Read Convicted (Entangled Ignite) for Free Online

stamped with a devilishness no angel could ever have known. She looked him up and down, as if he weren’t a quivering shadow of a man. As if he were still worth looking at.
    “I’m a friend of the family, remember?” She glanced up suddenly, her grin disappearing in a flash.
    Cade peered over his shoulder, not surprised to see Rick on the stoop, watching both of them. Glaring, really. “You aren’t supposed to be here,” Rick said, his voice lacking even the traces of warmth. He put his hand out, something small and black sticking out at her. “Take your shit and go.”
    Cade struggled to focus on it. A phone. The kid’s phone? Shit .
    “Last I checked, RoboCop, I don’t work for you. You don’t get to give me orders.” She took the phone, smoothly pushing it into her back pocket. How, Cade wasn’t sure. Her pants appeared painted on. Hand painted. Possibly with very tiny brushes.
    “You put everyone in danger and you know it,” Rick continued. Cade tried to sort through the undercurrents flowing between them, but he was still too fuzzy to make much headway. Too unclear, too uninformed. She’d been right about that, at least.
    “They were in danger way before I got here. I’m helping the only way I can.”
    “By coming up with new ways for them to get attacked? That’s help they don’t need.”
    “ You’re going to lecture me on who I should and shouldn’t help?” Rich, husky laughter spilled out of her but her lips never curved. The wrongness of that stabbed at Cade’s mind.
    “I’m telling you how to do it without getting people killed. Like not putting the weight of his mother’s life in the hands of a little boy.”
    “I’m putting the chance to save himself in his hands.” She crossed her arms and pointedly glared. “It’s more than anyone else has done for him.”
    It was a challenge, no doubt about it. Rick glared at her, long enough to start Cade’s dormant protective instincts twitching, before he finally sighed.
    “Remind him to be more careful with that thing. If I hadn’t seen it in the kitchen, we both know Frank would have.” A softened tone, though not by much.
    “He’s only a baby,” she muttered, seeming to relax a touch herself.
    They had the air of people who’d been fighting a long time, Cade noted, still leaning against the steps, wiping his brow with the back of his hand. Long enough to know how far to push and when to back down while you were ahead. But Rick hadn’t mentioned any Katrina Killian in his rundown of the town. Cade’s clarity returned strong enough to wonder why.
    “And Frank’s only a psychopath looking for a reason to kill.” Rick disappeared back into the house, conversation apparently over.
    “Asshole,” she snarled, gaze still trained on the backdoor. “Always has to get the last word.”
    “Better than when he had to have the last bullet.”
    She looked back at Cade as if she’d just remembered he was there. Oddly enough, given how little he liked being noticed, he felt an unfamiliar pleasure at having her attention again.
    It didn’t last long.
    “I’ll be over there with Jimmy. If you go back in, tell Shana he’s with me.” Cool words, distance all over her face. She backed away, turned on her heel to start walking toward the tree where he could see the little boy still waiting on the bricks. A kid with huge eyes and no tears.
    Maybe he wasn’t the only one here with feelings deadened by violence. Fuck. There was so much wrong with that, but he recognized the glaze on the boy’s face. He saw it every day in the mirror.
    The woman had recognized it, too. Too well.
    “Wait.” The hoarse word came out of him before he realized he was going to say it.
    She paused, halfway across the yard, turning back cautiously.
    “How did you know…” He couldn’t force the next words out.
    The smile came back, softer, but no less teasing to his muted senses. “Maybe there’s more to me than just leather pants and a nice ass,