Page 33 of The Devil's Secret

My insides curl with disgust at seeing him with someone else, someone who isn’t me. I know this isn’t him. He doesn’t care for this. He’s doing it to punish me, and it’s working. My heart, it literally aches.

I climb the steps onto the stage, seeing her facing him now, his eyes on her breasts, and all I want is to scream, to break everything in this goddamn place!

I begin my dance, every one of my movements quick, jerky. My spins are sharper, my legs whipping out with a violence so raw, it fuels me, my pulse pummeling quicker.

He’s mine.

My breathing intensifies, the song’s melody attaching itself on to me. I bleed the words, the beat. It consumes me, driving my anger to new heights.

As I twirl down the pole upside down, dangling with my legs gripping the metal, I find him standing up, Kora grinning as she leads him away.

As he goes with her, he holds my gaze, his exhales roughing through the heavy climb of his chest. A muscle in his jaw twitches before she pulls him away, where I’m sure he won’t be doing much talking like we once did.

It’s really over.

Whatever we had is now gone, burning our fairy tale into the nightmare from which it came.

PARTII

THE PRESENT

CHAPTERTEN

JOELLE

I tightenmy hands on the steering wheel, beeping the horn at the slow driver before me.

Damn it! I’m going to get there even later!

I texted Chiara earlier, asking if it’s okay that I show up a few hours late to work, but she never responded. I found that strange. She always responds right away. But I couldn’t come in to work earlier no matter what. I had the worst headache, the kind you can’t even function through, the kind that has you heaving into the toilet. Migraines suck. The meds have finally kicked in though, so that’s a relief.

I’d never taken a day off, knowing that if Faro found out, he’d be furious. But I had to take the risk. I’d be no good up there with how badly I felt.

That’s what I’d tell him if he confronted me. That he needs me at my best, and I wouldn’t dare disappoint the master.

Insert eye roll.

Faro is the type of man who enjoys someone bolstering his ever-growing ego. I know exactly what to say to him. Not that it works all the time, but I’ve gotten lucky and tempered his anger a time or two.

Finally arriving, I find four black SUVs parked beside one another.

That’s odd.

The place is normally packed at this late hour. There’s always a bouncer stationed at the side entrance, but I don’t see one now.

Oh crap, maybe Faro found out about me being late and shut the place down so he could kill me. Okay, I’m probably being a tad dramatic. He wouldn’t stop business just to kill me. He would’ve sent someone to my house by now. But something is going on. The fact that Chiara never responded to my text worries me even more. I have to make sure she’s okay.

My legs weigh a thousand pounds as I shut the car off, swinging my feet out onto the concrete. With a tightening in my chest and the crashing of the anxiety in my stomach, I trudge toward the entrance.

As I get closer, I don’t hear any music. I hear nothing but male voices in the distance as I open the door. Who the hell are these men? Did they hurt her?

I gasp as the voices get closer, gently closing the door as multiple footsteps march from the back, ready to come face-to-face with me.

I slap a hand over my mouth to stifle the fear crawling up my throat. Tiptoeing away, I hide behind the bar, hoping whoever the hell is here won’t find me. I can’t afford to get caught in whatever is happening. If I’m dead, Robby is truly alone, and that can’t happen.

“Stay here,” a man whose voice I never heard before says. “The boss said we’re gonna be here all night until they show up. We kill every one of them and bring their heads to him.”

“I ain’t chopping someone’s head off.”

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