Page 6 of Devil's Riches

3

Nate

With a groan,I opened my eyes. Pain made my skull throb so violently that it made me wonder if it had cracked right open, and for a moment, I was blinded with colorful flashing spots.

Gingerly, I raised a hand to the back of my head, where most of the pain was concentrated. There was an enormous lump there, and my hair was wet and sticky.

I dropped my hand to see that it was covered in blood.

With a grimace, I sat up and rubbed my eyes to dispel the spots. There was a pool of blood on the concrete floor about two feet away from where I was sitting, and my feet were shackled and bound to the metal base of a bunk with a long chain.

“What the fuck?” I muttered. The words sounded slightly slurred.

Wincing, I dropped my head to my chest and took a deep breath as I tried to remember what had happened to me. My brain felt like it had come loose inside my skull, sloshing around so much that coherent thought and recall was impossible.

Then, in a sudden flurry of shocking images, the memories flooded back.

My uncle was alive. He’d been imprisoned in here for years, trapped by the same chains that were restraining me now, and he’d taken advantage of my ignorance regarding his older, disheveled appearance and pretended to be Peter Covington in order to fool me into letting him go.

Fuck.How the hell was that man breathing right now?

He died in a car accident ten years ago. I remembered going to his funeral, two days after my father’s funeral, and I remembered watching my mother, grandparents, and other black-clad relatives weeping as someone read out a heartfelt eulogy in front of the family mausoleum. I also remembered feeling guilty for not being as sad as everyone else, because Greg was hardly ever around when I was a kid, and even when he was, I was struck by the distinct impression that he didn’t like me very much.

These were all clear memories in my head. Greg was dead.

Then again, they never actually found him after the accident. Only a few bloodstained pieces of the shirt he was wearing when he left the house that day. He was presumed to have died like my father because he’d been in the car with him, and based on the evidence—like the DNA match from the shirt scraps—a judge had declared him legally dead.

But there was no body. Everyone assumed the worst and decided he was gone. Just like Peter Covington.

The sudden thought of Peter shook something loose in my aching, addled brain. Another memory.

Alexis.

Greg had taken her with him when he left, and the look on his face when he grabbed her was completely psychotic. If I didn’t track him down soon, he was going to hurt her. Maybe even kill her.

Nausea suddenly rose in my throat, and my chest began to ache.

I tried to tell myself that the new physical symptoms were caused by a concussion from the multiple blows to the head I endured earlier, but deep down, I knew they weren’t. I was sick to my stomach at the thought of my uncle hurting Alexis.

It wasn’t because I’d secretly started caring for her along the way without noticing, and it wasn’t because she made my cock rock-hard with a single glance in my direction. It wasn’t because my heart beat a little bit faster every time I saw her, either, and it definitely wasn’t because of the tiny, blissful smile that curled up her bruised lips every time she came.

No way. It was as simple as this: Alexis was mine. Her mind and body belonged to me. Not Greg. Not anyone else.

The thought of losing that, losing her, along with all the answers that lay within the confines of her twisted mind, was unnerving as hell. It felt as if I were clinging to a cliff’s edge, and slowly, my fingers were loosening their grip on the rocks. Beneath me lay nothing but cold and darkness. No answers. No knowledge. No pleasure or pain.

No Alexis.

Fuck. I couldn’t stay here for a second longer. I had to find her, right fucking now.

I clenched my teeth and snapped my head around, searching for the keys to the shackles. I knew I had them earlier, and Greg didn’t take them with him, so they had to be around here somewhere.

I found them a few minutes later, under the bunk. They must have flown right out of my hands when Greg smashed me on the back of the head.

Once I’d unlocked the restraints, I climbed to my feet and took a deep breath. I wasn’t seeing stars anymore, and I didn’t feel dizzy or confused. That meant I wasn’t concussed, which was good because I didn’t want to deal with hospitals and doctors right now. I needed to focus all my time and energy on figuring out where the hell Greg had gone with Alexis.

It was too bad I had no idea where to begin. I didn’t know Greg well enough to know any of the places on Avalon where he used to hang out, let alone anywhere he might feel safe or comfortable enough to hide out in. I didn’t even know where he lived before he supposedly died.

Honestly, I barely knew a single fucking thing about him.

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