Page 42 of Devil in Disguise

“This isn’t some sleepy town, Stella. This city chews people up and spits them out. People vanish here. Never to be heard from again.”

“Danny’s just angry. He’ll cool down, come home.” Her words were hollow, a desperate attempt to build a wall against the encroaching darkness.

I didn’t believe her.

My gut screamed at me. This wasn’t just anger; it was a primal fear, a suffocating sense of wrongness that pressed down like a physical weight on my chest.

It wasn’t just about Danny anymore.

Something vast and malevolent had its claws in me, a darkness that threatened to swallow me whole, coupled with the icy certainty that whatever awaited me would shatter me to my very core.

The chair legs scraped against the polished floor—a sound that echoed the frantic clawing in my chest. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t just sit around and do nothing.

I had to do something.

My legs, leaden with a terror that transcended reason, propelled me toward the door, when the shrill intrusion of my phone shattered the silence of the room.

Sinclair’s name, a brand seared onto my retina, stopped me cold.

The icy grip of fear, a physical thing, constricted my throat. His threat from the other night, whispered in the dead of night, replayed in my mind like a poisoned mantra. Each syllable was a venomous dart.

Answering his call felt like swallowing shards of glass.

His chuckle, smooth and sickeningly sweet, slithered through the receiver. “Hello, dear Dante. How’s the evening treating you?” His words wrapped around me like a coiled viper, ready to strike.

My voice, ragged and raw, clawed its way out. “What the fuck did you do, Sin?”

His reply was slow. “Oh, nothing of consequence. Merely re-introduced your young Sypher to an old acquaintance.”

A primal scream ripped through me, shattering the fragile calm of the room. “GODDAMNIT, SINCLAIR!” My roar echoed the fury that pulsed in my veins, a molten river threatening to consume me. “If you’ve so much as fucked with his mind, I swear to God, I will kill you!”

Sinclair’s laughter, devoid of mirth, a chilling symphony of malice, filled the void. “Then come, Dante. Come see for yourself how well your dear Sypher is faring.”

The click of the disconnect was a final, brutal blow and left me reeling in the suffocating darkness of his treachery.

The penthouse door slammed behind me as Stella’s screams faded into an echo swallowed by the city’s roar. My lungs burned, the icy January wind a razor against my skin as I sprinted, the polished granite of the building slick beneath my pounding feet.

A yellow cab—a greasy, salvation-smelling beacon—materialized from the swirling chaos. “The Playground!” I barked.

This wasn’t a game.

This was a war, and Sin was going to lose.

My entire life had been a desperate scramble for belonging, for a love that mirrored my own. A fragile, foolish hope that flickered and died under Sin’s chilling gaze. His twisted soul, warped by the Trick Pony’s depravity, branded its darkness onto him as he tried to forge me into his hellish image. But Danny... his unwavering love, a molten core against Sin’s icy grip, had forged me anew. Danny showed me the incandescent beauty of a soul untainted, a love that bloomed even in the deepest shadows. And that love, that unwavering strength, was the fire in my veins. Sinclair would never extinguish it. He would not steal Danny from me. He would not twist the love of my life into a reflection of his own grotesque self.

I would tear him apart with my bare hands first.

The cab lurched to a halt.

The Playground’s pulse hammered in the suffocating night air, a frantic heartbeat bleeding from its concrete shell. Even from here, I tasted the expensive champagne and sweat of the revelers, heard their raucous laughter—a symphony of debauchery.

But this wasn’t just any club.

This was the Playground. Crispin Sinclair’s gilded cage and my own personal hell. The line stretched around the block, a writhing mass of ambition and desperation, each hopeful face a potential pawn in Sinclair’s twisted game.

Stepping onto the pavement, the city’s stench clung to me. My tailored suit felt suddenly inadequate. A flimsy shield against the storm brewing inside. Crispin’s face, sharp and unforgiving, burned behind my eyelids.

Perception is everything, Dante. His words, a mantra of manipulation, echoed in my skull. He was a paradox, that man. A ruthless taskmaster who’d molded me with an icy hand. Yet he occasionally offered a fleeting glimpse of something... paternal? A carefully constructed illusion, I now knew. Beneath the veneer of my stern mentor lay a raging psychopathic narcissist, a kingpin whose ego was fueled by the suffering of others. Eighteen years I endured his twisted tutelage before escaping to the sanctuary of academia—a fragile escape from a man who made hell seem like a vacation.

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