Page 77 of The Devil's Playground

My first instinct is to grab her face, to hold her steady, to witness every mark blooming on her skin because someone has to take it in. I don’t want to cause her any more pain, though, so I settle on laying one hand on her shoulder, tightening my fingers around hers with the other, giving her a connection so that she knows I’m here with her.

What I don’t do is tell her that I tracked her through a microchip. She’ll need to hear that eventually, but in this state? Knowing Nicolette the way I do, it’ll only agitate her more.

She can hit me with another frying pan if it makes her feel better later. Now? It doesn’t matter how I found her.

All that matters is what happened to her while I was racing to get to her.

So, in a voice stifled with an ice-cold anger I can’t deny, I ask her softly, “Who did this to you? Who hurt you?”

She gasps, choking on a breath that I quickly realize is a sob. That’s answer enough—as is the fact that we’re in a Dragonfly hidey-hole—but I wait with as much patience as I can scrape up for her to finally whisper, “Kieran.”

Alfieri.

The bastard who stole her innocence, then stole the last ten years of her life. First, because he’d trapped her in an abusive relationship. Later, because everything he did left its stamp on her, including her need to have her independence to the point that she almost lost it.

I’ll get her out of here. I’ll get her safe, get her help, and then I’m coming back to deal with her nightmare.

I start to scoop her up. It doesn’t even occur to me to see if she can walk. She’s still on the floor, and I’ll gladly carry her.

I don’t get the chance. Before I can figure out how to lift her up without aggravating her injuries, I hear the door behind me open. One step, then another, jaunty fucking steps that are ten times worse because whoever is coming down here is whistling merrily as he does so.

Nicolette starts to tremble. And that? That seals it for me. When I walked down those steps, my only plan was to find her and get her back where she belongs: with me. But the way he whistles, jogging down the stairs as though he didn’t leave Nicolette in pain and whimpering on the floor fucking infuriates me. It takes a lot to push me; my even-keeled temper is the foil to Devil’s rage. But now?

I finally understand what could cause one man to hack off another’s head the way that he did all those years ago.

An hour and a half. Alfieri got his paws on her, tossed her in this basement, and fucked her up this bad in an hour and a half—and the motherfucker is whistling.

I try not to think about how much worse off she would’ve been if I’d been any later. I got lucky Alfieri wasn’t down here when I arrived, but my luck just ran out. Before I could get Nicolette out of here, he’s back.

Swearing to her that I won’t let him hurt her again, I’m on my feet, facing the stairs as Alfieri appears without ever thinking about grabbing my Beretta.

That was my mistake. So used to my fists being my weapon of choice, I balled my hands tight in barely restrained fury when I saw the look of surprise on Alfieri’s face. He recovered quickly—quicker than me, god damn it—and he dropped the glass of water he’d held in his hand, trading his surprised expression for one of pure murder the same time as he went for his gun.

I don’t flinch. It hits me a second too late that I fucked up, but I do what I always do in situations like this: I pull a half-smile to my face and hope he’ll underestimate me. That’s all I need. One second and I’ll take care of this.

And then the bastard snorts, lowering his gun to his gut, and I want to think I have him right where I want him… until he says, “Rolls fucking Royce in the flesh. Shit. You got here quicker than I thought. Good. That’ll save me time.”

I don’t give anything away. I’m sure of it, but Alfieri laughs.

He laughs. I want to rip his tongue out of his mouth and his lungs out through his chest so that he can’t say another word, and he laughs.

“Oh, yeah. I know who you are. When I saw you with my property, I made it my mission to learn everything about you.” Alfieri gestures at my curled-up empty fists. “What are you thinking, fixer? You don’t get your hands dirty. You use your mouth for Devil.” He curls his upper lip. “Pretty boy like you, I wouldn’t be surprised if you give him your ass, too.”

Oh, come on. A woman-beater and a homophobe, too? Could this guy be any more garbage? I know there’s some fellas in the syndicate who have a problem when it comes to who a couple of ‘em love, but that’s never been me. As long as the adults are consenting, who gives a fuck, right?

Nicolette loves me. She chose me. I didn’t have to throw her in a basement for her attention after preying on her when she was a kid.

He deserves to die for that alone. Hurting her. Making her bleed… making her afraid… if he wasn’t already a dead man when I pulled my car up to the door, he is now. No need for outsourcing, either, not like I did with Miles Haines.

I was still trying to take care of Nic and the Sinners at the same time. Now? In this moment, I know exactly which one owns my loyalty more than the other.

And I’m not making Nicolette spend a moment longer in this hellhole than I have to.

I move my left hand from hanging at my side to the top of my thigh.

“Hands, asshole,” barks Alfieri. His smarmy bastard act disappears in the blink of an eye as he trains his gun on me again. “Let me see your hands or I stop fucking with you and just take you out now.”

Will he shoot me? Oh, definitely. I don’t have a doubt in my mind that he’s doing exactly what he said: believing he has the upper hand, he’s fucking around, taking his time before I become another leaf on the back of his bicep.

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