Page 52 of Brutal Devil

He gives me a stern look, his brow furrowed. Then he surprises me again by releasing me and stepping away. “Stay here. I’ll be back.”

Priest starts to leave, and new panic hits me. Suddenly, as much as I don’t want to be stuck in this room with him, I also don’t want him to go. I don’t want to be here in the silence, alone with my thoughts.

“Wait,” I manage. “Don’t leave me here. Please. Take me with you.”

My heart pounds, and my chest feels tight. I can’t stay here alone. And as much as it pains me, Priest is all I have.

He stops and turns back to me. Whatever he sees must be proof that I’m a mess. With a low, muttered Italian curse, he stalks back toward me and takes my hand in a firm grip. “Come with me,topolina.”

“Where are we going?”

As desperate as I was to escape this room, now that he’s willing to take me, I’m suspicious.

“You’ll see,” he rumbles, his voice low and sexy.

Even panicked and fucked up as I am, my ovaries flutter to life. If only this man weren’t one hundred percent sex. It would make hating him like I’m supposed to so much easier.

I dig in my heels, hitting the brakes like my childhood dog Daisy would when she wasn’t ready to go back inside after a walk in the summer sun. “Tell me.”

He makes a sound of irritation and gives me a look that I imagine more than a few of the men he’s tortured into spilling their guts have seen. “Do you want out of here or not?”

“Yes.”

A hundred million zillion fucking times, yes.

“Then you have to trust me. Can you do that, Luna?”

I tense up, feeling like this is some kind of fucked-up test. Like, regardless of what I say here, it won’t matter.

He catches my chin in his thumb and forefinger, forcing me to hold his gaze. “Don’t look away when you answer. Look me in the eye and say it.”

“Have you given me a reason to trust you?” I demand.

“You’re alive, aren’t you?”

“Still kicking.”

He rubs his callused thumb over my lower lip, one sensual stroke that makes me ache. “Then that’s your reason. Because if I wanted you dead, Luna Andriani, you wouldn’t be here now.”

He’s right. But I don’t like that he has the upper hand yet again.

I don’t even think about what I’m doing. I bite his thumb. Not hard enough to injure him, but hard enough to make it hurt.

He chuckles, the last reaction I wanted. “You didn’t even draw blood. I’m disappointed.”

And then he releases me, pulling me by our still-linked hands. “Come.”

“Hang on.”

I go to my precious books, still on the floor, and scoop them up, setting them on a table as he watches me like I’m losing my mind. And maybe I am.

“Next time, I’ll bite harder,” I warn him as he tugs me to the door a second time.

My heart beats a little faster, because maybe—just maybe—being on the other side of this perpetually locked door will take me one step closer to freedom.

Priest just laughs, tugging me along.

Who am I kidding? This gorgeous, fucked-up gangster isn’t the slightest bit afraid of me.