Page 15 of Delivered to the Devil

I chance a quick look at his eyes, but they’re too direct to linger on, so I let my gaze fall back down. I pause at the sight of the sunglasses in his breast pocket. Those are the same ones the man at the back of the restaurant wears. The man of the same build, with the same haircut.

“It’s you,” I blurt and run my tongue over my dry lips. I think I’ve known all along, but didn’t dare to acknowledge it.

I’m not paranoid. This manhasbeen watching me, and now here he is, to thrust me back into the nightmare I was just about to escape.

The weight of it all slams into me, and defeat wipes out whatever little strength I have left. I drop my head and stare at my quivering hands in my lap.

I jump when a large hand closes around my jaw. But the touch is gentle as my jailor lifts my head and captures my gaze.

I expect him to shove the defeat deeper into my heart, but there’s no gloating or belittlement. As I stare into those gray orbs, I find that I feel something beyond the tearing hopelessness that has pulled me down for hours. Because what I find in them is not the cold detachment that others might see. It’s stability and strength. Something to lean on as my world crashes.

My eyes go wide and vulnerable as I stare up at him. It’s irrational and reckless, but all I want is to beg this man to take me home—to protect me.

His eyes fall to the bandaged hand in my lap, and for the first time since he came, there’s a crack in his stiff expression. It’s only a tick in his jaw, but it’s there, and it’s menacing.

He shoots a cold look at the guard. “What happened to her hand?” His deep voice rumbles through the room, sending icy shivers down my spine, but a slight stroke on my cheek melts them away as soon as they come.His anger is not directed at me.

The guard replies in a flustered string of words, probably trying to abdicate all responsibility.

The gray eyes soften somewhat as the massive man beside me returns his attention to me. “Did this happen here?”

I shake my head and hear the guard’s relieved breath behind me.

The enormous man shoots off a long string of Hungarian phrases that has the guard responding with a profusely apologetic tone.

With a final warning glance in the guard’s direction, the gray-eyed man moves his hand to my arm and helps me to my feet. Unlike the guards, there’s no force in his touch as he leads me through the long halls. Rather, he seems oddly protective as he presses his hand to the small of my back and guides me along. But again, I’m surely just imagining it. He’s only being niceabout it because we both know I’d barely get three feet away if I tried to run.

We end up in a private parking garage, where the massive man guides me to a black SUV with tinted windows. I get in without a word when he opens the back door. I don’t care where he’s taking me as long as it’s out of this airport.

Silence stretches between us before the shock of everything fades enough for me to say something.

“Where are you taking me?” I finally ask, watching him in the rearview mirror. His elegant features and straight nose could belong to a nobleman, but the scar in his eyebrow and the cool gray of his eyes might as well belong to a hardened criminal. Which, I suppose he is.

“Home.”

“Why?”

“Why?” he repeats, meeting my eyes in the rearview mirror for the first time.

“Why not lock me up?” I mutter, not really wanting him to hear the question, but also needing an answer.

“Gabor likes to keep things separate.”

“How so?”

“Politics at day, play at night. No toys at home.”

A shuddery breath billows past my lips at the word ‘toy.’ The thing I’m now reduced to. “What’s going to happen to me?”

He doesn’t reply. It’s like he doesn’t even hear the question as he keeps driving without glancing up at the rearview mirror. But I know he did. He heard my muttered words. I guess this is his way of saying ‘No more questions.’

CHAPTER 8

“Take Aim”

by Sleep Token

Janos

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