I grind my teeth. Truly, I’m getting sick of everyone repeating my own words but I roll with it. “That’s true,” I counter, “but I’m also not stupid enough to believe the obvious.”

“Good answer. Dig deeper. Call me tomorrow after the autopsy.”

“Wait,” I say when I’m sure he’s going to disconnect.

“Yes, Agent Love?”

“Danica Day and Officer North. I don’t like them.”

“I’ve come to know you don’t like many people.”

“That’s true, but in this case, it’s about agendas. Perhaps the wrong ones. Do you know anything about either of them?”

“I don’t, but I’ll look into them. Call me tomorrow,” he adds again, and when he would hang up, he adds, “And Happy Thanksgiving, Agent Love.” He disconnects.

I groan and set my phone down. Kane appears in the bathroom doorway. He’s still naked from the waist up, his shoulder resting on the frame. “Problem?” he asks.

Isn’t there always? I think as I stand and Kane crosses to stand in front of me. “I was wrong.”

In other words, he was listening to my conversation therefore I know exactly what he means. “We’re back to Pocher, right?”

“We can’t rule out the fact that he’s still human, no matter the monster we know he is. He could be operating on grief. He could be distracting me, and us, while he plots something bigger. I need to go and see him. And I need leverage when I do.”

He catches my hips and walks me to him. “Give me time to hear back from my people.”

“How long?”

“It’s Thanksgiving. I need a few days. And as for the leverage. I’m it. He knows my uncle wants to rule the world and if not for me, he’d have already started wars that would disrupt the goals of the Society.”

“And yet, you don’t run the cartel,” I say tightly.

His eyes darken. “Is that a question? Again? Because no matter who I am, or am not, if you think I won’t use it to protect you, then we have a problem.”

“You didn’t think that was enough in the past,” I say, which is exactly why at one point, he set it up to look like a rival gang kidnapped Pocher’s brother and Kane saved him. In exchange for my safety of course. “What changed?” I ask.

“It changed, Lilah,” is all he says.

“Then I need to know why,” I argue.

“The more you know, the more you’re compromised. Don’t push, Lilah. You won’t like the answer.”