Page 23 of Ride with the Devil

Me, neither, but didn’t stop me from asking—or seeing what I can get away with so far.

I wink over at Luca. “Worth a shot, ace.”

The quick flash of relief on his face switches to a look of confusion. “Ace?”

“Yeah. I don’t know. It suits you. You mind?”

He shakes his head, and proving that my read on him is spot-on, he asks, “And what do I call you?”

I laugh, moving toward the open door that leads to the basement. He tightened up when I took my first step, as though he expected me to break for the front entrance, only relaxing when I behaved like the perfect captive by crawling back to my hole.

Though he does frown a little when I tell him: “Nice try, but you still haven’t earned it.”

Then, pausing on the first step, I curl my fingers around the door so that I can look over my shoulder at Luca. “Don’t forget to lock the door behind me. Wouldn’t want your captive to escape.”

Then, releasing my hold, I waggle my fingers at Luca, holding my giggle back until I tug the door behind me and start down the stairs.

Only after I hear the tell-talesnickthat he took my advice do I let it out.

Yup.

I was right.

This is definitely gonna be quite entertaining.

EIGHT

CHECKERS

LUCA

Clothes. She needs clothes.

And food, too.

Shit.

What was I thinking? That I could hide a girl in a basement, lock her away from the world, and my determination to keep her safe would be all that she needs? Fucking idiot. I packed up a couple of changes of clothes before I left my place. Why didn’t it occur to me that she’d need some, too?

And if I’m kicking my own ass for being so stupid, it’s only because it’s easier to focus on that then remember the twinkle in her eyes when she invited me to join her in the shower.

It’s obvious that was a nervous offer made by someone who doesn’t know what to make of the situation they’re in. Like it or not, she’s at my mercy. I have the gun. I have the orders that I can’t let her step foot out of the cabin or else Devil expects me to use it. And while my boss is one of a handful of people I’ve told about how I was raised—mainly because our religious trauma was something we had in common, and the reason whyhe allowed me to join the Sinners in the first place—he doesn’t know how I struggle with the fifth commandment.

Thou shall not kill.

There are some rules I can’t bring myself to break because they’ve been beaten into me so deeply, it physically aches me to even think of going against them. Taking a life isn’t one of them. There might come a day that I’m going to Cross, asking for my ninth tally mark, but I’ll hate myself even more if it’s because I extinguish her twinkle.

I don’t know her name. I don’t know anything about her except the initial impression I got of her down on Skid Row, plus how our recent interaction took everything I already believed and spun it on its damn head.

I expected to have to calm her. To soothe her. To make her understand something that most civilians never would. I was prepared for terror. For pleading. For a quick acceptance that, in exchange for her life, she’d keep her silence.

What I didn’t expect?

Was for her to break out of the handcuff I put on her, smash the chain that kept her tethered to the basement cot, and wake me up from the first sleep I had in nearly twenty-four hours by throwing open the door off the side of Burns’s living room.

That one was on me. Exhausted yet undeniably amped, like I sucked down one of the energy drinks that Cross seems to live on, I plopped down on the couch after I got her set up downstairs. I planned on keeping her down there as long as it took to get her to understand that she’s mine now, at least until Devil can be sure she’s no longer a liability. Locking the door was essential, and I could’ve sworn I did.

At least the basement door, I thought I had. I didn’t want to know why Burns had installed an outer lock in the first place—or why his mountain cabin needed a furnished cot supposedlycapable of keeping a woman on top of it—but I must’ve fucked up and not engaged it all the way.

---