Page 102 of Devilish

Good. I wanted the last few hours of his life to be miserable. I wanted him to understand how it felt to feel helpless. But more than anything, I wanted him to know I was the one who’d done this to him.

That he’d fucked with the wrong person.

“Luc?”

I turned to see Lachlan by the door, and I backed away from Rupert’s crumpled body, ready to go in search of Kai. “Not here.”

I didn’t need to elaborate. Lachlan knew exactly what I was telling him. I hightailed it out of Rupert’s room and made a beeline to where I knew Kai was being held.

When I reached the far end of the hall, I found a door in the same outdated wood as the rest of this relic, and all of the anger and adrenaline I’d felt moments ago resurfaced until I was kicking that fucker open with so much force that it almost flew right off its hinges.

Kai’s eyes widened as he took a step back from whatever danger was coming for him through the door, but the second he realized it was me, he ran and launched himself into my arms.

“You came for me,” he said, wrapping his arms and legs around me. “You found me.”

His heart hammered against mine as he crushed me to him in a surprisingly powerful hug for someone so small.

“Always,” I said, kissing his cheek and up to his ear. “I’d move heaven and earth to find you.”

He started to shake and then sucked in a breath like I’d hurt him. His initial adrenaline rush was already wearing thin as whatever injuries Rupert had caused reared their ugly head.

I gently lowered him to his feet, and then I saw it. The terror he’d lived through, the pain. I’d missed it at first, my relief at seeing him again blinding me. But his eyes were bloodshot, his cheeks wet from crying. I ran my gaze down over the clothes he’d put on that morning, searching for any injuries.

“What hurts?” I said, trying to control my fury.

Kai shook his head. “It’s noth?—”

“What hurts?” I said again, and Kai turned, lifting his shirt, showing me the red marks on his back. He’d either been thrownor pushed up against something. Then he showed me his arm, where bruises were forming in the shape of fingers. “Anywhere else?” Kai shook his head, and I smirked. “You hurt him worse.”

A proud little smile tugged at the corner of Kai’s mouth. “I did.”

I reached for his chin and tipped his face up to mine. “Didn’t need the knight in shining armor after all, did you?”

Kai’s eyes shifted to the hood and mask, and then he moved up to his toes and brushed his lips over mine. “I’ll always need him.”

I grinned and took his lips in a fierce kiss full of relief, possession, and…love.

The emotion slammed into me with the force of a well-placed fist, but with no one in the sterile room except for me and Kai, there was no mistaking it.

I loved Kai.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I’d known I was falling. This beautiful boy had opened my eyes in ways no one ever had before. He’d shown me things no money in the world could ever show me, and when he’d been taken…

“Lucien?” Theo stood at the door looking at the two of us. “We’ve got to go.”

I nodded, knowing this wasn’t the time or place to tell Kai what I was feeling anyway. I put my mask and hood back in place, then took hold of his hand and led him out the door.

Everyone was gathered at the foot of the stairs in the foyer, every guard bound and gagged—except for the one Theo put out of his misery early—and my brothers waiting for Alessio to kill the lights again.

Kai took in the scene, and when his gaze landed on Rupert being held up by Lachlan, he smiled triumphantly.

“I told you he’d come for me,” he said, squeezing my hand tight.

The one eye Rupert could still see out of narrowed to a slit, and he spat out the towel that had been stuffed in his mouth. “Fuck y?—”

Lachlan slammed the butt of his gun across his face, making Rupert fall to his knees.

I nodded at him just before the room went dark. “He’s all yours.”

---