LITMIR.BIZ

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Ricardo. And I already made you an extra batch, so you can quit bugging me already. Good night. I love you, too.”

      She shoved the phone in her back jeans pocket and walked toward a stacked set of trays on the far wall. The trays settled onto a base that rolled, and she dragged the entire set back to the counters along with the bowl.

      “Your brother?”

      “Who else?”

      “Does he always call you this late?”

      “When he’s on rounds and he sees my lights he does.” Gabby looked up from where she carefully pulled light towels off the top of a tray of fresh tortillas. “You’re lucky he didn’t just show up.”

      “Why didn’t he?”

      “He was called to an accident during his earlier drive-by. Something going on downtown in the park. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

      “No.”

      As the lie tripped off his tongue, Knox was suddenly glad Gabby had put the gun away.

      * * *

      “No?”

      “It’s the same answer you’d give your brother if he asked you what’s going on here.”

      “I don’t lie to my family.”

      “You sure about that?”

      Something small ticked behind her eye, and Gabby focused on uncovering the chicken mixture she’d prepared earlier for the first batch of enchiladas. She snatched a fresh tortilla from her tray, muttering a low curse when the soft disc tore down the middle. “I don’t lie.”

      “Would you prefer omission, then?” He extended a finger toward the bowl of meat she’d drained off, but she was quicker, smacking the back of his hand.

      “You were bleeding over the floor an hour ago. Don’t touch.”

      “I cleaned up.”

      “You’re still not sticking your fingers in my food. Grab a plate and a fork if you’d like some. Third cabinet from the sink. Forks are in the drawer below.”

      He followed her directions and snagged a large spoon, as well.

      “That’s more like it. Take as much as you want.”

      He tucked into the food, and she was pleased to see he ate well—rushed even—before catching herself. How, where or what he ate was none of her business. Nor was the increasing color in his cheeks any of her business, either.

      “This is good.”

      She added a few tortillas to his plate. “Those’ll make it even better.”

      His words still rattled around in her brain with increasing discomfort. She wasn’t a liar, but the sin of omission had increasingly become her friend of late, and she wasn’t quite sure what to do about it. Her family hadn’t given her a choice, their increasing pressure on her personal life like a vise, squeezing out all the air.

      So she filled tortillas like her grandmother taught her and lined them up neatly in a greased pan. She’d save the sauce for tomorrow before she headed out for the party, keeping the tortillas as fresh as possible.

      “You’re fast.”

      “I’ve been making these since I was seven.”

      “Impressive.”

      “My grandmother saw I had an interest, and she both indulged me and taught me.”

      “You miss her.”

      “I do. I still see her fairly often, but it’s not the same as every day.”

      “She’s the one you tell the truth to, isn’t she?” That quiet voice was silky, weaving its way through her thoughts like wispy puffs of smoke.

      His understanding struck her as an almost absurd counterpoint to his earlier statement. “I thought you said I lie to my family.”

      “Omit.” When she only raised an eyebrow at him, he continued, “To the rest of them, but not to your grandmother.”

      How did he know that? Lucky guess? Or was it something more?

      Gabby had never believed herself to be a sensitive sort. She respected the talents of others—and believed in the things she couldn’t see—but she didn’t have any personal skill for sensing the supernatural.

      Knox struck her as possessing a strong streak of practicality, in no way prone to the psychic, so how did he know that about her family? Or, more specifically, about her grandmother?

      Even without a sensitive bone in her body, she couldn’t deny the stones had wrought major changes since their discovery. Was it really possible there was something deeper at play?

      Ever since Cassidy, Lilah and Violet found the Renaissance Stones buried in the floor of their business, nothing had been the same. Yes, each had found love—Cassidy with Tucker Buchanan, Lilah with Reed and Violet with Max Baldwin.

      Each woman had narrowly escaped danger, too.

      Was it all because of the mysterious rubies?

      While none of them could deny the danger that had come as a result of finding the stones, she wanted to believe her friends had found men they truly loved. Their loves weren’t simply heat-of-the-moment flings. No, they had something real.

      Something permanent.

      Gabby glanced up, her swirling thoughts vanishing as she realized Knox’s gaze hadn’t wavered. He continued to stare at her with that enigmatic blue fire that seemed to light up his eyes. The man was compelling, no doubt about it. And when she finally figured out what she thought about that, there was no doubt she’d mention Knox to her grandmother.

      In the meantime, she acknowledged his words. “No. I don’t omit anything with my grandmother. She’s the one I talk to about anything and everything.”

      But she hadn’t mentioned the rubies.

      She dropped the last rolled tortilla into the tray before wiping her hands. Although her grandmother was a vault, the story of the Renaissance Stones hadn’t been hers to tell. It wasn’t omission so much as privacy.

      And a very real fear that by talking about them she’d bring the same danger to her family’s door that had already been laid on her friends.

      * * *

      Richard Moray hunched down in his car and scanned his phone, plotting out his next move. The device carried the absolute latest in government encryption software and he’d added a few tweaks of his own. Even if someone back at HQ had wanted to track him, all of its data continued to transmit as if he were sitting at his desk in London, bright and early Greenwich Mean Time.

      He was an early riser—everyone knew it. Besides, no one was tracking him. He’d covered his plans well—webs woven within webs—and he’d spent his life cultivating a personality that was part civil servant, part Security Service cheerleader and part purveyor of justice.

      But he was always—always—100 percent for queen and country.

      Until bloody Knox St. Germain started digging beneath the facade. He’d hired the damn boy, for the love of all that was holy. Hell, even for that which wasn’t. He’d trained him and ensured the Manchester street rat had a future. And Knox had turned on him.

      Moray rubbed at his knee, the hasty tourniquet nearly as uncomfortable as the grazed flesh. Oh, how his protégé had turned.

      Moray flipped through the web pages he’d already bookmarked, including the catering shop owned by one Gabriella Sanchez. Taste the Moment. The sultry dark-haired beauty smiled back at him from the web page, and he fought the small shot of interest that sparked at her beautiful face. She was a siren, no doubt about it. But that long mane of curly hair and the thick, lush lips were a distraction, nothing more.

      She

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