Page 20 of Unhinged

“You’re going to help me at an event. Be pretty on my arm.”

“And you couldn’t have picked anyone else for that?”

I couldn’t imagine anyone else by my side, ever. Alice is a true gem; I never want to be without her. “Could Hades have picked anyone but Persephone?”

She straightens, and her face turns pale. “Why are you holding me and my friends captive?”

I tilt my head. “Me? I’m not your captor, little bird.”

“Who is?”

I smirk at the question. Alice is lucky she’s yet to meet the woman who keeps her behind bars. “The Red Queen.”

Her confusion deepens.

“You made a grave mistake coming on vacation to Puerto Nuevo. The northwest coast of Mexico is dangerous, and do you know why?”

She shakes her head.

“Because it’s ruled by her. She’s the darkness and pain. She brings blood and carnage wherever she goes.” I clench my jaw as flashbacks try to surface, but I force them away, banishing them to far corners of my mind. “You, little bird, have flown into the jaws of Ileana Navarro.”

Her face pales further. “The Navarro cartel?”

“Clever little bird.” I lean back in my seat, watching her.

“And what does Ileana Navarro intend to do with us?”

A question I don’t wish to answer. If Ileana had her way, the two vilest men in her employ would train them to be good, submissive slaves. Thiago and Matias are brothers. They say I’m mad, but those two are pure evil. Matias is a psychopath in the truest form. My madness is not my nature, but it’s a part of me now.

“You don’t want to know.”

She swallows hard, her slender neck bobbing temptingly. What I’d do to see my bruises on her porcelain skin like a collar around her neck. “I’m going to die here, aren’t I?”

I don’t answer her question, but I sure as hell don’t want my little bird to die. When I don’t speak, I see tears forming in her eyes. A painful sensation ignites in the center of my chest. “Don’t weep, little bird. Be strong.”

She wipes a few tears from her face, shaking her head. “It’s difficult when there’s no hope.”

“If hope has flown away. In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”

Her eyes widen at my Edgar Allan Poe quote. “You like poetry?” She asks.

My smile widens. “Clever, Alice. Yes, I do.”

“Edgar Allan Poe is my favorite. What poem of his is your favorite?” She asks, surprising me. I’m not sure why she wants to know anything about me.

It’s an easy choice for me. “The Raven is my favorite, but I enjoy most of his poetry. It’s very...”

“Real?”

Tension coils through me. As people don’t finish my sentences, most can’t understand what I’m saying. I’ve never felt more exposed as I search Alice’s sky-blue eyes. It’s as if she can see past all my layers and right to the heart. “Real,” I repeat the word and nod. “Yes.”

She flushes, something she does far too much around me. It makes it difficult to hold myself back, but I have to. When I finally have my Alice beneath me, she will beg me to make her mine. Although, if she had it her way, she’d be begging me to stop while I fuck her senseless, while I take her against her will.

I wonder what darkness lurks within her pretty exterior. What I’d do to crack open her mind and see her hidden secrets.

“What are you thinking?” she asks.

People never ask me that. Normally, because they don’t want to know what dark thoughts lurk in the corners of my tortured mind.

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