Page 160 of Sinful Pleasure

My eyes snapped to hers, my expression betraying my frustration for a fraction of a second before I forced it away.

She raised her hands in mock surrender, grinning.

“Hey, I’m just asking.”

“I don’t think sleeping with the enemy is the best idea, Daphne,” I said sharply. The words came out colder than I intended, biting even as they left my mouth.

Trust me, I know from personal experience.

Daphne sighed, visibly disappointed by my answer. I could see it in the way her shoulders slumped slightly, her lips pressing together in a thin line. The idea of Daphne touching Maddox made me sick to my stomach, twisting the anger I felt toward the one person I could tolerate in this place.

The silence stretched uncomfortably until she finally brokeit.

“Do you think he’ll agree to cooperate?” she asked, her voice quieternow. “It’s been days.”

Days.

Days since I last saw him in the dungeon, his empty gaze locking onto me with the kind of stillness that made my blood run cold. That was the first time Maddox King made me feel real fear.

I’d thought about going back more times than I could count. My feet would carry me toward the door, only for my own resolve to drag me back. He didn’t want to see me; he made that much clear.

And I deserved it.

I deserved every ounce of hatred he had for me. He was there because of me, after all. That was the plan from the beginning—the plan Mikael and I carefully constructed, which I carried out to perfection.

“I don’t know,” I exhaled softly. “I hope so.”

Daphne leaned back in her chair, her movements uncharacteristicallysubdued.

“He looks better now than the first day I went down to bring him food,” she murmured, her words cutting through the quiet. "It seems like your father’s done torturing him.”

Yes. Because I ordered so.

The memory flashed through my mind—the horrifying state Maddox had been left in, battered and broken, his blood pooling beneath him. I’d made it very clear to Mikael that if he laid another hand on Maddox, he’d have to deal with me. That wasn’t part of the plan.

The plan was to use Maddox as bait to draw Martin King out of hiding. That was why I’d agreed to this madness in the first place.

But I never agreed to him being tortured.

Before I could say anything else, Mikael burst into the room, his sudden presence shattering the moment.

“Is everything okay?” I asked, frowning as I took in his unusually intense expression.He paused, his face as unreadable as ever, before giving a short, sharp nod.

“Everything is fine.”

But the tightness in his jaw said otherwise.

My attention snapped away from Mikael the moment two of his men entered the room, dragging someone between them.

The man barely managed to swipe his feet against the floor, his head hanging low, unconscious or near it.

It took me a second to recognize the dark, messy hair—Maddox.

They threw him onto the floor in front of us like he was nothing but trash. His groan, low and filled with agony, split the silence in the room, cutting me right to the core. My heart shattered seeing him like this.

His face was a mess, wounds still not healed, scars forming from the pathetic care he’d been given.

But it was his leg that caught my attention. His thigh was covered in dried blood, a makeshift bandage wrapped around it that I immediately recognized as a poor attempt to stop the bleeding from a bullet wound.

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