Page 57 of Killian's Vengeance

I went to check my throat, remembering his hand tightening around the cords of my neck, but my hands were bound to the bed frame.

I was tied to a bed. Again.

Feeling increasingly terrified, I scanned the room, trying to figure out what to do. Martin lived in a loft apartment with giant, floor to ceiling windows. Since the space was open, I was able to see much of the apartment, and was stunned. It was gorgeous, with leather furniture, plush rugs, and expensive looking decorations. Did Cara pay for all this, too?

Martin was standing in the kitchen quietly talking on his phone. He looked up and noticed I was stirring. “Good, you’re awake.”

My head fell back in exhaustion. Jesus Christ, how was it possible this had happened to me twice in one week.

“I’m not Lily.” I felt compelled to say it given the circumstances.

Martin stopped short of the bed and shot me a confused look. Now that he was closer, I noticed a long, very sharp looking knife in his hand. That couldn’t be good. “I know you’re not Lily.”

The way he said the last sentence caught my attention. He knew I wasn’t Lily. Of course, he’d known me as Willa until now, but he’d almost said it as if he would have known I wasn’t Lily, regardless of knowing me.

“Do you—did you know Lily?”

Martin smiled and shook his head. “Don’t act stupid now, Willa. It doesn’t suit you.”

“Act stupid? What are you talking about? Why am I here?” My brow puckered as acid churned in my stomach.

“Why the games, Willa? Lily was into games, too.” He leaned over me, his hand clasping around my throat. His smile was eerily pleasant, but his dark eyes were manic and wild. Fear sat in my stomach like a cannonball. “You need to tell me what I need to know. She told me you know everything.”

My eyes widened. “You saw Lily before she died?” He looked absolutely crazy and the way he was talking about Lily made my skin crawl.

His smile turned into a snarl and rage flared in his eyes. “I went in there to get her out, to get my fucking money. But when I untied that dumb bitch, you know what she did? Do you, Willa?” Martin snarls in my face, his hand wrapped around my neck, the knife still perilously close to my throat.

I shook my head. “No,” I whisper, my eyes trained on the knife.

“She laughed. That bitch fucking laughed in my face, telling me now that I’d freed her, she wasn’t giving me shit because she was pissed at me. She said only she knew where the money was. Then she fucked up. She told me someone else knows where the money was, too. You. She said you knew where the money was.”

“Wh-wh-what? No, that’s not true. I don’t know anything about your money. I hadn’t seen her in months before I saw her at the club.”

“Nice try. She laughed and said, ‘Willa knows, too.’ She said it with this fucking smile on her face. That sneaky, superior smile. That cunt worked for me. I did everything! All she had to do was fuck Mac and keep him distracted while she got some of his passwords for me. Granted, she did it, but I did everything else! I hacked into the system, I set the accounts, I took the risk of breaking into Logan’s office. I was a dumb fuck who fell for a deceitful bitch. She did the same fucking thing to me that she did to Mac.”

I fell completely still, shocked at what he was admitting. “What did you do?”

He looked at me like I was an idiot. “What the fuck do you think I did? That slut laughing at me? No fucking way. I choked the bitch.” He gave an eerie grin. “The look on her face—the shock, the horror—fuck, it was so sweet. She should have never tried to fuck with me, she shouldn’t have fucking mocked me. She shouldn’t have stolen my money.”

All the allegations I’d hurled at Killian roared to the forefront of my mind. I’d been so, so wrong. Everything I’d said, accused him of, blamed him for was dead wrong. Shit. And now I was never going to get a chance to apologize, to fall at his feet and beg forgiveness because this total maniac was going to kill me when he figured out that I had no idea where Lily put his money.

At least I knew not to mock him.

“So, where’s my fucking money, Willa?” he demanded, the tip of the knife digging slightly into the sensitive skin at the side of my throat. Small, warm beads of blood started to drip from the tiny wound.

Tears flooded my eyes as panic, pain, and despair caved in on me. “I-I…”

His hand tightened around my throat, his eyes wide and manic. “Tell me!”

I took a deep breath, attempting to calm myself down and think. “You-you said she took your money?”

He blew out an annoyed breath. “Yes, you dumb whore, she took my money. She said you knew where it was.”

This was just like Lily. Even from the grave, she was fucking me over.

“Was it, like, a pile of money? Like a suitcase or something?” I asked, trying to imagine where Lily might stash a wad of money.

“What are you, some kind of fucking moron? It’s not physical money, you idiot, it’s account numbers. I had a book with all the information on it. I was afraid of Ian hacking my computer, so I kept all the account numbers in the book. She fucking took it.” His hand squeezed my throat again, hard enough to cut off my airway, and banged my head against the bed. “You know all of this! Why are you acting so fucking stupid!”

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