Page 23 of Devil's Riches

He pulled me over to the center of the living room, next to the coffee table that sat near the large sectional sofa. Using the end of the knife, he lifted the floral cloth that lay over the table, revealing an empty space beneath. Then he stepped over to the window and slowly pulled the curtains aside.

There was no one there.

Greg let the curtain drop back into place. “Maybe you were right,” he muttered, turning back to face me. “Just a branch somewhere outside.”

He put his hand on my shoulder and started pushing me back across the room. A flash of movement on the floor caught my eye as we walked, and I turned my head just in time to see a dark figure slide out from beneath the sectional.

A glinting scalpel slashed through the air just above the floorboards, slicing at Greg’s left Achilles tendon. A feral howl escaped his mouth as his face contorted in a mixture of confusion and pain, and his hand reflexively dropped from my shoulder, freeing me from his grasp. At the same time, the knife in his other hand fell to the floor with a loud clatter.

The dark figure slid all the way out from under the sectional, and my heart leapt as I registered the face staring up at me. It was Nate.

For a moment, I couldn’t believe it. I simply stared at him in a daze as he got up and tackled Greg, knocking him onto his side. “Help me!” he shouted over his uncle’s agonized cries. “I’ll hold him. You tie him up.”

His voice snapped me back to reality. “Tie him up with what?” I asked, panic rising in my chest as my eyes flitted around the dim room.

“Look under there.” Nate tipped his head toward the couch. A vein was popping out on his forehead from the effort of keeping his psychotic uncle restrained. “I brought a rope.”

I dropped to my hands and knees and retrieved the length of rope from the dusty floor beneath the sectional. Then I crawled over to Greg and wrapped it around his wrists, which were pinned behind his back by Nate’s powerful arms. I tied the knot as tightly as I could, wishing I could just rip his fucking hands right off.

“Stop,” he choked out. “Nate… I didn’t mean to hit you earlier. I just needed to—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Nate roared, slamming a fist into the back of his head.

Greg let out another grunt of pain and slumped to the other side, turning his attention to me. “Sweetheart. You know I wasn’t really going to kill you,” he rasped. “It was just a game.”

“Fuck you,” I spat. I grabbed a thick chunk of his hair and used it to lift his head before slamming it down into the floorboards, face first.

There was a satisfying crunch as his nose shattered, but it wasn’t enough to placate my rage. It was pouring through me like acid now. Burning, vicious, potent.

Gritting my teeth, I leaned over and picked up the knife he dropped earlier. Then I held it above his neck, ready to bring it down and open his carotid, just like he did to my father ten years ago.

“Alexis, stop,” Nate said, grabbing my arm.

“No!” I shouted as he dragged me to my feet. “He killed my father!”

“I know. I heard what he said.”

“Let me kill him!” I said, trying to wrench myself out of his iron grip.

Greg moaned pathetically on the floor beside us, blood leaking from his broken nose. I couldn’t wait to see more of that blood pouring out of him.

“Alexis.” Nate’s deep voice cut through the red haze of my anger again, and he pulled me further away. “You can’t kill him.”

Hot tears streamed over my face and flowed into my mouth. “Get the fuck off me!” I screamed.

Nate squeezed my arm tighter. “Listen to me. I understand why you want to kill him,” he said in a low voice. “I understand it better than anyone. But he has information that we both need. We can’t let it die with him. Not yet.”

My shoulders slumped as his words echoed in my head.

He was right.

I took a deep breath and stared up at him, still scarcely able to believe that he was here with me. Then I dropped the knife, went up on my tiptoes, and kissed him.

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