Page 100 of Merciless Prince
My chest heaved as tears flooded my cheeks. I couldn’t speak. Could barely breathe. Everything I’d done tonight, everything I’d achieved… it was all for nothing.
Killian turned to get something out of the car—a knitted white blanket. “Here,” he muttered, crouching to wrap it around my shoulders. “You must be freezing.”
He held the blanket around me for a moment, letting me warm myself in his arms. Then he rose to his feet. “Get in the car,” he said in a low voice.
I meekly did as he said, too shocked to disobey. He switched the heater on for me and let it warm all the way up before turning the car around and heading down the dark, winding road.
“How did you find me?” I finally managed to choke out through the tears.
“I realized you were faking when we were in the clinic,” he said, keeping his eyes on the road. “I noticed you turned your head when they gave you the sleeping pill as if you didn’t want me to see whether you’d swallowed it or not. Then I figured out the rest from there.”
“But you didn’t say anything.”
“I wanted to see what you did once you thought I was asleep,” he said. “Honestly, I thought you were just going to go out through the main door. I had some of the hotel security guards posted up there waiting for you. But then you went into the dungeon instead.”
“And you still didn’t try to stop me.”
He dipped his chin in a curt nod. “I still had no idea what you were planning. I didn’t think you’d jump into that river, either, but I realized what was up when I went into the grotto and found one of the boats missing,” he said. “There’s a much easier way to get to the grotto from the castle, by the way. You didn’t need to take that dive.”
“I couldn’t exactly ask you where all the secret doors and passages are,” I muttered, dabbing the tears from my cheeks with the corner of the blanket.
“True.” Killian’s lips hooked up in a half-smile, and he gave me a side-eyed glance. “I have to admit, I was actually impressed by the whole scheme. It was pretty badass.”
“You still didn’t answer my question,” I said. “How did you know where to find me?”
“That was easy. I knew you weren’t going to paddle that tiny little boat out into the main part of the river, because that would kill you. You had to go for the part closest to the bank, which is where that little tributary flows in. So I figured you’d take the boat up there and ditch it. Then you’d find your way to the nearest road, which is this one.” He motioned to the road outside and glanced at the clock. “I waited there for forty-five minutes. You took a lot longer than I thought you would.”
Humiliated heat crept down my cheeks and neck. The whole time I thought I was paddling my way to freedom, my captor was smirking by the roadside, knowing it wouldn’t be long until I was his again.
“Are you going to kill me now?” I asked.
Killian’s shoulders tensed, and he tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “I would never kill you, Shay,” he muttered.
I let out a short, derisive snort. “You literally tried to bury me alive two days ago, so yeah, I think you would.”
“That wasn’t real,” he said, shaking his head. “I was never going to let anything happen to you. I was just trying to scare you into talking.”
“Right,” I muttered. I pulled the blanket tighter around my shoulders and let out a heavy sigh as fatigue flooded my body. Then I turned to face Killian again. “Why are youthisdesperate to stop me and my friends from mentioning anything to anyone? I mean, it’s insane. You’re spending half your life trying to get me to talk and running around at all hours of the night chasing me. Isn’t it exhausting?”
Killian frowned. “You know why I’m doing it.”
I shook my head. “No, I mean… if I remember correctly, you weren’t even one of the people who stabbed that guy in the grotto. You were just standing there watching. So why areyouthe one responsible for getting answers out of me? You probably wouldn’t even get in all that much trouble if I said anything to the police. Nothing you couldn’t buy your way out of, anyway.”
Killian kept his eyes on the road. His silence and stiff posture spoke volumes.
“Oh.” My forehead creased as my brows slowly rose. “There are other videos, aren’t there? Ones where you participated.”
“Yes.”
I looked ahead at the windshield, pulse pounding. “Why do you do it?” I asked. “Why do you kill people?”
“I can’t answer that.”
“Why not?”
“You’re an outsider.”
I scoffed and turned to look at Killian through narrowed eyes. “So what? Seriously, who am I going to tell as long as I’m your prisoner? The walls?”
