Page 70 of The Devil's Playground

And that’s when he rises up, then steps down hard on top of my right hand.

I gasp, and he warns, “Don’t scream, Nicolette. This is just between me and you. Don’t you scream.”

It’s been three years since I’ve heard that tone from him. Quiet and threatening, but with enough pleasantness to it that he can gaslight me into thinking I misunderstood how he meant it… when I hear Kieran’s soft voice drift down to me, I’m sixteen again, he’s sliding into my bed, running his hand down my sleep pants, telling me to be quiet, that I don’t want to wake our parents up, that it’s just between me and you…

I freeze. There’s nothing else I can do. I’m on the ground, he’s standing over me, and twenty-seven-year-old Nic disappears.

Kieran smiles. “That’s my girl.”

I whimper, scraping my palm against the gravel as I try to pull my hand out from beneath his boot.

Ignoring me, he reaches inside of his long coat, pulling out something that he keeps concealed against his palm. His duster fans out behind him and he drops to one knee. His hand goes for my throat, and I don’t know what he has in his hand, but he jabs me with it at the same time as he hooks his hand under my pit, helping me off the ground.

The whole exchange took maybe two, three minutes.

Whatever Kieran jabbed me with? It works even faster.

My eyes start drooping as he drops my arm over his shoulder. His hand shoots around my waist, supporting me as he half-drags, half-carries me toward a car parked nearby. I never even saw it there, and when I do see that he has two doors open for an easy exit and entrance, I tremble.

“Shh. Don’t worry. I got you.” He gooses my side before pulling his arm back, pushing against me so that I have no choice but to topple down onto the passenger-side seat. “I’m bringing you home.”

The last thing I remember is flopping over. I have no control of my body at that point as I fall onto the driver’s seat while Kieran chuckles darkly to himself as he slams the door closed behind me.

By the time he walks around his car and slips in through the other side, I’m already out.

My cheek is tender, my head throbbing, and my whole damn body feels like it weighs a thousand pounds when I wake up.

The ground beneath me is chilly and hard. My lower back and hip are stiff, too, but it’s my upper body that warns me that something’s wrong. Though it’s been years since I’ve had a hangover, this is exactly what I remember it being like.

What the?—

That smirk. That goddamn smirk as he stepped on my hand before hoisting me up, moving me around like his own personal doll.

How could I have forgotten that smirk?

My eyes spring open and, as though I could sense it while coming to, there it is.

Kieran is sitting on top of some kind of wrapped pallet. The room I’m in is gloomy enough that it doesn’t bother my eyes, though I can make out his silhouette against the wall opposite of where I’m sprawled on a cement floor.

His jacket is gone. Wearing nothing but a black t-shirt that shows off the trail of his leaves, black jeans, and black boots, it’s hard to pick out details from this angle… but I see the smirk and know that, whatever happened since he grabbed me, I’m not going to like it.

“Impressive,” he says, pushing off the pallet before standing up on his feet. “The drug I shot you up with was supposed to keep someone of your height and weight out for at least another hour.”

“You… you drugged me?” That would explain the woozy feeling. I’m outraged enough that he would do something like that to me that I snap past my growing fear. “With what?”

“Doesn’t matter. I got a guy who hooked me up. Not as decent as that geek Devil’s got working for him, but it does the job. It kept you quiet while I moved you.”

“Moved me? Moved me where?”

“If I wanted you to know that, darlin’, I wouldn’t have bothered with drugging you. But don’t worry. You were only out for about a half an hour. I’m glad. I was getting bored, waiting for you to wake up.”

My heart is racing. Panic knocks aside some of the fatigue that came along with whatever he gave me, and as I pull myself up to a sitting position, I look around.

There’s not much to see. Besides the two lamps on opposite sides of the small space, all I see is a set of stairs, countless pallets of what’s obviously stacked cash, and Kieran.

Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no.

Dragonfly turf. There’s no way I’m not on the East End. The cash gives it away—since the Libellula Family is famed for their counterfeiting operation—but the fact that Kieran felt comfortable enough to abduct me from the West Side and lay me out down her tells me he’s on his home territory.

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