Page 39 of Marked By Moonlight
I thought it over a moment longer, then caved. Mina was right. I just hoped it wouldn’t come back to bite me — or kill her.
“Etienne is my top suspect.”
“Etienne?”
I nodded, cursing the day I’d gotten involved with him. All I’d wanted was to make a quick buck, and going head-to-head against other shifters in his clandestine, gladiator-style pits had fit the bill. Or so I’d thought at the time.
“Remember that charge of attempted murder?” I asked.
“Kind of hard to forget.”
I winced, praying she remembered the rest.
She did, fortunately. “You mean the fight ring/sex-trafficking guy, right? Do you think he’s out for revenge?”
“It’s possible.”
“Let me get this straight,” she said, more to herself than me. “You nearly killed him — out of principle…”
I shrugged, trying to make light of it. “He owed me money too.”
She snorted, telling me she didn’t buy that, then continued puzzling it out.
“You didn’t succeed, but trying was enough to land you in hot water, and that’s what brought you to your plea-bargain thing with Gordon.”
I waited for her to figure out the rest, which she promptly did.
“Etienne got in trouble too, I guess?”
“Yes. His businesses were shut down, and he was forced into a deal similar to mine, though I don’t know the details.”
“A deal with Gordon?” she yelped.
It said a lot about Mina that for all the dirt she’d learned about her godfather, she still clung to her misplaced faith in him.
I gulped hard. The same way she had faith in me?
I shook my head. “No. A different warlock dealt with Etienne. An associate of Gordon’s.”
She grimaced but didn’t say a word.
“Etienne would love to get back at me, and hurting you would be the best way to do that.”
She looked up at me, whispering, “Is it?”
I tightened my arms around her. “It is.”
Hurting Mina was the worst possible punishment I could imagine. No form of torture would come close, and no other person stood in that category. Only Mina.
As chilling as the thought was, we were back to cute and snuggly. What was it with me?
Mina cupped my face, whispering, “Did I ever tell you I love you?”
I shook my head slowly. No, actually. Neither of us had ever dared utter that four-letter word.
“Well, I do. I love you. Desperately, even though I tried not to.”
I bit my lip, then admitted, “I tried that too.”
