Page 126 of Devilish Ink

If I could just wriggle my hand out, if I could just get one hand free… I could untie the knots on my other bindings. I had a hope of getting out.

But I had to do it before Balor came back.

I repressed my cries as the rope scraped my skin bloody, as my joints screamed as I tried to contort my hand in a way that would let me slip loose.

Come on.Come on.

I was so close. So close…

“Finally…” the voice came from the shadows, “you’re awake.”

LIAM

Funny how life seemed to slow down the moments that should be sped up. Like the drive back to the apartment I shared with Ryleigh seemed to last several lifetimes where she was taken from me over and over again in every single one.

And vice versa. All those perfect moments with Ryleigh, shining in my memory like porch lights in the dark, had sped by too quickly.

We needed more time.

I’d only just found her. We were only just starting a life together.

This couldn’t be all the time we had left.

It just…couldn’t.

My car jumped the curb amidst a deafening screech of brakes. I wrenched the hand brake on, not bothering to turn off the engine before I leapt out in the downpour.

My headlights glared in my eyes as I ran past them as icy rain beat at my head, a snare drum to the smashing of my heart against my ribs.

The slick railing slipped in my grip as I took the stairs two at a time. It felt like I was climbing quicksand.

Rian stood just outside the doorway of my apartment, silhouetted against the lights glaring from inside.

“Liam…” His voice broke, grief already forming in the lines around his mouth.

No. He couldnotbe grieving. She couldnotbe gone. I wouldn’t let her be gone.

“We’re going to get her back,” I said, trying to convince him, to convince myself.

There had to be hope inside our apartment. Right? A piece. A crumb. A drop.

If there was, I would find it.

I pushed past Rian. The door was open but the lock was undamaged, a key hanging from the outside of the front door lock.

“It was like that when I got here,” Rian said. “And the door was wide open.”

I drew in a shaky breath. He’d used a key.

Myfucking key.

I thought I’d lost it in the garage somewhere. But he must have stolen it.

My mind flashed back to the meeting with “Peter”, at how I’d left him alone in the office. I swear I’d had my keys on the desk there.

How could I have been so fucking stupid?

I entered the apartment, my brother following me. Nothing in the living room looked disturbed. I strode to the bedroom in the back, hesitating at the doorway, the bottom dropping out of my stomach.

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