Page 173 of Stand: Part One
“What happened after you drugged me?” I asked, my voice grated by his bruising grip. “Who was it that attacked us?”
Darren was quiet as he turned back to study me, his eyes searching for any little clue my body might reveal to him. Sometimes he was too damn good at reading me and it scared the fucking shit out of me.
“Miguel’s attack on our home failed,” he stated plainly. “There were very little casualties on our side.” His flat tone was bored like he was delivering the weather report instead of the result of the massive assault that nearly claimed my own life.
But there was one word that captivated my attention. One very special noun. Miguel’s attack. Not Matt’s. Not Jason’s. Miguel’s.
Thinking back on my conversation with Matt, he had refused me the very important details I needed to be prepared for this attack, like who the fuck was going to execute it. I assumed Jason would be involved since Matt said I could be free after the attack.
Why else would that even be a possibility if not for Jason to secure my rescue? But Darren would have to be killed in order for me to be free, yet here he was, standing like the dark omen of my fate.
What the hell had happened? What went wrong? Why had the operation failed? Why had they attacked ahead of schedule?
“How do you know it was Miguel and not Matt, or some other enemy you have?” I asked carefully.
Darren’s brow furrowed as he glared down at me, the shadow of suspicion darkening his eyes before he finally answered.
“Because I’m very good at motivating people to talk,” he replied.
I nodded in acknowledgment. He did have a knack for that.
So if it was Miguel, I could see Matt teaming up with him, especially since he’d had a business relationship with his brother, Javier, before Darren had him killed.
“What happens now?” I asked dryly, my mind already exhausted from everything.
“I’m going to kill Miguel within the next hour. And you’re going back to the estate where you will stay until I say otherwise,” he said definitively. “I suggest you make peace with your position there because you won’t be leaving the grounds for a very long time. If ever.”
I felt a metaphorical door suddenly slam shut in my face, the lock deafening as it clicked into place. Back to square one, just like that. Back to my original prison. And this time I knew—I knew I’d never get to leave it again.
Fuck.
I felt my entire body deflate into a dark void of nothing, the weight of hopelessness crushing my soul. Exhausted and broken, I laid my head against the pillow, utterly devastated by it all.
Absolutely nothing had gone according to plan. Not one damn thing. In fact, everything was worse now. If Darren successfully took Miguel out of the game, it was one less ally Matt and Jason could count on.
Was I really this stupid? This naive? Too eager and arrogant to see the potential flaws in Matt’s plan? Why did I even bother at this point? I couldn’t trust one goddamn thing that might actually save myself from this fucking nightmare I was trapped in.
I could feel Darren moving closer to me, his presence drawing me to him like the gravity of a black hole. But the closer he got, the harder it was to contain my impending tears.
I thought I had been so close. So fucking close. Or, fuck, maybe I had never even come close at all. Either way, I would never know. And the pain of it was like having a crater punched through my chest.
All I knew was that being drugged had prevented me from knowing the truth. Whether or not Jason had been there. Whether or not Matt could be trusted, which was a stupid question to begin with. Of course, I couldn’t trust him.
But if his illusive words held any kind of sway over the margins of my life then this failure was all the proof I needed to judge the truth.
While my brain tried to rationalize it all, my heart wanted nothing more than to deny it. I wanted to believe Jason would be there, and the only way to know was to fucking be there myself!
But considering everything that had happened, it was clear to me Jason couldn’t have been there at all. If he had been, I’d be waking up to a very different situation than my current one.
And now I had to sit on my ass in isolation and figure out what the hell had happened that made everything go so wrong. I supposed in hindsight, I was glad Jason wasn’t there or had evaded Darren’s capture. I was sure Darren would have rubbed it in my face if he had finally caught him.
“Fine. But I’m going to bitch about it the whole time,” I stated, my voice flat and lifeless.
Darren moved away from the bed, grabbing his jacket off the side of a nearby chair and slipped it on.
“Bitch all you want, princess. The only thing it will change is the color of your ass. And you know how much I love to paint it.”
I cringed at the implication.
