Hot Demon Nights by Elle James

“I’m glad you didn’t
miss.”
    I leaned up on my toes and pressed my lips to his. “Me too. I’d
hate to have to train a new partner. You were hard enough.”
    “Honey, I’m getting harder by the minute. Something about an
adrenaline rush gets me hot.”
    My pulse ricocheted off the insides of my veins, my own desires
spiking with our close connection. “Our backup should be arriving soon.”
    “Later then.” He kissed me hard, his tongue delving between my
teeth, sliding along mine, warm, wet and teasing.
    My core tightened, growing slick with juices even as I pushed
away from him and straightened my shirt.
    I glanced around to find Ivana limping toward the door, the bag
with the remaining cash clutched to her chest.
    By the time she reached for the doorknob, the police backup
burst through, knocking her back on her ass.
    I laughed out loud as I nodded toward Ivana. “Arrest her. If
I’m not mistaken, she killed Dr. Henke.”
    “I can explain,” she cried.
    “Talk to someone who gives a damn,” I said, stepping over
Gordon’s head to get to the door. My eyes itched and my nose tickled. “And buy a
different perfume, for Pete’s sake.”
    An hour and a million questions later, the story unraveled.
    Rico Mendez had given Gordon Felding a million dollars cash for
one round of the reanimation drug. The gangster had wanted to use it to revive
his dead brother long enough to convince his opposing cartel that all was well
in his familia . When Gordon died of natural causes,
an honest to goodness heart attack, the drug hadn’t been delivered—and all
development on it halted before it could be made ready for consumption.
    Ivana Felding had also overheard her husband’s conversation
with Rico discussing the million dollars in cash that the man was to deliver to
their apartment. Only Gordon had hidden it somewhere Ivana couldn’t find. When
he died suddenly, Ivana realized the terms of her husband’s will would leave her
destitute. She spent days searching her apartment without finding the cash Rico
had given her husband.
    She’d turned to Dr. Henke, promising to split the bankroll if
he helped her reanimate her husband long enough to get him to show her where it
was.
    The hitch was getting the reanimation formula to a point where
it worked well enough to reanimate the brain function to full potential with
sufficient lucidity to follow orders.
    The first few attempts only created monsters so high on
adrenaline and hormonal injections, they wanted to kill anything in their paths.
Henke had directed the attack on the secretary as a show of his commitment to
Ivana—a kind of revenge for the woman’s affair with Mr. Felding. The attack on
Mrs. Felding had been Henke’s attempt to reassure her that his experiments were
getting closer. Henke had been able to direct the reanimate to Ivana. Only it
had backfired and the dead man had almost killed Ivana and had been caught on
video, thus requiring a visit by the police.
    Once Ivana started talking, she wouldn’t shut up. Even when her
lawyer arrived and told her not to say another word, her sense of injustice
wouldn’t let her put a lid on it. She felt as if Gordon Felding owed her for all
the years she’d put up with him.
    When Henke had demanded more than half the money for his work
with the reanimation, Ivana had killed him in a fit of pique, unwilling to share
another dime with anyone. Then she’d taken off with her reanimated husband to
find the money stashed in her apartment.
    Gordon had gone right to the hidden location, but when Ivana
had her hands on the cash, she no longer had a use for a zombie husband and
attempted to pull the plug on him. Coherent enough to realize what she was
doing, Gordon fought back…that’s where I’d come in.
    After hours of documentation, I headed to my apartment. Blaise
had disappeared before I’d finished up at the station. I didn’t like that I had
no idea where he’d gone and whether I’d see him