Page 49 of Lock Up the Darkness

I could feel him watching me intently as I twisted the hollow heel and pulled out my special square device I’d stowed in there earlier. I sealed the heel again, then put my boot back on, then held the black plastic out on my palm. “Since the moment I stepped into your home, this handy little thing has been infiltrating your computer network and basically siphoning every shred of information, every byte of data, on your system.”

He stared down at it, then took it from my palm, looking it over.

I warned, “Even if you destroy it, it won’t undo anything. Everything it has acquired is being backed up to a secure, highly fortified server.”

He placed the device back on my palm. “Insurance.”

“And leverage, just like you said.”

A smirk played on his lips. “Daddy’s little girl indeed.”

I frowned. He actually looked impressed.

He read me well, telling me, “You’re wondering why I’m not upset at the infiltration? Why I’m not slamming you against the wall, reading you the riot act, and getting down to punishing you?”

“Pretty much.”

He grasped my chin.

Not gently, but not harshly either. Merely firmly.

His glittering silver eyes held me captive as he rumbled, “Because, little lamb, I can work with this.”

12

~Killian~

The house always felt eerily quiet after one of our parties, especially one on the scale of the Blowout.

Right after the confrontation outside, Asher had given the order for Security to shut down the party immediately and escort everybody out.

This time, that eerie sensation wasn’t just par for the course. It wasn’t just about the sudden stillness, something I was usually all for, because contrary to my public persona, I hated fuss and crowds. I hated it all with a fucking vengeance.

No, right now, there was an air of foreboding whispering through the walls.

The atmosphere was unsettled, charged.

Because of her.

Aurora Blackthorn was in our home.

The elaborate plan of Asher’s had worked better than we’d anticipated. Hell, I’d figured on it failing spectacularly. But then again, I hadn’t been gathering a wealth of data like Ash had.

Even though he hadn’t actually admitted to it yet, it was clear from the depth of psychological manipulation he’d employed, being able to anticipate her responses to various stimuli, that he’d been testing her for weeks. Through that, it had also become brutally clear that he’d used me to do a lot of it. Like some test subject. Like I was just one of them, an outsider.

He hated being compared to his tyrant of a father in any way, but this, this had just proven how alike he truly was to that puppet master, Carson Monroe.

We’d dangled the bait in the form of a supposed innocent girl being in trouble and Aurora had taken it, which had led to her coming face-to-face with Liza’s betrayal and the fact that we’d engineered it from the very beginning, that she’d been nothing but a plant, not the one friend Aurora had thought she’d made. It had knocked her off her game, destabilized her, and that was when we’d had her run into Jonah. He’d subdued her and connected with her at the same time in his usual brutal and fucked-up way, and she’d dropped her guard completely.

I should be feeling victorious, should be happy that things had worked the way we’d wanted, that she’d gotten taken down tonight. After what she’d done to me, the disrespect she’d thrown my way, refusing to bend to me, to us, I should have reveled in her pain and her downfall, something that was gonna be brutal once Asher got things underway in the next few minutes.

But it wasn’t simple for me like I’d thought it would be.

Seeing the look on her face when she’d taken in the scene we’d set up of Liza grinding all over me… seeing the crack there in her tough façade, all that confidence and power undercut… it had hit me deep in the gut. She’d clearly thought I’d fucked that weak-willed, moldable bitch. Hell, I’d led Liza to believe that was what the deal was gonna be. Dangling a carrot, that was all it had been. I’d barely touched her and I never would. And Aurora believing that hadn’t sat well with me.

Neither had the fact that once the initial anger over what had happened in the parking lot had subsided, all I’d been able to think about was my regret that it had been cut short, and even more regret that I’d been ordered by Asher not to go near her until the plan was complete, not to even look her way.

And now it was Jonah who she’d opened to, who’d had his fingers inside her tight little cunt, who’d had her stripped down for him, who she’d unleashed on.

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