Page 88 of Deal with the Devil

“Is it personal or do I just remind you of her?” He stills, his empty eyes turning sharp on me. Abandoning the little mouse routine, I press on, “When did you realize I look just like her? Was it while you were choking me in my bed or beating me on my floor? Or was it later, after you’d already let me go?”

I see the moment he goes from man to lethal predator. But the thing is, I’m not afraid, because I’m surrounded by predators far more lethal than him.

I grin. “Where is she, Jacob?”

His body turns to ice at the sound of his name onmy tongue. He’s smart enough to know he’s stepped into a trap he might not get out of.

“You little bitch,” he hisses, understanding registering. “You lured me here.”

I shrug. “You used media to hunt me, I used it to trap you. Fair play, I think.”

“I’m going to skin you alive.”

My smile drops and I take a brave step closer to him. “Is that what you did to her? To Arianna?”

“I loved her.”

“You don’t know what love is,” I hiss, and when he lunges for me, bright red lasers beam in the space as they land on him from every direction.

Because my knees feel as though they’re going to give out, I slide back into my chair, hoping I play it cool. I can’t give this psycho the satisfaction of knowing that he’s frightened me. I can’t let him think that I’ll ever think of him again beyond today.

At his sides, his fists curl. I have to fight a shiver, because I know exactly what they feel like as they pound into my flesh, calling bruises and blood to the surface.

Crossing my legs, I eye him coolly even though my heart is a frantic mess in my chest. Then I say, “Tranq guns and taser darts, to immobilize and paralyze you, should you get any ideas.” I hold up one finger. “But don’t worry, they won’t kill you here. It would be too quick. Too painless and we both know you deserve aslow, agonizing departure from this world, don’t you, Jacob?”

He lifts his chin in defiance. “Do I, now?”

“You’ve hurt people. Good people.”

“And you plan to hurt me. A little hypocritical now, isn’t it?”

The words Ilya spoke to me only this morning echo in the chamber of my mind, words I’ll never forget because they are true. And I understand them to the core of me. I parrot them to this hideous thing before me now, “There is always hypocrisy in justice.”

Kane appears behind Jacob, taking him to his knees fast. He’s so skilled at the takedown, I know with a cool kind of certainty that he’s done it before, more than once. Bound and gagged, now between two of Ilya’s men, I break free from Kane’s embrace to move until there is little space between me and the man who hurt me—who has hurt others before me and would have hurt others after me.

I lift my chin, speaking calmly and softly, “You will not be given the gift of death until you tell them where Arianna is. Her parents deserve to know where she lays so they can bring her body and their minds to peace. I don’t care if you hold out for days, weeks, or even years. You will not be allowed to die until you free her.”

Hatred fills those emptyeyes, spilling from the depths of Jacob Yancey, but Ilya gives his men a nod and they remove him from our home.

I move into Ilya, surprising him as I wrap my arms around his massive, stone body. Against his chest, I breathe, “Thank you.”

Unsurely, he closes his arms around me and hugs me back. “This is what we do for family.” With that, he transfers me into my husbands waiting embrace. As the last person leaves our house, I feel myself break apart and cry.

Kane gathers me in his arms, lifting me into his lap as he settles us on the couch. We sit together until the sky turns dark and the howl of the wind outside grows stronger until I feel as though we’re the only two souls left alive on the whole planet.

I’m not sure what time he carries me to bed, I just know that we end up there. Like every night, I end up wound around his body, his big arms holding me close and safe.

epilogue

Nevaeh

The police receive an anonymous tip three days after Ilya left with Jacob Yancey. On day four, the suspected remains of Arianna Newfield are uncovered near a hand-crafted and illegal cabin in the deep woods by a forensic team. Thanks to a connection Cash’s father has in the force, we’re made aware that the remains of more than one woman have been uncovered, and the team is still digging.

Ilya told Kane, as per my instruction, Jacob will be kept alive until confirmation that Arianna’s remains has been found and given to her parents for proper resting. I shouldn’t have seen it, but I peeked at the message while Kane was in the shower, so Iknow that until that confirmation is had, Jacob’s days are filled with the ruthless torture of Ilya’s cold soul.

We’re on day six now, and thanks to Cash’s father’s connection, we’ve been made aware that the forensic team has now uncovered eleven bodies—all killed within the last three years.

I realize as I come into this information how truly lucky, I am to have gotten away from Jacob Yancey once his attention had been turned on me. If I hadn’t ran into Kane that night in the club, my life could have been cut very, very short. The idea of the grief that would have swept through my family, destroying it—I can’t imagine.

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