Page 50 of Cruel Devil

Bile rushes up my throat before I can close my eyes and try to wipe out the image of all the blood-wet bone and brain matter.

“You motherfucking psycho.” My voice is husky and uneven.

Sullivan clicks his tongue. “Aw. Poor Nyx. Are you going to miss Pat?”

The only way I still know I’m alive is because of the slow, painful thudding of my heart. Because I’m empty inside, like someone scooped out my guts with a melon baller.

Like poor Donny.

Sullivan tests the gun’s muzzle with his finger, clicks the safety back on, and slips it into the holster under his suit. He cocks his head, and the two goons holding Patrick’s slumped body drag him away.

“Never knew you were so close. Pat spent more time around your mother than he did her girls.”

Now the nausea rolling through me has nothing to do with the brain matter splattered on my arms, and legs, and black cocktail dress. The fact that Sullivan knows more about my own mother than I did is just…it’s sickening.

His eyes burrow right into my fucking soul as he tilts his head to the side in a coy gesture that does confusing things to my insides. The two goons tighten their grip on me, but they needn’t have bothered.

I’m a fucking deer in the headlights.

Sullivan inspects me up close as his expensive cologne with its crisp citrus notes envelopes me. He smelled good back then…but even his scent has evolved into something more dangerous and powerful. Savage wasn’t kidding about this guy. He’s as toxic and insidious as carbon monoxide fumes. By the time you realize how screwed you are, it’s already too late.

“Bring her.” He turns his back on me and ascends the steps, and I’m forced to follow him into the structure above.

This must have been the foreman’s office where he could supervise whatever sweat-shop production line they were running below. Or maybe O’Brien had it installed to get a bird’s eye view of all the murders taking place below. Those barrels I saw looked fucking dodgy. I wouldn’t be surprised if they contained bodies dissolving in acid.

Sullivan goes over to pour himself a drink like the stuck-up prick he is while his goons drag me into the room. My furious gaze latches onto him.

I glare at his back, willing him to vaporize. “Tell me where my sisters are, you fucking sicko!”

Sullivan turns to study me, lifting a glass of something amber and top-shelf up to his mouth. “In my bed.”

I surge forward so unexpectedly that one of the guys holding me almost loses his grip. But they make me pay for it by twisting the arm attached to my already dislocated shoulder. Nausea wells up at the agony, and I let out a pathetic whimper before I can clamp down my lips to stop the sound.

O’Brien chuckles.

He fucking chuckles.

People hardly ever frighten me, but after what he just did, the fact that he didn’t flutter a fucking eyelid while blowing Patrick’s brains out, makes me realize just how psychotic this man is.

And here I am, trapped with him.

Just like my sisters are.

In his bed.

“You have me now,” I force through a tight throat and quivering lips. “Let my sisters go.”

Sullivan gives me another one of his enigmatic smiles. Out of context, it’s mysterious and sexy. Side-by-side with images of Patrick’s destroyed head and Donny’s spilled guts, it’s terrifying.

“I don’t give up my toys that easily. Especially when I’m not done playing with them yet.”

I’ve never wanted to punch a smirk off someone’s face as much as I do right now.

He’s toying with me like a cat with a cornered mouse. Drawing out every ounce of misery and suffering for his own sadistic pleasure. But I refuse to wither under his dark, knowing smirk.

“You know I’ll do anything to get them back.”

He takes a series of small sips from his drink like he’s savoring its taste as much as that of my desperation.

---