Page 55 of House of Cards (The Devil’s Den #2)

Zoey

He’ll definitely kill him, of course. But I’m sure there’ll be torture involved, too.

Giving Smith a quick side glance, I gently brush my thumb against the outside pocket of my sweats.

Troy took the bag of chips from me when he brought me back to Smith’s hotel room, but he didn’t know about the chips I’d shoved in my pocket.

After Smith made me—literally, made me—take a shower so I wouldn’t ‘raise eyebrows’ on my way home, I transferred the chips to my sweatpants when he wasn’t looking.

The world outside the tinted windows blurs as Smith takes a corner. He’s driving at the speed limit, but it feels like he’s gunning it. I grab the door handle, my knuckles whitening as I try to ground myself in something solid while my mind spins with everything that’s happened.

His belt around my neck.

His brutal invasion of my body.

His tongue licking blood off my face, like a starving beast.

And worst of all? How I came so hard I nearly passed out. Several times.

“Let me out at that bus stop up ahead,” I say, my voice surprisingly steady despite the hurricane of emotions tearing through me.

Smith’s jaw tightens as he takes another corner. “That wasn’t the agreement.”

“Agreement?” I scoff. “You practically threw me in the car and told me you’re taking me home.”

“Didn’t hear you argue.”

“Well, I’m arguing now.” I cross my hands over my chest. “Stop the car.”

He says nothing, but his bandaged hands flex on the steering wheel. If it hurts, he doesn’t show it. He looks like a street fighter, one hand bandaged around the knuckles, the other around the palm.

Annoyed by his silence, I snap, “Like hell I’m telling you where I live. For all I know, you’ll show up one night and break down my door.”

“You’d like it if I did,” he says. His deadpan delivery makes that certain truth hit so much harder.

My cheeks go warm. “Pull over.”

“I know where you live, Zoey.”

There’s a sudden chill in the air that seeps into my flesh like I’m sitting here naked on these custom leather seats. “No you don’t.”

He’s bluffing. He’s got to be.

Smith draws a long, audible breath through his nose. “The apartment above the diner.” He pauses, giving me a quick, interrogatory side-eye. “What’s left of it, anyway.”

My stomach drops.

Shit.

I stare through the windshield, stunned into silence.

Of course he did some more digging when I didn’t satisfy his curiosity around the diner fire. Question is, what did he unearth?

I glance at Smith’s profile. The streetlights cast shadows across his face that make him look even more dangerous. It doesn’t help that his glasses reflect the passing lights, hiding his eyes. I have no idea what he’s thinking…but that’s not new, is it?

“Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“This.” I gesture wildly. “ This. Letting me go. Driving me home.” I swallow hard. “Being so nice after…after what you just did to me.”

After what we did to each other.

“I made a promise.”

“Since when do men like you keep promises?”

“Men like me?” We stop at a traffic light, the engine silent. He turns in his seat to give me his full attention, but I keep staring ahead, refusing him the satisfaction.

I shrug. “Sadists. Men who get off on other people’s pain.”

“That’s what you think I am?”

“It’s who I know you are.” I look down at my hands, surprised they’re not trembling. “You enjoyed hurting me.”

“And you enjoyed being hurt.” His voice drops to that dangerous rumble that makes my skin prickle and my insides clench. “What does that make you, Zoey?”

I say nothing. Because he’s right. I did enjoy it. Every degrading, agonizing, blood-soaked moment of it.

What does that make me?

The light changes, but he doesn’t pull off. The street is empty, the only headlamps those of a car far up ahead.

I look at him and wish I hadn’t.

There’s a touch of something else in his usual stern expression—concern, maybe. Or maybe just more curiosity.

“What happened at the diner?”

“You don’t know?” I say lightly, flicking damp hair over my shoulder.

“Cause of the fire is still unknown.”

Still …like he’s keeping an eye on the papers for updates. Maybe he has an inside man at the police. Because I’m sure they’re investigating the fire, too.

God, what if I get Ricky back and still end up going to jail?

“You think I know what caused it? I was in your casino that night, allegedly stealing your money. Pretty airtight alibi, if you ask me.” I’m inching closer and closer to the edge of this conversational cliff, and all that waits below is a sea of sharp spikes.

I point at the traffic light. “It’s green.

You should go. You’re blocking the road. ”

“I think you’re hiding something.”

“So what if I am?”

“What kind of trouble are you in, Zoey?”

I hold back a laugh, but can’t help the sardonic smile spreading on my lips.

Trouble ? Jesus, that’s putting it mildly.

Smith waits so long for my reply that the light changes back to red, trapping us.

My eyes flick to the console.

11:46 PM

We’re at least ten minutes from the diner. I don’t trust Smith as far as I can fucking throw him, but since Elonzo already thinks I ran to ‘the mob’, would it really make a difference if I told Smith?

Like it would even matter. What’s Smith going to do? I have the money. Well, I have enough chips to exchange for the money. That’s all Elonzo wants. Smith would only complicate things.

But wouldn’t it be so fucking great if I had someone on my side? At least one person in this world who knew the fucked up shit I’d gotten involved in?

Someone who, if this went badly, would still be around afterward to write my obituary for the newspaper?

“I want to be cremated, not buried,” I blurt out.

“Noted,” he says. “Flowers?”

“Peonies. I like peonies.”

“Peonies. Noted. Now, are you going to tell me why we’re discussing funeral arrangements, or should we move on to the guest list?”

We could have been talking about a trending meme.

I take a deep breath, let it out in an explosive sigh. “My brother got into debt with a shady character. I guess he couldn’t pay, so he left town. He ghosted me, too.”

Smith, surprisingly, is silent. I glance over at him, locking eyes.

“Somehow, Ricky’s debt became my problem. The loan shark threatened to burn down the diner if I didn’t bring him his money…and then went ahead with the threat.”

This time, when the light turns green, Smith pulls off. “Why didn’t you tell me? I asked?—“

I cut in with a snort. “Like you’d have helped me.”

Smith’s silence is incriminating. He knows I’m right. I could have told him I was being hunted by Ted Bundy the night we met, and he wouldn’t have given a shit.

Ever since we pulled away from the traffic light, Smith’s been driving slower and slower. Like he’s buying time. Any other time, any other guy, I might have been flattered.

The clock on the dash flips over to 11:53.

“Can’t you go any faster?” I mutter. “I can literally feel myself aging.”

Smith’s hands tighten again. “You’re meeting them tonight, aren’t you?”

I take another long inhale. A slower, more relaxed sigh this time. “You’re like a dog with a fucking Kong toy.”

Smith slows his SUV to a crawl.

I glance out the window. “I could drop and roll and probably survive.” My hands are knotted in my lap, my jaw clenching.

Smith slams on the brakes so hard my head whips forward and my seat belt locks tight across my chest. Not that I needed the seat belt, because Smith throws out an arm to keep me pressed back in my seat.

Protective and psychotic. The green flag cancels out the red, I guess.

I rub the back of my neck. “Ow.”

“Talk, kitten,” comes his growl.

My eyes stay fixed ahead. “Yes, I’m meeting him tonight, okay? The diner. Midnight. Which I’m not going to make if you keep stopping the car.”

“And what happens if you don’t get there in time?”

“He’ll…” Fuck, saying it out loud is harder than I thought it would be. Probably because I never thought I’d have to say it out loud. “He’ll kill Ricky. After torturing him, I’m guessing.”

“Christ, Zoey.” Smith speeds up, shaking his head. “I’m not your fucking enemy.”

“Sure about that?” I say under my breath.

“Is he expecting you to show up with the money?”

I pause, but at Smith’s bombastic side-eye, blurt out, “Yes. And alone .” I point at the curb, my fingers already on the door’s handle. “So if you’d be so kind as to?—“

He ignores that, of course. No way Smith Control-Freak Hutchinson is letting me go to a ransom drop alone.

“How much?” he asks, like he has every right to be nosing around in my private life.

“Two hundred.” I clear my throat. “Thousand.”

He shakes his head, eyes narrowed. “None of this adds up.”

“Says the sadistic accountant,” I mutter under my breath.

“Two hundred grand is a lot of money, but it’s not kidnapping money. What aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing!”

“Then there’s more to this story than you know.”

I open my mouth, but what the hell am I supposed to say? That I got a vibe that Elonzo was more to Ricky than a loan shark?

But I guess Smith realizes I’m in the dark as much as he is, because he goes on without waiting for me to speak.

“You didn’t think showing up empty-handed was going to be a problem?”

“Showing up with you’s gonna be a bigger problem,” I mutter.

“Zoey,” Smith practically growls.

I huff out a breath, heat touching my cheeks as I lift my ass off the car seat just enough to get at the chips in my pocket. I keep them in my fist for a second before holding them out over the console on the palm of my hand.

Smith glances over, looks away. He chuckles. Then he laughs.

The sound cuts off a second later.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Zoey,” he mutters. “How’d you survive in the wild for so long?”

I bite the inside of my lip so I don’t say something catty in reply. Because he’s not wrong. I’m not a trusting person. I’d rather do everything myself than ask for help…not because I’m super independent, but because I’ve been burned so many times in the past.

We reach the diner with three minutes to spare. My hand’s already on the car door, waiting for Smith to slow enough so that I can push it open and jump out.

Smith rolls up to the curb, ducking his head to take in the full structure ahead—from the gutted remains of the diner to the scorched walls of the apartments above. From our vantage point, it almost looks like the corner apartment is floating in the air.

Icy prickles shoot through my fingertips, spreading a chilling numbness through my body.

What’s left of the diner looks like a carcass. The white spray painted message on the one wall glows in the light of a nearby street lamp.

Move, Zoey!

Elonzo’s probably inside already, waiting. If his watch is a little faster than yours, then it’s already too late.

“I’m coming with you.”

“I can handle this.”

“I wasn’t disputing that.”

I blink, breaking out of my downward spiral of despair to turn and stare at Smith. I expected a smirk or something on his face, but those dark eyes of his are dead serious, his mouth set in a tight line. There’s the smallest frown between his eyebrows, barely a crease.

Damn, he’s handsome.

And this might just be the imminent end-of-life situation talking, but for a brief second, I wish we’d met under different circumstances. That we’d explored something approaching a conventional relationship.

Something tells me that would never, ever have been a possibility, though.

Smith doesn’t do normal.

“Fine,” I say, my gaze dropping to his mouth before I can stop myself. I force my eyes back to his. “But none of your cocky alpha-male bullshit. This guy is a lunatic.”

Smith’s one eyebrow darts up. “Alpha-male?—?”

He cuts off, glancing away, one wrist draped over the top of the steering wheel, the other going to his seat belt.

I should be terrified of bringing another predator to this feeding ground. But there’s a twisted comfort in having Smith beside me.

I’ve felt his teeth.

I’m starting to understand his hunger.

And some dark, feral part of me wants to watch him tear into someone else for a change.

I want to watch him to taste blood that isn’t mine and see if it gives him the same satisfaction.

A selfish part of me hopes that will never happen.

Then it hits me out of nowhere, a lightning bolt of terrifying clarity. I don’t just want Smith beside me for protection. For vengeance.

I want him beside me. Period.

Fucking hilarious, since I didn’t know this man existed a few weeks ago. Now I’m entertaining a future where I never leave his side?

My mental disorder has blown straight through Stockholm Syndrome into full on delusions…and it scares me more than the thought of Elonzo and his Zippo.

My voice is hoarse, but firm. “I mean it, Smith.” He looks away, face hardening. “Pinky swear you won’t?—“

Smith unlatches his seat belt with a flick of his fingers. He grabs my seat belt, jerking it so hard that it locks in place over my chest, cutting off the rest of my sentence.

I grab it reflexively, and Smith yanks it even tighter, trapping my fingers.

Then he leans over, so close I can feel his breath on my lips.

“I’m not promising anything, kitten,” he murmurs.

His eyes drop to my mouth, and when they flick back up to my eyes, there’s a terrifying, carnivorous light in them. He might not be making any promises, but those eyes of his sure as fuck are.

This doesn’t end tonight. Not here, not now, anyway.

Too much has been left unsaid.

Too much has been left undone.

But I guess there’s one thing on his list needs checking off, and he’s not letting me leave this car until that to-do is taken care of.

Smith pulls the seat belt even tighter until I can hardly breathe.

And then he kisses me.

Rough, like his hands whenever he touches me.

Demanding utter submission, as always.

As soon as the shock wears off, so does my resistance.

I’ve been waiting for this since the moment he asked if I thought running from him was a good idea.

So worth the wait.

His lips are warm, strong, and move so masterfully against mine that I’m not sure if I’m kissing him back or just defending myself from the most glorious attack.

But as exceptional as a kisser he is, that’s not what makes me moan against his mouth.

I taste something else in our kiss. Apart from the hunger, the possession. Something that feels almost like need.

For once, I’m not just some toy for him to play with, but something he can’t lose.

Won’t lose.

God help me, I can’t stand to lose him either.