A struggle crosses her face. The way she yanks on the cord feels like a victory.
“Please,” she mutters.
“You can do more than that. And you’d better.”
A grunt of frustration escapes her. When it’s clear she isn’t going anywhere, she collapses against the backrest of the stool and looks skyward, as if she’ll find an answer there.
Blair speaks to the high ceiling. “I didn’t have a choice. You have so many, it made sense. You could just buy another.”
“What are you talking about?”
Blair heaves a stilted breath. “I have…someone counting on me.” She lifts her head to pierce me with a world-weary look. “Money isn’t a commodity to you like it is to me. Plus, you’re an asshole.”
I stare at her for a beat. “I think I should call the police still. You don’t sound sorry at all.”
“I’m not,” Blair snaps. “I’ll do whatever it takes for the people I love.”
For a brief moment, I’m thrown off by her conviction.
An idea pops into my head. I trace my lips as I turn the thought over, examining it from all sides. It’s a little crazy, even for me. But it will teach Blair a lesson—one that sticks this time. She’s not sorry? By the time I’m through with her, repentance will be the least of her worries.
Touching my tongue to my lower lip, I peer at her through hooded eyes.
Destruction.
Control.
Revenge.
I’ll take it all and make her wish she’d never met me.
Crossing my arms, I face her. “You can either sign your soul over to me, or the cops. Take your pick, angel.”
Blair’s glare returns in full force.
I tamp down on the urge to laugh. Taming her will be an entertaining experience.
“I’m no one’s angel,” Blair swears.
Four
Blair
“So, what’s it gonna be, Davis?” Devlin leans his hip against the kitchen island.
With haunting dark eyes and a jaw sharp enough to cut yourself on his deadly edges, he’s heartbreakingly handsome in the same way oleander is fatal. Pretty to look at, but its toxic poison will end you with a taste.
And he fucking knows it.
I strain against the stupid cord he tied me with. My own damn supplies hold me back. Pinning me beneath Devlin’s thumb. He’s such a bastard. Each time I shift a little, his gaze flicks down, watching my body.
Whatever his offer is, it can’t be good. Maybe it would have been easier if I’d convinced him to fuck me for revenge. At least then he’d have to untie me, and I could make a cleaner getaway.
Though that’s the one thing I’ve never put on the table to survive.
A phoenix rises from the ashes, born anew from strife. I reform and reshape the person I am, but I don’t feel born again. The hardships I’ve faced only turn my shell harder, preparing me for the next obstacle to battle tooth and nail. I’ve become unrecognizable from the idealistic little girl I once was.
My lines have been drawn and redrawn in the sand each time I barreled over one, learning a new thing I was capable of losing if it meant food on the table and a tin roof over our heads.
But not my body. Never my body.
It might be one of my last lines standing, but I won’t cross it.
I guess I’m glad he doesn’t want that from me.
Peering at Devlin through my lashes, it’s hard to decipher the mask he keeps locked in place. This differs from the one he wears in school and parties, the one that brands him Silver Lake High’s dark king. That one is easy to read. Hair hangs in his eyes, but I can see the mix of calculative coldness and an uncomfortable eagerness in the sinister depths. He’s probably looking forward to catching a new toy in his claws.
I scrape my teeth against my bottom lip, wishing I could reach the knots around my wrists. Gemma took me to a self defense class in Denver over the summer. If I could get loose, aim an incapacitating kick at his nuts, I think I’d make it to the woods surrounding the house before he caught me again. I’m a fast runner. But these damn knots are so tight and he tied my arms so they’re separated rather than together, leaving me unable to use my opposite hand to work the restraint free.
Biding my time isn’t going well. When he grabbed me in the garage, I knew right away I’d never overpower him, not while we were alone. I need to wait for the upper hand to fight him. The rules here—deep in enemy territory—are unknown. I have to figure my way out of this mess.
I’ve been trying to squirm free of the cord wound around my wrists. He didn’t tie me with any normal knots, it seems. Every time I move they feel tighter, not looser.
The rumors spread by the bragging from girls who have been with him swim to the front of my mind, how he doesn’t fuck like other guys. They call him mischievous and dangerously sexy. With the way these knots are tied…god, what kind of freaky shit gets him off?
“I really should have you locked up, but since you begged so nicely—well, not quite, but,” Devlin touches his splayed hand to his chest and pretends to bow, right out of an Austen novel, “I’m willing to be a gentleman and help you out.”
My eyebrows shoot up before I can hold back a reaction. Um, what?
It doesn’t sound like a nice gesture at all, his tone and the blackness of his shadowed eyes belying the trap in his offer.
As if I’d believe he’s helping me out of the goodness of his heart!
Devlin doesn’t have a heart. If he ever had one, it died off long ago. In its place sits a rotten, decayed hole.
“What exactly do you mean?”
Sign your soul over to me, or the cops.
How can I pick between my nightmare and the devil that torments me?
What does he expect me to do? It’s an impossible choice. But then again, so is the problem that drove me into this situation in the first place.
This feels like one of his cruel tricks, the same as his soccer buddies baiting me with dollar bills on fishing wire at school. Or last year, when he let me sit at his lunch table alongside Gemma because Lucas wanted her there, but the price was Devlin toying with my lunch tray and dumping it on the floor in front of everyone.
Devlin waves off my question. “I’ll give you what you came here for.”
That gets my attention. I sit up as much as I can on the narrow stool, swallowing.
“I don’t follow.” My forehead wrinkles. “You’re going to let me drive off with your car? Just like that?”
The corner of Devlin’s mouth quirks up and a dimple appears in his cheek.
“Not at all. You’re never to touch my car again.” He points at me to drive that decree home. He studies me with cunning curiosity. “No, what I mean is if you play my game, I’ll forget all about tonight. And if you do that, I’ll give you the money you obviously need.”
My lips part, lured by the temptation for a minute.
Reality catches up with me a second later. I snap my mouth shut as I seek out the part where he laughs in my face. Because what he’s offering? It sounds too fucking good to be true. He’ll just give me money? There’s a catch, I know it.
Devlin? Fine with helping me?
We hate each other.