Page 59 of House of Cards (The Devil’s Den #2)

Zoey

My slippered feet are silent on the marble floor compared to the steady thump of Troy’s heavy military boots. I feel like a ghost, not a flesh-and-blood woman. Drained, lifeless. Just a sad shadow, powerless to stop whatever’s coming next.

The sun came up. The sun set.

Troy came around a few times to feed me. I threw the food over the balcony in some childish form of rebellion. But then I had to watch the villa staff cleaning up my mess and it made me feel like shit.

Every time Troy came around, I begged for answers.

Shrieked, actually, until my voice gave out. But I guess he’s used to dealing with hysterical captives, because he’d just give me this long-suffering stare and then remind me that, as soon as I’d calmed down, Smith would be ready to talk.

I didn’t though. Calm down. At least, not intentionally. But it turns out I can only throw seven tantrums a day before succumbing to exhaustion.

When Troy came to my room a few minutes ago with more of the same—breakfast food, because apparently Smith’s trying to bribe me with my favorite meals—and asked if I was ready to talk, I said ‘yes’ without sounding remotely sarcastic.

Troy leads me to the villa’s library, opening one half of the massive double-doors like a grumpy, silent gentleman.

I find Smith sprawled in a wingback chair, bare feet stretched toward the flames, a tumbler of whiskey dangling from his fingertips like he’s some kind of gentleman instead of the monster who let Elonzo kill my only remaining family.

Because I know Ricky’s dead by now. No way Elonzo could have had a change of heart…he’d need to have an actual heart first.

“No, please, don’t get up,” I say dryly.

Smith doesn’t even look up from his drink. Just sits there in his gray sweats, staring into the fire like I’m not even worth acknowledging. The sight of him lounging by the fire like he doesn’t have a care in the world makes me want to throw something heavy at his head.

But why bother? I’d need a silver stake blessed by a priest to kill Smith.

I step deeper into the room, my guest slippers making zero sound on a rug worth more than most people’s cars. Yet somehow he senses I’ve entered his space, because before I’m even in his peripheries, he says, “Sit down, Zoey.”

“Fuck that.” I plant my feet wider, chin lifted like I’m ready for war. “Why’d you do it?”

Smith’s eyes drag up from his whiskey to meet mine, and I see something predatory flicker there. Like he’s pleased I still have some fight left in me. “He’s dead either way.”

The words hit like a bus, but I refuse to give him the satisfaction of flinching. “You cold-blooded piece of shit.”

“Careful, kitten.” He sets his tumbler down with deliberate slowness and turns to me. The shadows on his face slide away to reveal three deep scratches on his cheek, already scabbing.

I did that. Me.

The swell of pride feels wrong, and yet so fucking right.

“Don’t.” My voice comes out low and rough. Crying non stop for a few hours is terrible for the vocal chords. “Don’t you dare call me that. Not after what you’ve done.”

When Smith rises from his chair like a snake, my every instinct screams at me to back away. But I hold my ground, even when he stalks closer. Even when I can smell the whiskey on his breath, his cologne, that indelible something that’s so unique to him.

“What I’ve done?” His voice drops to a dangerous whisper.

I flick a hand to the sky. “Bringing me here. He said he’d kill Ricky if we didn’t go to that drop. You might as well have pulled the trigger yourself.”

“He was going to kill him, anyway.”

“You don’t know that!” I hear myself yelling, but I can’t stop.

“I do.” His jaw clenches so hard, his words come out strained. “I saved your fucking life, Zoey, so how about you show me a little gratitude?”

“Gratitude?” I step closer, close enough that our chests almost touch. “Fuck you!”

His eyes bore into mine, dark and unrelenting. “You want to know why I didn’t take you to the warehouse last night? Why I didn’t allow Elonzo to play his sick game with you?”

I want to hit him. Want to claw his face again, make him bleed. But something in his tone stops me. Something that sounds almost like... pain.

How did he know it was Elonzo holding Ricky?

The note.

Smith must recognize something about it. Which means he’s probably dealt with Elonzo before. Makes sense. Elonzo sounded as if he was intimately familiar with the Devil’s Den.

“Because you’re a coward,” I spit instead.

His lip quirks up, but it’s not a smile. “Because I’ve played his game before. And I know exactly how it ends when you try to save someone you—“ He stops, jaw clenching. “Someone who matters.”

“Nothing matters to you.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” He reaches up, fingers ghosting along my cheek where tears I didn’t realize were falling have left tracks.

“Now sit down, Zoey.”

He’s using his Commander Hutchinson voice, the one that would make my brain go all fuzzy. Now it just makes my heart pound like I’m seconds away from bolting.

But I can’t run. Not from this.

Not from him.

I won’t.

“You don’t get to boss me around anymore, Smith.”

For a long moment, we just stare at each other. The firelight casts his face in stark relief. Half illuminated, half hidden in shadow.

Just like the man himself.

He turns and picks up his glass, stares at it, then takes a long swallow. When he finally speaks, his voice is so quiet I have to strain to hear it.

“She was an Angel, like you.”

I blink, thrown by the sudden change of subject. “What? Who?”

He’s staring into the fire again, like he can’t bear to meet my eyes. “Her name’s Michelle.”

I fold down into the nearest wingback chair.

Not because I’m obeying his command, but because whatever brief flare of energy I’d found is all burned up.

Smith seems mesmerized by the fire, eyes locked to the flames as he speaks. “She joined the Devil’s Den a few years back. Thought she had potential, so I took an interest in her. Personally trained her.”

The rawness in his voice forms a pit in my stomach.

“Myles and the others suspected her from the start. Kept telling me something was off.”

I can hear the self-loathing in every word, and despite my anger, something in my chest tightens.

“I knew they were right. Knew it in my fucking gut. But she was...” He stops, jaw working like he’s chewing on glass. “She was so good at making me forget everything else.”

Dread slowly consumes the bitter anger that had been festering inside me the past few days.

The way he speaks about her, like she was a drug he couldn’t quit, makes something ugly twist inside me. Jealousy, maybe. I doubt he treated her the same way he treated me.

This Michelle woman got to experience something I can only dream about. A true relationship with Smith.

Trust, respect…possibly even love.

All I got was non-stop torture and one lousy bubble bath—and even that ended in tears. Oh, and who could forget how he let my brother die without losing a wink of sleep?

“What happened?” I ask, hating how pathetic I sound, but desperate to get my answers so I can get the fuck out of here and go back to grieving in private.

Smith sits forward and pours himself another drink from a crystal decanter. His hands are steady, but he tips the decanter too fast, amber liquid pouring out in violent, angry glugs.

“She was kidnapped. That’s how they made it look, anyway.” He takes a long pull of his drink, like he’s trying to drown the memory. “They snatched her on the way to a private function. Left a note with instructions, and one of her fingers.”

Just like Ricky.

My stomach tightens. “Jesus.”

“Five million, or they’d keep sending body parts.” His voice is flat now, emotionless, like he’s reading from a police report. “The exchange was in a warehouse. Looked abandoned, but Elonzo had snipers all over the place.”

Smith’s eyes finally meet mine, and what I see there makes my blood freeze. “It wasn’t an exchange, Zoey. It was a hit.”

I wrap my arms around my chest, trying to ward off the chill. My black sweats are doing a shit job of keeping me warm, though.

“Soon as they had the money, Elonzo told me to shoot Michelle…or he’d kill every last one of my men.”

I open my mouth, but what the hell am I supposed to say?

“When I hesitated, he killed Marcus.” There’s something in his tone that makes my skin crawl. A darkness that suggests this story doesn’t have the happy ending I’m hoping for.

“He would have killed them all, then her, then me. And that’s exactly what would have happened if I’d taken you through there last night. He’d have told me or you to kill Ricky and then started shooting, anyway.”

“You don’t know that,” I murmur, lifting a hand when Smith throws me a hard look. “Not for sure. We could have tried. We could have?—”

“I’m not done.” His calm words cut through my own frantic voice easier than a shout ever could.

Smith sets his glass down and looks directly at me. His eyes could have been made of glass, that’s how empty and lifeless they are.

“When they took Michelle, it wasn’t a kidnapping, Zoey. It was a pickup.” Each word drops like a stone into still water. “Elonzo told me Michelle worked for him. That she’d been collecting information about the Devil’s Den for months.”

The room seems to tilt around me. “She was a spy?”

“She was a lot of things. Spy, seductress, liar.” His voice turns savage. “But most of all, she was fucking good at her job. Good enough to fool me completely.”

I can barely breathe. “She betrayed you.”

“She picked me. Studied me. Told me everything I wanted to hear. Did everything I wanted her to do.” Smith’s hands clench into fists. “She was perfect. The perfect lie.”

The pain in his voice is raw, devastating.

Smith’s chest rises as he takes a slow breath. He tips his head back to drain the last of his drink, grimacing. Spends a few seconds touching his cheek where I scratched him.

My mind reaches its own awful conclusion.

“Say it,” I rasp, my entire body trembling. “Just fucking say it.”

When he looks over at me, I wish he hadn’t. His eyes are pools of night, the only light a tiny flicker of firelight. He’s never looked harder, fiercer, more dangerous than right now.

Something inside me whimpers in panic, making me draw my legs up and crush them against my chest.

“I shot her, Zoey.” He touches his index and ring finger to the middle of his forehead in a slow, reverential gesture that makes me swallow down suddenly bitter saliva.

“Right fucking here.”