Page 1 of Her Wicked Promise (The Devil’s Plaything #2)

Eva

T he castle feels like a tomb.

The servants move like ghosts, their eyes downcast, speaking only in whispers when they think I can’t hear.

And I move among them like the most terrifying specter of them all, lost and bewildered and purposeless.

Nothing has changed. But everything has changed.

The emptiness—the cavernous, echoing void of my own home—mocks me everywhere I turn. I am alone. Truly and finally alone.

And yet everything remains exactly as it was before my father died. I had no father to consult, to lean on for advice. He was already gone. As for Robin Rivers, it was right to send her away, to stamp out the insipid emotions she stirred up in me like mud in still waters.

I keep telling myself to focus on what really matters: my father’s funeral arrangements, vengeance, and ensuring my enemies don’t smell weakness bleeding from the Novak name.

But relief won’t come.

Grief drags at my feet no matter how quickly I move around, no matter how much I try to dodge it. Not just for my father—unexpectedly sharp, despite the fact that he’s already been gone so long—but for her .

For her soft warmth. For the way she made a fortress feel like a home. Now Castle Blacklake has become a mausoleum.

I pause outside her door, the guest room, where the door stands slightly ajar, as if waiting for her return.

Don’t .

My feet carry me forward anyway.

The room still smells faintly of her—that synthetic strawberry scent of her hair and something indefinably sweet under it that used to drive me to distraction. I inhale deeply, hating myself for the weakness.

The bed is pristine—my staff wouldn’t dare leave it unmade—but I can still imagine her there in the sheets. Still remember the way she looked while she slept.

I sit down, then lie down, pressing my face into the pillow where her head rested. It doesn’t smell like her, but I can summon up the memory of her scent, and for one perfect, unreal moment, I can pretend she’s still here.

Still mine.

The illusion shatters when I realize what I’m doing.

Eva Novak doesn’t pine , for God’s sake. Eva Novak takes what she wants, discards what she doesn’t, and destroys anything that threatens her empire, including inconvenient feelings .

I sit up and hurl the pillow across the room as hard as I can. It hits the wall and slides to the floor, innocent and soft and sad-looking.

What is she doing right now? Has she forgotten me already, moved on to someone else? Is some other woman touching her, hearing those soft sounds she makes when she’s lost in pleasure?

The thought is torture. I want to hunt down every other person who even looks at her sideways. I want to remind them—remind her—exactly who Robin Rivers belongs to.

But she doesn’t belong to me anymore. I sent her away. She’s a free woman.

And I am not. I have an empire to run.

I pull myself together and go to the study, where I have plenty of work to do, so at least it can be a distraction. An hour later, a soft knock shakes my concentration, dragging me back into the harsh depths of the present reality: a dead father and an absent lover.

Leon opens the door, enormous and imposing as always, but there’s something different in his posture. Wariness. He’s been walking on eggshells around me for days.

“The interment,” Leon says carefully. “Are we going down today?”

Heat flares behind my sternum. I’ve been avoiding this, avoiding the reality of putting my father’s ashes into the family crypt ever since they arrived two days ago. That would make everything real. “Stefan is not available.”

He’s not available because I’ve been keeping him busy. Leon must know it as well as I do.

He sighs. “You must put your father to rest.” He pauses, choosing his words with the care of a man who’s weathered my storms before. “It is not wise to draw things out.”

My temper spikes. “Who do you think you’re talking to?” I demand.

“I think I’m talking to someone who is grieving.” His voice is steady, unafraid. “And grief can look like weakness to those who do not understand it.”

The truth of it stings. Few people knew my father survived the hit in Paris, so now few people know about my father’s death.

When he was shot, we held a funeral, a closed casket affair here at the castle for Consortium members to pay their respects.

But it was meaningless to me, because my father was still alive.

I still had hope then. It dwindled slowly, over years, until Robin Rivers so cruelly awakened it again.

But to those who don’t know, who have no idea, my sudden withdrawal this past week must have seemed strange. And there are always hyenas circling.

“Soon,” I say. “I promise. Soon.”

But Leon still doesn’t leave. “There is something else,” he says.

“Well?”

“I have received a request from Robin Rivers—” My heart soars so suddenly that I catch my breath. “—that we release the money to her now rather than wait until the end of the stipulated thirty days.”

Oh.

She just wants her money.

I hesitate for longer than I should. “Why can’t she wait?” I ask carefully at last.

Leon shrugs. “I can find out.”

“Don’t bother,” I tell him quickly. “But—the protection detail we put in place on Robin and her family, have they reported anything?

Leon shakes his head slowly. “No. You still worry about her?”

“Of course not. She meant no more to me than the rest of them,” I snap. “I just don’t want her to be seen as a soft target.”

“Of course.” Leon’s expression doesn’t change, but I catch the flicker in his dark eyes. He’s seen me lie before, but never to myself.

A thought strikes me. “How did she make this request?” Robin should have no way to contact me, so how?—

“I gave my number to her when she left,” he rumbles, as though his words are of no more consequence than the weather outside.

“You what? ” I stare at him.

“When she left, I gave her my number,” he says, as though rearranging the words will help me understand it better.

“But why? ”

He regards me with those calm eyes as though I’m being unreasonable. “In case she needed to reach you.” And then, skillfully, he changes the subject from him to her safety. “Do you want to read the reports the security detail has sent through?”

“Certainly not. All I care about is the Consortium’s reputation. We protect those who do business with us—no matter what that business might be.”

“You think she is in danger?”

“I think anyone who enters my orbit is potentially in danger,” I say coldly. “As you say yourself, some people see weakness when they do not understand something. Anyway, release the money to her, as requested.”

If she’s so desperate for it, I have no desire to torture her. I’m not that petty. And it means I can forget about her all the faster.

Still…the thought of Robin in such desperate straits doesn’t sit well with me.

I don’t want her doing something foolish, like selling herself again.

Or perhaps she is in danger, even from some low-level Vegas thug.

I see flashes: Robin cornered in an alley, those wide blue eyes filled with terror instead of defiance.

See her hurt because I wasn’t there to protect her.

See her on that damn stage again, looking terrified but determined.

And then my imagination goes truly wild. I think about her moving on. Being back in that bar again, flirting with customers, letting some other woman buy her drinks and promise her things I never could. Robin in someone else’s bed, giving away the sweetness I thought was mine alone.

And I want to keep a thread of connection despite myself. The ability to know what she’s doing at any moment, even if I choose not to know.

“And keep the protection detail in place,” I tell Leon.

“Eva, perhaps you should?—”

“Enough.” I stand and walk to the window, looking out over the dark-watered lake that gives the castle its name. “Is there anything else?”

Leon studies me with the patience of a man who’s learned to read me too well. “Brie Colombo wants another meeting about the Gattos. Face to face.”

My pulse quickens in anger at the mere mention of the Gattos—those pathetic bottom-feeders who dared put Robin on auction like a piece of meat. Who made her stand there terrified and vulnerable while viciously-minded men bid on her body.

“Brie Colombo wants a meeting, does she?” I turn from the window. “I asked her for a favor, one that would also benefit her, and now she expects me to be at her beck and call?”

“She wants to discuss your expectations in more depth. I believe this is a test to see how committed you really are.” Leon’s voice is carefully neutral, but I’m sure he’s just as interested as Brie Colombo in how far I’m prepared to go with this Gatto business.

It would mean another trip to Las Vegas. I’d rather cut my own throat than go there more than once a year.

But Robin is also in Las Vegas.

The thought snakes deep into my brain, no matter how hard I try to shut it out.

I force myself to turn back to the window, watching the wind blow scars into the surface of the black lake.

“Schedule a meeting with the Colombos. And Leon…” With a small sigh, I give in to the insistent thought, just so I can get rid of it.

“Find out why Ms. Rivers is so desperate for the money that she can’t wait. ”

Leon’s footsteps retreat, but I barely hear them. My reflection stares back from the window glass—a woman with cold eyes and too-sharp edges. A woman who looks like she’s been carved from the glass itself.

I try to review the files on the Vegas operations, plan the most efficient way to dismantle the Gattos. I should focus on business, on the empire my father built and bled for.

Instead, I find myself thinking of strawberry blonde hair and innocent blue eyes.

I close my eyes and let myself remember, just for a moment.

My fingers running through that soft hair.

The gasps she made when I found the most intimate places inside her.

The way she looked at me afterward, like I was her whole world instead of the monster who’d bought her.

Even in memory, she haunts me. Because Robin didn’t just warm my bed—she made me hope . Hope that someone could see past the darkness in me, see whatever humanity I might have left.

And then my father died, and reminded me that hope is just another one of the cruelties in the world.

I get back to work.

When I finally emerge from my study, the sun has set. The castle feels different in darkness—more like the fortress it truly is. Leon catches me at the doorway to the Great Hall, his expression carefully blank.

“The Vegas arrangements are confirmed,” he says. “Departure is set for tomorrow.”

“Good. Make sure we have the right contingency. I don’t want to waste time while we’re there.”

“Eva?” Leon’s voice stops me as I turn away. “Perhaps it would be wise to consider what you truly hope to accomplish in Vegas.”

“I’m not going to see her,” I insist. “I don’t need to see her.”

And I close the door calmly in his face.