Page 123 of Captive Souls

Knox

Powerless.

I had promised myself I would never be powerless again. Never in a position where my life was controlled by outside forces. People.

I’d always been the most dangerous person in the room. The most feared. My fate my own. My demons my friends. I’d never been more in control than I had been in Stone’s office, poised to kill him.

Yet since the moment I’d laid eyes on Piper, I’d become untethered from all of it. I’d been operating by lying to myself that I was still able to grasp on to the reins.

It had all come crashing down when Piper entered Stone’s office, clad in white, looking like a dream and embodying my worst fucking nightmare.

Powerless. I’d been powerless while watching her offer herself up to save me. Spouting lies, thinking that she was convincing enough in her coldness to make me think she didn’t care. When her whole fucking soul burned for me. When I knew every inch of it and could tell by the flutter of her eyelids and the tremble of her bottom lip how much her words pained her.

Watching the pain she felt while she thought she was hurting me was the most agonizing thing I’d experienced in my existence. Followed closely to Stone’s hands on her, her wincing in pain, the fucking barrel of a gun to her head. One twitch of his finger and every part of her would’ve been extinguished.

I paced my penthouse, vowing to kill Lukyan. He’d given me his word that he’d take care of her, yet she’d somehow been able to make it to Rosso. And no fucking way did she accomplish that alone, I didn’t doubt Piper was capable, but no one outsmarted or escaped Lukyan He’d helped her. Led her to her death like a lamb to the slaughter. Dressed her in fucking clothes she couldn’t even fight in, that constricted her, packaged her up like a goddamn treat.

Powerless. He’d made her appear powerless.

Which I knew was the point in their little, fucked-up plan, but it was by no means infallible. In fact, it had a less than 1 percent chance of fucking working.

Yes, I’d make him pay. But now was not the time.

Think... I had to fuckingthink.

Piper was in Stone’s hands.

His hands were likely all over her, his lips on her skin.

I sent a vase smashing against the wall as if destroying something so meaningless would take the edge off the fury practically blinding me.

I eyed the shards and craved the feel of them cutting into my skin, the relief of some pain, subduing the buildup of poison barreling through me.

But that wouldn’t help. Not then.

Piper was no longer at the restaurant. I knew Stone well enough to know that he’d taken her to his residence outside of New York. Because he was smart. Because he expected me to come for her, and he had every inch of that property surveilled.He would’ve scented me from five miles away if I hastily tried to approach it.

And he’d kill Piper. Of that I was certain. He wouldn’t wait for me to come to make a big production out of it. He’d do it, then he’d wait for me to come upon her lifeless body, watching in satisfaction as I crumbled before his eyes.

There was no way for me to get to her. Not immediately anyway.

That meant she was alone. Alone with him and his whims and cruelty.

The simple thought had panic, sheer, unbridled panic hurtling through my heart.

She’d been alone with me and survived it, I reminded myself.

I must’ve had something foreign in my blood to believe she’d survive him.

Yet I had to havefaith. Not in some obscure deity created by man in order to control women. I had faith inPiper.

But nonetheless, I was completely fucking powerless.

I wanted to reduce the world to ashes to protect her, to save her, but all I could do at that point was trust she had the flame inside of her to do it herself.

Piper

I didn’t change for dinner. There was nothing for me to change into. Was that another sign of Stone’s temporary plans for me? No clothes or personal affects because I wouldn’t be alive to need to brush my teeth or change my panties?

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