Page 74 of The Devil's Playground

I have to stay awake. If anything, to prove to him that he’s not going to control me so easily… I will stay awake.

But I won’t fight him again. Not until I can figure out a way to convince him to spare Royce. I’ll give him whatever he wants if he does, though I’m careful not to tell him that. In this mood, sacrificing myself for my lover would only give my abusive ex all the more reason to go after him.

For now, I have to bide my time and hope like hell Royce cares enough to find me.

Whether it was threatening Royce or because of the damage he did to my face, Kieran accepts it when I go quiet and still—until he crouches down again and, instead of trying to feed me his cock, tries to take my chin in his hand so he can eye his recent handiwork.

I can’t help it. I jerk my head out of his reach. It sends another wave of unbearable pain flashing through me, but I just can’t help it. To have him lay those brutal hands on me… I’d rather the pain.

Kieran sighs. “This isn’t the way I thought our reunion would go, darlin’.”

“Fuck you,” I spit out, spraying blood with it. He’d expect the venom, and I’m glad to give it right now.

Tsk-ing, he says, “Bad girls get soap. Is that what you want? I’ll wash that fuckin’ mouth out with soap and see if that changes your tune.”

Hypocrite. Kieran’s always been such a goddamn hypocrite—but he doesn’t bluff. I remember that. If he says he’s going to shove a bar of soap in my mouth, he’ll hold me down and make me suck on that the same way he expected me to blow him to make his point.

“Don’t make me be the bad guy, Nicolette. I don’t like it when you make me the bad guy.”

Then maybe he shouldn’t be the bad guy.

He taps my cheek, sending even more agony through me. At my hiss of pain, he asks, “Maybe you want water instead, hm? That’s a good idea. I’ll get you some water, you can wash out that blood, and we can start over. What do you think?”

He doesn’t want to know what I think.

“That’s my girl.” He presses his lips to my forehead. “Don’t go anywhere, darlin’. I’ll be right back. And in case you get any idea of leaving me again?”

Kieran pulls something out of his back pocket. When he jangles it, I squint. It’s a key ring with a single key on it. Smirking down at me, he twirls it on his pointer finger. “Door has an automatic lock from the inside so that we can get in, but it takes a key to get out again. Walls are soundproofed, too. A perfect place to keep you until you remember that we’re meant to be.”

Oh my god. I’m going to die down here, aren’t I?

Especially since, when I force myself to my knees, ready to chase after him to see if the door really did lock behind him, I don’t make it more than a wobble before I collapse back onto the floor.

After that, I can’t do anything but drift between unconsciousness and the new nightmare I’ve found myself in.

TWENTY-SEVEN

SPRINGFIELD WASH

ROYCE

East End.

The goddamn East End of Springfield.

As my eyes keep darting over to the app on my phone showing off the blinking green dot I’ve been following for the last hour, I’m torn between worrying over Nicolette’s fate and cursing my cousin to hell and back.

If I’d been at home or the Playground, I could have made it across town in twenty minutes. From the moment Link got through to my cell, I was already racing toward my car. There isn’t a cop in Springfield who’d try giving me a ticket once I told them who I was, so with my lead foot to the pedal, I might’ve even made it in fifteen.

But I wasn’t in Springfield. I was in the middle of bum-fuck-nowhere—okay, it was Merrill Grove, a small town over an hour out of the city—when I got word that Nic was missing and my heart nearly fucking stopped.

Because this isn’t like when Link would sneak off from the Playground or an evening meet so that he could sit outside of Ava’s house. Nicolette went a few blocks away from our apartment building, right in the heart of Sinners territory. She was supposed to go get tacos, there and back again, but when a half an hour passed and a call to the taqueria revealed she never made it, it became obvious to Ava that she wasn’t just missing.

She was taken.

Ava called Devil who cut short his meeting with the Valdez crew to rush home and be with her. Once he arrived at the penthouse, he sent Ghost out to see if he could find any sign of Nicolette.

He did. Courtesy of calling her phone nonstop as he searched, he found that, her purse, and her wallet shoved in a trash can on the corner of 6th Avenue, two blocks away from Paradise Suites—and conveniently next to a narrow side street that could pass as an alleyway.

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