17. KILLERS AND GODS

17

KILLERS AND GODS

YARA

H e looked so fucking confident. It would have usually made me bristle, but not when I knew that his confidence wasn’t a veil to hide his insecurities—many men use that as a mask, a pretense, but not Ryden. No, this man didn’t seem to have any insecurities.

He stood there, his hands casually tucked in his pockets, his eyes self-assured, all-knowing, as if he owned the room he stood in, and me.

Hell, no.

No woman would have ever said no to him. It’d do him a world of good to hear a no occasionally.

Detective Rishi threw the man a disgruntled look before he walked out of the room, leaving me alone with Ryden Sinclair.

I had been waiting for a moment to be alone with him for weeks, and now that he was here, I wanted nothing but to punch him in his stupidly sexy mouth and make another scar.

“Forgive me for calling your report absurd.” He gave me a look that was hard to say no to. “It has been a long morning,” he said, his voice a soft apology. “I’m sure you’re very capable.”

“I’m more than just capable , Mr. Sinclair.”

His answering grin created a warm pulse of electricity along my nerves. I gulped and willed myself not to lose it right now. I had seen him smile—the fake one. But this was not fake. This was real, just as real as the one he gave Natalia Porter.

“Let me buy you a coffee as an apology?” he said again, his eyes imploring, but the wicked glint in them never went away. “For being such an asshole.”

“You were an asshole, but I’ll accept the apology. Buy that coffee tomorrow.”

“Really?” He looked discontented but didn’t say anything more. “When?” he asked, studying me.

“Four in the evening. Don’t be late,” I said, feeling like I had regained some sense of control back. It still wasn’t enough, guessing from the look in his eyes.

“Four?” he asked, rubbing his stubble, looking slightly irritated, and I knew I had shaken him just as he had shaken me.

“That’s when I’ll be free.”

I had been waiting for four o’clock since the moment I walked into the building the next day. I couldn’t do anything other than just sit and stare at the clock, and exactly at four, I heard a solid knock on my office door.

“Come in, Mr. Sinclair.”

I switched off my laptop and grabbed my coat.

“Here’s the deal. I’ll talk to you, but I can’t tell you every detail of the case,” I told Ryden, who was carefully studying my office.

He looked as intense as he did when he was cutting into a man’s skin.

Except for my cluttered desk, everything was so cold and clinical.

“If you’re done assessing my workplace, can we go, Mr. Sinclair?”

“Sure. Oh, allow me,” he offered, motioning to give him my coat. I handed it to him, and he fingered it, his touch soft and gentle. He closed his eyes, taking in a deep breath, before they snapped open, and I almost stumbled back from the force of his gaze.

His gray eyes were now darker and more dangerous than ever before, painted with the color of his lust.

Gulping, I tried hard not to shudder when he pulled the coat over my shoulder, his fingers lazily trailing over my skin. His touch sent a shiver of excitement through me.

Pulling the hair at the back of my neck out of the coat, his fingers lingered on my skin for a second, and my heart went haywire. Pulse racing, I waited for him to do something, anything.

He cleared his throat. “So red,” he whispered. “So silky.” He teased the curls at the base of my neck.

“Wha-what?”

He quickly took his hand away from my heated skin as if he wasn’t entirely aware he did that. He cleared his throat, looking a bit flustered. He looked at me like… like I had two horns and a tail. I hadn’t expected him to rattle so easily.

“Shall we go?” he said in a hoarse voice laced with desire. When I nodded, he opened the door for me and waited like a perfect fucking gentleman, and I had a hard time believing that this was the same Ryden Sinclair who had killed a man in cold blood weeks ago.

“There’s the reliable cafeteria coffee, which is just black water. Or there’s a small café opposite the office. Coffee Connexion,” I said to him as I walked out of the room.

“Coffee Connexion, please. I’m not in the mood for black water,” he said with a grin.

We walked toward the café, which was almost empty, and took a seat at one of the rustic wooden tables covered with polka-dotted table covers.

“A black and white mocha with dark chocolate drizzle. Two chocolate cakes, please.”

“Yours?” Lucy asked with a smile on her face as she turned toward Ryden. I smiled at her, showing all my teeth—the smile a shark would give you before it bit your head off—and her eyes widened as she backed away a little. I knew she got the warning.

Not this time, Lucy. He is FUCKING mine!

“A turtle mocha with extra caramel and chocolate drizzle. Add pecans, if you have them,” Ryden said with a straight face.

The big, bad wolf… drinks turtle mocha.

I snorted, pressing my hand against my mouth. The waitress shook her head, her smile not even slipping as she walked away from us.

“A turtle mocha? Well, aren’t you just diving headfirst into the sugary abyss?” I teased, fingering the menu, and his eyes narrowed. “Death by sugar overdose, Ryden?”

“What?” he snapped, eyes indignant. “Sugar calms me down when I’m angry.”

“You’re angry now,” I said, studying his face, and he gave me a slight nod. “Did I make you angry?”

“No, it’s not you. It’s…” He shook his head with a grimace.

“Go on?”

“It’s… nothing. So, how sure are you about your autopsy report?”

“Hundred percent.” My fingers twitched, but my smile never slipped.

“Could it be possible that someone wanted you to see what they wanted, and you saw only that?” he said, studying my face. It was hard for me to maintain my composure after that. No one had guessed that before, but here he was.

My stomach tilted, and my skin prickled as a thick snake of discomfort slithered its way through my bones.

Fuck. How did he know that? If he dug deeper, he’d know something was amiss, and I didn’t want that.

I was momentarily given a reprieve from giving him an answer when the waitress came back with our order.

“I have been doing this for a while, Mr. Sinclair, and I assure you, I don’t make mistakes,” I retorted.

“Call me Ryden. I mean, after calling me a fool… mister isn’t necessary,” he said with a shrug, taking a sip of his coffee with a soft breath. “But what if you were unaware? What if someone tricked you into this? As I mentioned, someone had meticulously planned this, Doctor West.”

“Yara,” I said. “So, how are you so sure that it isn’t Millicent Wark? And who is this person? The one who’s manipulating everyone?”

“Millicent’s a vulture, but this isn’t her. Someone’s trying to frame Millicent, and they succeeded.”

I took another gulp of my coffee, letting the hot liquid soothe the coldness that was slowly overtaking my bones.

“Go on.”

“The stab wounds do look like it’s a crime of passion, but… what if the wound in his heart isn’t the first stab? If you take a closer look,” he said, unzipping his backpack and extracting a file from within. Retrieving a photo of Victor’s lifeless body, he slid it across the table towards me, his eyes never leaving mine.

How did he get his hands on this? This wasn’t a picture the cops shared with the world. I realized how deeply connected he was with the force.

“God, you can’t just… casually take out pictures of a dead man in public,” I exclaimed, my expression a mix of shock and horror. Even though I was familiar with Victor’s wounds, and it didn’t affect me, I made a point to show my disapproval. “How the hell did you even get these?”

“I have my ways, and it’s not like you haven’t seen them before.”

“I’m not the only one in the café,” I said, pointedly looking around. “Tell me what I’m looking at, Ryden?”

“The way they’re so precise. Each thrust is done with a deliberate intention to…” He winced a little. “To kill, but also make it last. Lungs. Liver. Heart. Stomach.”

“Women are handy with knives.”

“Perhaps, but this isn’t done by someone who just knows how to use knives. My gut tells me that this is done by someone who knows more about the human body. Someone who knows how to hurt and kill, someone who has done it before.”

Well, fuck yes. You’re looking at her.

My job, my livelihood, and my slightly skewed hobby all revolved around death. It wasn’t just a part of my life; it was my life. It was like air, like water—death was the essence of my existence. With every soul I took, I earned a few years of living.

“I can’t—I don’t work with my gut. This is science and—” My words were cut off by my ringtone.

Ryden shook his head in disappointment when I answered my call.

“Hello, Detective Rosario,” I greeted, glancing at Ryden. He gritted his teeth.

“Okay. I’ll see you then,” I said, staring at Ryden. “I have to leave now.”

He cursed and raked his long fingers through his hair. “I think that man can smell me from a thousand miles like a bloodhound,” he grunted as he bit into his chocolate cake. “How long…”

“He said he’ll be here in twenty,” I said as I watched Ryden lick the chocolate from the side of his lips.

My lips parted. Why was he so effortlessly sexy? My nipples hardened inside my silk blouse, and I badly wanted his tongue on them.

This isn’t the time to think about his cock, Yara, or how you would feel if you were impaled on it.

Isn’t it, Kat?

“Call me later,” I said. His fingers lingered on my palm for a painful breath before he took it from me.

I handed my business card to him. My name and number were embossed in gold on a matte black card. He studied it as if wondering why a medical examiner needed something so outrageously gaudy. It was Irene. She designed it. I had scoffed when Irene handed the card to me, and she’d said that it matched my persona. My heart of coal, and my eyes of gold. She was poetic like that.

Irene was my only family in the whole world. I kept her safe and far away from me. I was always afraid that someone would find my truth and then use her to hurt me. She was my only weakness. “I know, I know,” I said, and he smiled, and my eyes fell to that small scar on his bottom lip with a sigh.

“I’ll call you.” He smiled, pushing the plate of cake toward me. “Eat it. It’s delicious.”

My heart thundered strangely as I took a bite of it, and he watched, his eyes predatory as he continued to eat.

“May I?” I whispered. “You have some chocolate here.”

He nodded, and my thumb slid across his lower lip, tracing the scar, and he stilled.

Without taking my eyes from his, I sucked my thumb, and he groaned, shaking his head. His eyes met mine for a second before he stood up.

He paid for our cakes and coffee before he turned to look at me. He gave me his hand, and when I took it, he rubbed the back of my hand with his thumb before he let go.

“I’ll find you again, Yara West.”

I couldn’t wait for him to find me.

“Please, do, Ryden Sinclair.”