Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 88960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
He doesn't have any flaws.
Or maybe he does, and he just doesn't care who sees them.
Something twists in my stomach. Something warm and unwanted.
No. Absolutely not. I already did my stupid thing for the day. I drank the mysterious tea, and now I'm hallucinating, and I am not going to make things worse by being attracted to the figment of my drugged imagination.
Devyn Chaleur.
Mafia King of the South.
The one route I refused to read.
He stops in front of me. Close enough that I have to tilt my head back to meet his gaze. Close enough that I can see the faint scar at the corner of his jaw, the way his mouth is set in a line that isn't quite a frown but isn't anywhere near a smile.
He doesn't look angry.
That's somehow worse.
My father's anger was a wildfire. Loud and hot and impossible to miss. You always knew when it was coming. You had time to get out of the way.
But this man...
His anger is buried deep. I can feel it underneath the surface, banked like coals that could flare at any moment. But his face gives nothing away. His body gives nothing away. He holds himself like a man who learned a long time ago that showing emotion was a weakness he couldn't afford.
I wonder who taught him that.
When he speaks, his voice is low. Quiet. The barest trace of a French accent curling around the vowels, and oh no, that's attractive too, that's unfairly attractive—
"Where is Abigail?"
Abigail.
So that's her name. The runaway bride with the rain-colored eyes.
I could tell him. I could point to the hidden door, explain that I just woke up here, that I have no idea what's going on, that I'm not part of whatever this is.
But something stops me.
Maybe it's the way she looked at me before she disappeared. The terror in her eyes, so raw and real it made my chest ache. He's gone insane, she said. And if she meant him—if she meant the man standing in front of me with his golden eyes and his cold anger and his army of men with guns—
Then she was running from him.
No wonder she ran.
Or maybe it's just that I've never been a tattletale.
Even when it would have been easier. Even when it would have saved me. There's something in me that can't do it. Can't sell someone out, even a stranger, even when I don't know if she deserves my silence.
I look Devyn Chaleur in his golden, impossible eyes.
And I say nothing.
The silence stretches between us.
One second.
Two.
Something shifts in his expression. It's barely there, just the slightest tightening around his eyes, but I catch it. I'm trained to catch it. Years of photographing brides has taught me to read the micro-expressions people don't know they're making.
He's surprised.
He didn't expect me to stay silent.
"You were here when she ran." It's not a question. "You saw where she went."
Still, I don't answer.
Another shift. This one I can't read as easily. Interest, maybe. Or something colder.
"Dis-moi," he says softly. Tell me. "Where is my bride?"
His bride.
The beautiful, terrified girl with mascara running down her face was supposed to marry this man. This man with his banked anger and his golden eyes and his small army of men with guns.
The thought rises up before I can stop it, and maybe something shows on my face, because Devyn's expression shifts again.
"You think you're protecting her." His voice is still soft. Still quiet. But there's an edge to it now, sharp enough to cut. "How...noble."
I should stay quiet. I should stay small. I should do what I've always done, what I learned to do in a house where anger filled every room and the only way to survive was to become invisible.
But something happens instead.
Maybe it's the adrenaline. Maybe it's the sheer impossibility of this situation, the fact that I'm standing in a book I fell asleep reading, being interrogated by a fictional mafia king about a bride I watched escape through a secret door.
Maybe it's the memory of Marilyn's smile this morning, and Heart's ultimatum, and every single time I've swallowed my own voice because it was easier than fighting.
Or maybe I'm just tired.
Tired of being the one who backs down. Tired of being the one who stays quiet. Tired of being someone that people look at and see nothing worth taking seriously.
I lift my chin.
"I'm not telling you anything."
The words hang in the air between us.
I have no idea where they came from. That's not me. I don't talk back. I don't challenge. I don't look dangerous men in the eye and refuse to give them what they want.
Except apparently, I do.
Apparently, in this world, in this story, I do.
Devyn doesn't react. Not visibly. His face remains perfectly still, perfectly composed. But something happens behind his eyes. A door opening. A calculation being made.