Free KILLING ME SOFTLY by Jenna Mills

of his body push into mine.
    Then, with an abruptness that stuns me, he pulls back and looks me dead in the eye. "Out of my town."
    It's a bald-faced lie and we both know it.
    "I suppose that's why you can't keep your hands off me?" We've been playing this game for weeks, shadow-dancing around each other, baiting, taunting, stepping close then pulling away. He doesn't like me stepping too close to his investigation—which makes me wonder why. What is he afraid of? What does he not want me to find?
    "Just what is it you're trying to do, Detective? Scare me off … or seduce me?"
    "Whatever works," he murmurs. "I'd enjoy both just fine."
    The ache starts low, spreads fast. "How about answering a few questions?"
    "Isn't that what I'm doing?"
    "About Oncle —and the Goose—"
    The gleam in his eyes is the only warning I get. "You sure you want to play this game?" he asks, stepping closer.
    I smile. My heart rate surges. "Quite."
    "Let her go or you're a dead man." A different voice. Eerily quiet. Wholly lethal. It rips through the intimacy and jars me back into reality.
    "Adrian—"
    My brother emerges from the right and plows into Detective Robichaud, sending them both sprawling to the ground.
    "You son of a bitch!" he shouts, rolling on top of the detective and rearing back with his right fist.
    Robichaud catches it. "Be very sure, Trahan." Despite the darkness, I can see the lethal glint to his eyes. My brother isn't a small man, but the detective has a good five inches and fifty pounds on him. He could crush Adrian without breaking a sweat. "Assaulting an officer carries jail time."
    Adrian glares down at him. "What about assaulting a woman? Police brutality? What do they carry?"
    Robichaud glances at me through those hypnotic eyes of his. "Did I hurt you, sugar?"
    Something as simple as a voice shouldn't be able to heat my blood.
    "Did I touch you in any way that you found offensive or inappropriate?"
    Slowly, I take the wrist he held into my other hand, and gently caress the flesh. "Adrian, it wasn't what it looked like." But even as I say the words, uncertainty nags at me. "We were just—" I stop mid-sentence and stare at the two of them.
    New Orleans isn't a huge city, but big enough that I should be able to walk down a street without running into the cop trying to halt my investigation and my brother, unless—
    "There was no informant," I breathe, and the truth twists deep. One of these two men arranged the midnight meeting for God only knows what reason. "This was all some kind of twisted test."
    A shadow crosses my brother's face, and I have my answer—and my culprit. "Vannah—"
    "Don't bother." Adrian, general manager of New Orleans's biggest and newest casino, has been trying to derail my investigation for weeks. There's nothing going on, he insists. Everything's fine. The rumors about a new breed of organized crime are just that. Rumors. Stories.
    There's no such thing as a Goose.
    There haven't been payoffs.
    No one has gone missing.
    The airline pilot who committed suicide after being arrested had a drinking problem—not one with organized crime.
    Right . Math may not be my thing, but I can add two and two. I know when four smells like trouble.
    "Kill each other if you want," I say, glaring down at the two of them. "But know this. I'll have the truth one way or another." I pause, look Cain Robichaud dead in the eye. "You can play big bad wolf all you want, Detective. You can try to scare me off, run me off, even seduce me if that's how you get off. But in the end—you … will … fail."
    With that I turn and walk away.

CHAPTER SIX
     
     
    Bayou de Foi, present day
     
    R enee closed her eyes, refused to yield to the emotion searing her throat. Her past with Cain seemed like another lifetime, an intense story she'd read long, long ago. But with every minute she spent in Bayou de Foi, every scorching look Cain sent her way, every touch, every threat, the memories rushed back, hotter and deeper than