Page 32 of Royally Bad

“I never thought I’d be a prisoner twice in one day,” she whispered.

“You’re not a prisoner.”

Smiles should never be so hurtful. “Don’t joke around. We both know I am.”

She’s right.Sammy was trapped here, and I was trapped by her very existence. I was impossibly connected to a woman who looked at me like I’d just run over her pet dog. How could I survive this kind of torture?

As I watched her leave the room, I had one simple, morbid thought.

Maybe I won’t.

- CHAPTER NINE -

SAMMY

He followed me down the hall. I didn’t have a clue where I was going to go, I just needed to move.

I needed to be away from him.

From all of them.

These damn people!I couldn’t have predicted this situation. I was without any of my things, stuck in a mansion belonging to a corrupt family. They didn’t want me to leave ... and I didn’t know what I could do about it.

And he had the gall to say I wasn’t a prisoner.Shooting a look over my shoulder, I froze him where he was lingering on the other side of the room. “Quit following me. Aren’t you supposed to be summoning your brothers or whatever?”

Waving his phone, he gave a half smile. “I can walk and text at the same time.”

“Well, aren’t you talented.”

“I like to think so.”

“Don’t try to be cute,” I snapped.

Kain crinkled his nose. “I can’t exactly control it.”

I was done with his jokes. Pulling a 180, I stomped his way. I’d told him before that my father had raised me right. I didn’t believe in violence, but I was at the end of my already-frayed rope. It was so easy to blame Kain for all the bad things in my life.

His back thudded on the wall; I’d pushed him so roughly that the impact made a framed photo clatter to the floor. Glass spread, tinkling like sweet music. “How dare you?” I growled, fingers curling in the front of his shirt. “After everything, you think you can pretend we’re fine? That we canjokelike we’re friends?”

My voice was rising; I couldn’t stop it, I didn’t try. Upstairs, I heard movement. The ringing in my ears blocked the world out, my eyes aching as I glared at the man I wished I’d never,evermet.

Kain put his hands on mine, gripping so I couldn’t escape. Even now, his touch was warm. “Sammy,” he hissed. “Look at me.”

“I am!”

He held me tighter, his nose coming close to mine. “Do you see your enemy? Do you see someone who wants to hurt you?You, of all people?”

His words were a fuse that started to light a firecracker. It sank into me, more acid than fire, burrowing low into my belly. Kain talked to me like he knew me, but he didn’t. He couldn’t.

So why was I suddenly listening?

Black clouds swam through the blue sky of his eyes. “You ran out of your house screaming for help. What the fuck was I supposed to do?”

My wrists were numb where he was squeezing. “Take me to the cops.”

The dark storm grew deeper. “No,” he growled. “That’s what we keep telling you. If I turn you over to them, they won’t do a thing to keep you safe! If someone wants you dead, then ... anywhere but here, anywhere I’m not ... you’d be—”

“No,” I blurted.

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