On the drive home in the snow, an old Rolling Stones song, “Beast of Burden,” plays on my radio. My mom loved it and her loss has always been my beast of burden. Her murder is my motivation, among others, to hate my father and destroy Pocher. The snow, too, has decided to be its own kind of beast of burden.

It pounds down on the windshield in a blinding ferocity that forces me to drive like a grandma who’s grabbed grandpa’s glasses instead of her own, and thus cannot see the road. Patience isn’t one of my virtues, and it’s utilized only when forced upon me. To make matters worse, I’m at the “Ol’ Betsy stoplight” as the locals call her, the one that takes ten years to change.

My fingers thrum the steering wheel while Kane’s words come back to me: There’s a reason Murphy doesn’t even deny wanting us together. He believes together we’re dangerous to the Society. So does the Society.

And what, I think, has the Society proven to do when someone is dangerous to them?

They kill them.

But do they taunt them first? Is that what this—tonight—was supposed to be?

My cellphone buzzes with a text message and I glance down to find a message from Andrew: Jamie’s number is an unregistered number. It’s a throwaway.

I reply with: Of course it is.

Ol’ Betsy turns and my mind is forced back to the road.

By the time I’m in the garage at the house, Kane is waiting for me at the door. He studies me with intensity, intensely unreadable. He’s assessing, questioning, but not talking. God love him and his understanding of how I operate.

I’m in my head.

I need to stay there right now.

He backs up to allow me to enter the back hallway and I’m quick to do just that. Once we’re both inside the warm house, I strip off my wet boots and he takes my coat before I follow him to the kitchen. I settle onto a barstool in front of the marbled island, while he prepares, and then hands me a hot Bailey’s coffee with whipped cream. Yes, the dark, dangerous Kane Mendez put whipped cream on my coffee. And still, we haven’t spoken a word.

He joins me, claiming the spot next to me while I sip my coffee, the warm, sweet liquid sliding down my throat and helping me come down about two notches.

Ready now, for more than my own mental ping-ponging of thoughts, I grab my phone, thumbing through photos until I find the image of the jar of blood. I set it in front of Kane.

“That was left for me in the refrigerator of the crime scene.”

He glances at it and then me, arching his dark brow. “The victim’s blood?”