposed to. But then there was you . . . and I’m a weak fucking man when it comes to you.”
I shook my head, trying to understand. I looked at his hands. Up close I could see he was holding a gun with a silencer. Behind him, an empty teapot lay on the ground. “How did you . . .”
“I told you,” he said, “that we take our safety seriously. I had the gun by me all night . . . after . . . well, after we used it, I loaded it, put on the silencer just in case. There’s another gun under your bed. I put this one in the kitchen. There’s another one by the door. All hidden, but I knew where they were. You can’t be too careful.”
“You hid it in a teapot.”
“Quick thinking,” he said, giving me a smile that didn’t belong at a crime scene. “I was naked, I had to improvise as soon as I heard the scuffle.”
Thank God for thin walls.
“You’re still naked,” I whispered, my attention going back to the dead body on the floor. I stared at the man with the bullet hole in his head. My eyes glazed over, unwilling to take him in, to pay attention to details. I didn’t want to see him, the man who almost killed me, the man I’d seen get killed. I didn’t know him, but I’d never had death at my feet.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
“Well,” Esteban said as he sat on the bed beside me. “You go make yourself an actual cup of tea and I’ll take care of the rest. Lani, this shouldn’t have happened to you. You shouldn’t have been a part of this. You shouldn’t have known. This was my problem, my job, my reason for being here. I fucked up. I got involved with you and I lost my head for a moment. I’m sorry.”
I nodded absently. I knew he was sorry. And I was, too. But I knew what I was getting into when I first saw him, when I first learned his name, when I first learned what he did. I knew he was bad and yet I wanted him. I wanted the thrill, to know what it felt to be alive.
And now, I finally had it. Now I had seen death, though not my own.
But it was enough.
I didn’t want to die.
Chapter 7
“Are you sure you don’t want to come with me, see me off?” Esteban said.
We were sitting in my kitchen, drinking coffee as the sun streamed in through the windows. He had just set down his empty mug and was getting out of his seat, making all the big motions that he was about to leave.
Leaving me alone.
I took a sip of the Kona brew and shook my head. I wasn’t afraid anymore—not of that. I believed Esteban when he said he’d take care of everything. He’d spent the whole night making sure there wasn’t a trace of the incident, while I spent the whole night cowering in a state of shock. I definitely was still in shock, but I was coming around in ways I hadn’t anticipated.
I don’t know what he did with the body, or where he went for several hours in the dark of night, but I knew a man like him made no mistakes. He was the smart one, the good one.
He’d saved my life again, even if he was the one who invited danger in.
But then again, I was the one who had beckoned the danger the moment I stepped on the plane to Kauai. I had wanted nothing but oblivion, a place
