Page 80 of The Devil We Know

We will not.

Having gotten the first interrogation over with, we’re now all lying around on the cold concrete floor, patting ourselves on the back for intentionally misleading those fuckers.

Because if nothing else, all of our lies will match.

All you have to do is play it up, delay, and then be a little morose, and they’ll believe fucking anything.

“How long have we been here?” Tony asks.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Darius replies blandly. “Maybe a day, definitely not two.”

I shrug, saying flippantly, “A day, two days, three. It all blends together.”

“How many times have we done this now?” Tony says tiredly.

Now, Darius sighs and then mutters, “Like a billion.”

I laugh, somewhat maniacally, and then respond, “Maybe a slight exaggeration. I would say more like a million.”

Darius laughs and then adds, “How pissed do you think Antoinette is right now?”

“She’s probably not even that pissed, mostly just laughing at you getting kidnapped again,” I answer lightly.

“This isn’t a kidnapping.”

“She isn’t going to fucking care. You were there, and then you vanished. Close enough.”

He snorts, obviously offended, and Tony laughs and says, “Can’t say I blame her. You do hold the world record of kidnappings.”

“Yeah,” Dare retorts. “I’m sure all the ladies are pretty annoyed that they’re going to have to come rescue us menfolk again.”

“Again?” I interject. “No one has ever had to save me from being kidnapped.”

Tony scoffs, “And how did we even get here, then?”

“Hey,” I reply. “I was never kidnapped. I came here intentionally, of my own free will.”

“Well, maybe if you’d shared with the class, we wouldn’t be here,” Darius replies, slightly bitterly.

“Maybe, maybe not,” I answer. “But regardless, here we are.”

“What do you think they’re going to do next?”

Dare says, “It’s hard to say, really.”

“What would you do?” I ask.

Darius is quiet for a moment, and then, after a few beats, he says, “I would definitely sell us off as a trifecta. They’re going to go crazy.”

“You think so? I would think that selling us off to the same person would be more of a liability,” Tony replies.

“Yeah,” Darius says. “And I suppose they might get more money doing it separately, but the same buyer could certainly buy all three. Right?”

Tony snorts now and says, “Could you imagine anyone wanting all three of us?”

“Hell, no,” Darius says. “And if I was in charge of the whole situation, I would pay for us and then put a bullet in us one by one before even opening the cage.”

Tony chuckles. “Well, good fucking thing you’re not in charge, then. I’m happy that we’re still surrounded by a bunch of dumb fucks.”

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