Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet

His heat reached me then, and I stepped closer. The familiar warmth that radiated out of him in soft nuclear waves was like a stinging ointment, soothing and unsettling at the same time. I stood under the glaring fluorescent, but he didn’t look up. It gave me a chance to study him more closely, to assess how freedom had changed him. Not a lot, I quickly realized. His hair was the same length it was two months ago. Thick strands hung down over his forehead and curled behind an ear. His jaw—that strong, stubborn set he always carried—was shaded with a day’s worth of growth. It framed his full mouth to such delicious precision, my own mouth watered in response.

I forced my attention off his face to his wide shoulders, laid bare for the fight, exposing the ancient tattoos he’d been born with. The tattoos that doubled as a map, a key to the gates of hell. I could read a map as well as the next girl, but how did one use such a map to travel onto the other plane and traverse the desolation of infinity to get to a place nobody wants to be?

Without looking up from the trainer’s ministrations, Reyes asked, “What are you doing here?”

He was so startlingly beautiful, it took me a moment to realize he was talking to me. I hadn’t seen him in two months, and even before that, I’d seen him in the flesh on only a few fleeting, harried occasions, each one eliciting similar feelings of preoccupation and light-headedness. No matter how angry I seemed to be, his attraction, his raw succulence acted as a magnet. And I was apparently a paper clip. Every cell in my body urged me forward.

The trainer glanced up in confusion, then realized someone else was in the room. He turned to me, a sharp disapproval lining his face. “You can’t be back here.”

“I need to talk to your fighter,” I said, thrusting as much authority into my voice as I could muster, which admittedly wasn’t much.

Finally, and with infinite care, Reyes raised his lashes until I could see the shimmer of his rich brown eyes. I tried to force my heart to keep beating, but it stopped dead in its tracks. His lips parted slightly, and my gaze fell to his mouth again. It thinned in response, and he said, “You need to leave.”

Ignoring the rush of heat that flooded my body at the deep, sensual sound of his voice, I squared my shoulders, stepped forward, and handed him the paper I’d crumpled the minute I saw him in the cage. “I brought your bill.”

His thick black lashes lowered, and he reached for the paper with his free hand. “My bill for what?” he asked, perusing what I’d written.

“For my services. I found your father for you. Almost died in the process. My private investigations business is just that, Mr. Farrow: a business. Despite what you might believe, I am not your personal errand girl.”

He quirked a brow the moment I used his surname but recovered quickly enough. He turned the paper over. “It’s written on a Macho Taco receipt.”

“I improvised.”

“And it’s for a million dollars.”

“I’m expensive.”

The barest hint of a grin lifted one corner of his mouth. “I don’t have a million on me at the moment.”

“We can go to the nearest ATM, if that would help.”

“Sadly, no.” He folded the paper and stuffed it into a back pocket, and the only thing I could think was how I would’ve loved to be a Macho Taco receipt at that moment in time. “I’m broke,” he added.

Even without reading his emotions, I knew that was an outright lie. Good thing, because I wasn’t getting much in the way of deceit. Lust, maybe. A hot, visceral desire that had my knees fighting to stay locked. But no deceit. Speaking of which …

“Why are you fighting?” I looked around at the paltry conditions. Even illegal fights should be sanitary. This was crazy.

“I told you, I’m broke. I need the money.”

“You’re not broke,” I countered.

He shook off the man wrapping his hand and rose from the table.

I stepped back in a wary retreat. He followed, every movement fluid. Powerful.

I had a few tricks up my elastic cuff. Time to shock and amaze. “You have a cool fifty million just waiting for you to wrap your hot little hands around.”

He stilled, which was his tell. Where others gasped or rounded their eyes when surprised, Reyes stilled, so I knew I had him.

“You’re mistaken,” he said, his voice like silk over cold, hard steel.

“Your sister told me,” I explained. Though not biologically related, Reyes was raised with a girl whom he considered to be his sister in every way. They were both subjected to extreme abuse, though in very different ways. Earl Walker, the man who tortured me, also raised them. In his own sick kind of way, he would refuse Kim food and water until Reyes would comply with his horrendous demands. Kim and Reyes both grew up in a nightmare at the hands of a monster, and in an effort to keep Kim safe, Reyes disavowed any knowledge of her when he was arrested for Walker’s supposed murder. And yet, he had somehow managed to make her a millionaire while in prison.

He bit down. “That’s not my money. That’s hers.”

I folded my arms. “She won’t spend it. She swears it’s yours.”

“She’s wrong.” He took another step closer. “And I thought we agreed that you’d stay away from my sister.”

We didn’t agree so much as he threatened, but I decided not to bring up that point. “This was a while ago, after you’d escaped from prison. You’d been hurt and I was concerned.”