Page 102 of Cruel When He Smiles

I hesitate because I don’t know. There’s something off in my head, something unsettled, something I can’t quite pin down, and it’s been there ever since I saw that look on Nate’s face this afternoon. I hate not knowing, so I do the only thing that makes sense.

I ask.

“When you broke your first toy,” I start, watching him carefully, “did you feel… off?”

Killian hums, dragging his fingers along the hilt of his knife. “Did I feel off?” He shrugs. “Not really. I felt complete.”

I knew he would say that because that’s what I expected to feel, too. I expected to own Nate completely and feel the same satisfaction I always do after breaking something apart.

But I don’t. Not entirely.

“What exactly are you trying to figure out?” he asks.

I lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “He keeps getting these calls that leave him hollow, and whoever it is… they get to him badly. He got one again today and didn’t even flinch when I walked up. Didn’t react to me at all. He was just… frozen.”

Killian watches me, twirling the blade slower this time. “You’re not used to being ignored.”

“I’m not used to anyone else holding strings I already cut.”

He exhales, long and steady, before shrugging. “So, pull harder.”

“I am. But it’s not working the way it should.”

He hums again. “Because someone else got there first, and you can’t fucking stand it, can you?”

That pisses me off more than it should. There’s something old in Nate, something carved deep. Something someone else wrote into him long before I got the chance. I hate it. “No. I can’t.”

Killian is quiet for a long beat before he smiles faintly. “Then stop thinking like your mother and start thinking like a King.”

I arch a brow. “Meaning?”

“Meaning, you don’t need to drag it out of him. You don’t need to play twenty fucking questions. The thing about owning someone completely is that it doesn’t just come from controlling them. It comes from being the only safe place left when everything else falls apart.”

I lean back in the chair, stretching my fingers along the armrests, watching Killian like he has the answer to the one question I haven’t been able to figure out.

Because manipulation isn’t working. Not completely. Nate gives in physically—I can push him, break him, reward him, and he responds—but he still keeps that one part of himself locked away.

The piece of him that isn’t mine yet, and that’s not fucking acceptable.

I breathe out, forcing myself to speak the words I hate having to say. “So, how do I get the truth out of him?”

He raises a brow, his fingers still tracing the hilt of his knife. “You’re asking me for advice on manipulation?”

“Not manipulation.” I roll my tongue over my teeth, choosing my next words carefully. “That part’s already working. I just need… a new angle.”

Killian watches me, expression flat, and for a second, I think he’s going to tell me to figure it out myself. To keep playing mygame until I find the crack in Nate’s armor. But then he shakes his head. “You want to know what I did with my first toy?”

I nod once, and Killian runs his fingers along the knife before flipping it once, catching the blade between two fingers. “It was Roman.”

That surprises me. Roman Bishop was never someone I considered to be a part of Killian’s games. Roman is different—loyal, reckless, sharp as fuck when it comes to everyone but himself. I assumed their friendship was just that—a friendship.

But Killian is still talking.

“It wasn’t like what you’re doing with Carter,” he admits. “It wasn’t romantic or sexual, and it wasn’t about breaking him. It was about making sure he didn’t break himself before we even got to Blackthorne.”

I tilt my head, waiting. Killian smirks, but there’s something else behind it now. “His dad was worse than yours, and I’m not talking about the monster whose blood we share.”

My fingers tighten against the armrest because I know what my father was like. My father’s fists were always wrapped in authority. He beat obedience into me and then punished me when I learned it too well. Every raised, ugly scar on my body is a story he told with his hands.