Page 28 of Dangerous Deviance

“Please,” I begged. “She’s all alone. Like me. I can help her.”

“I don’t doubt that,” he said, continuing down the hallway.

“She needs me.”

I touched his arm, and he stopped. He looked down at my hand. I pulled away, realizing what I had done—I had touched him on my own.

“Do you realize that you’re the first person I’ve let stay here?” he asked. The silence was heavy between us. I hadn’t. “No one has ever stayed here through the night here. Only me.” He shook his head, as if it pained him to admit that. I wasn’t sure how to take it. Wil seemed like the kind of man who could have had a different woman every night. So why did he choose to be alone? “I’m not going to let another stranger into my home,” he said. “That’s final.”

“But Wil—”

“She’ll stay in Axe’s workroom,” he said. I clenched my fists, and he tossed his head to the side, returning down the hall to his room. “I’ll make sure she’s treated properly.”

I followed him through the doorway. “That’s not good enough,” I said. “She needs more than that. She needs a friend.” Wil grabbed a set of keys out of one of the drawers, then locked it again. “She needs—”

Family, the voice said.

“She needs family,” I said.

Again, Wil stopped. He gazed at me, his eyes flat, his entire expression darkening the longer he looked at me.

He doesn’t want you together, the voice said.He knows. He knows that together, you’ll destroy him—

Destroy him? But why would we do that?

He huffed past me as he went back down the hallway. He looked at the woman and nodded, then turned to his brothers.

“She’ll stay with you,” he said, turning toward Axe. He nodded. “Not in the cages. A proper bed in the workroom. Restraints, fine. But she will be fed, bathed, and cared for properly.”

Axe nodded. How was that even a question in anyone’s mind? My heart burned. What kind of animal was taking care of her?

Derek sat up. “Ellie,” he said, addressing me, “You’ll see what you can uncover?”

At those words, Wil turned to me. At first, I thought it was to test me, to see if I would talk to another man, going against his rules. But then I remembered that his brothers and father were the only exceptions. It was something else he wanted.

I realized he was giving me a chance to speak for myself. And so that’s what it was. He was giving me a choice.

But there wasn’t any choice to be made. I didn’t need a voice to tell me what to do. I didn’t even need to think about it. I knew my answer.

“Yes,” I said. “I’ll help.”

CHAPTER 9

Wil

I wiped my forehead, then leaned on the table. Jimmy’s was running at a medium pace, and that was lucky for me. I needed to think. Derek and Axe were on the other side of the table, but we didn’t have time to screw around and play cards.

Another body?

“How many is that now?” I asked.

Derek gave Axe a sideways glance. “Three,” Derek said.

“Seriously?”

“Butchered,” he said. “Just like the other two.”

It made my stomach turn. There was no clear explanation. But these were the facts: an enemy was hunting us, and it had to do with the women, Ellie and the other two: one dead and one alive. But how did they all connect?