Page 19 of Ride with the Devil

Oopsie.

Is it too late to conjure a tear or two?

Ah, well. I shake the chain. “Since these didn’t do shit, you think you can take them off?”

While he just gapes at me, I give him a once over. I’m pretty sure he was wearing a black jacket before. A suit jacket? Probably. He has on a long-sleeved button down shirt, a pair of black suit pants, and matching black sneakers. The shirt fits him well. Not only does it show off his long, lean build, but a tiny silver key is hanging off of a thin chain looped around his slender neck.

I point at it. “Is that the key? Please. This is just annoying.”

Instead of reaching up for the necklace, he dips his hand into his pants pocket. He pulls out three sets of keys: one smaller than the key hanging off his neck, one a little larger, and a car key.

He selects the second key, disappears the others, then walks over to me.

So the one on his neck isn’t for the chains. For the handcuffs, then? Or is that the smaller one he pulled out of his pocket?

And if it is, why is he wearing a key around his neck?

I want to know, but I want this stupid shackle off me more so I just stick out my boot and wait.

Without a word, he bends down, jamming the key into the shackle. He wiggles it around, the shackle pops open, and I let the links hit the floor.

I could use my elbow to power-drive him right next to the chains. Before he even face-planted, it would be child’s play to snatch his gun out of his waistband and shoot him with his own bullets. That gun holds eight rounds. I’d only need one to kill him.

Only… I don’t want to. Not yet, at least.

Not until I know what exactly is going on.

As if he finally realizes that I’m still out of the loop, he lifts his head so that he can look at me. His eyes search my face, and when he’s done, he pushes his body easily from the floor. His hands are empty again as he holds them up, as though showing me he’s unarmed and harmless now that he tucked his gun away.

Let’s see him shoot himself in the ass. ‘Cause that’ll be evenmorefun…

“Okay. Let’s get the obvious out of the way,” he says, and I’m momentarily struck by how warm and soothing his voice is. At first glimpse, I thought he might actually be a year or two younger than me. Hearing his voice from outside of the car, I adjust that to him actually being a littleolder. Twenty-seven, maybe, or twenty-eight. He has a bit of a baby face about him, like me, but that’s a man’s voice, and I respond to it more than I should. “Devil just needs your word that you won’t squeal. Okay? You didn’t see anything.”

Oh. Right. I got myself captured by a mafia man because I happened to be there right as his boss blew away one of the most powerful politicians in Springfield.

I figured that’s what happened. And now he wants me to believe that all I have to do is cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye-pinkie promise that I’ll be a good girl and keep my mouth shut about what I saw?

Where would the fun be in that?

Poor guy. He has to know that it would never be as easy as that. Why else has he gone to all this trouble to relocate me to the fuckingmountainsif the first impression I gave him was of someone who would snitch at first chance?

I mean, what kind of innocent bystander would I be if I didn’t let him be the big, bad villain he wants me to think he is?

Now, I don’t know what his deal is. Not really. However, I’m a pro at reading people. Always have been. One look at Lincoln Crewes and I knew he’d kill me, then step over my corpse if I collapsed in his path.

But his driver? He’s different.

When I look at him, I’m not looking at a killer—but he currently is when he looks atmeimploringly like that.

Hell. Already I can think of three ways to incapacitate him, then eliminate him. The fireplace isn’t on, but there’s a fire poker propped on top of the mantel. He’d never expect me to attack him, so if I dove for his knees, I could probably get him on his back with the chain wrapped around his throat before he even knew it. That flower planter on the small table by the window looks heavy enough to brain someone.

And that’s not counting what a dose of strychnine could do…

He doesn’t see a killer, though. He seems a victim.

For now, I’ll give him one.

I bat my lashes, giving my foot an experimental shake now that the chains are off. I didn’t realize how much it all weighed until the shackle was gone, and remembering how I felt when I first woke up to discover it on me, I look over at him and say, “A good citizen would report she was a witness to a murder. She’d go straight to the cops.”

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