Page 66 of Twisted Play (Cruel Games #1)

EVA

The kitchen table at the hockey house had become my sanctuary. Textbooks and highlighters created a fortress around me while takeout containers from three different restaurants testified to the team’s commitment to procrastination.

Tristan sat across from me, dramatically failing to balance a pencil on his nose while Haruto quizzed me on bio-chem.

“Benzene ring,” Haruto said patiently.

“Hexagonal...thing...with...carbons?” Tristan interrupted, smiling broadly as he teased me.

I snorted. “That’s technically correct, which is the worst kind of correct.”

Katie looked up from her Mandarin flashcards. “You sound like my high school chemistry teacher. She was terrifying.”

“Eva’s terrifying too,” Tristan grinned. “Yesterday, she made me redo flashcards because my handwriting looked like ‘drunk spiders having seizures.’”

“It did.” I flipped through my notes, amazed to realize I felt normal for the first time in months, studying with new friends.

When was the last time I laughed?

My phone vibrated against the table. The Devil’s number flashed across the screen—another demand, another threat, another reminder none of this was real. I flipped it face down without reading the message.

“Smart choice,” Katie said, flipping through more cards. “I want a new rule banning phones from hockey house study sessions.”

Haruto raised his hand. “I second that motion. Tristan keeps distracting me with TikToks of golden retrievers.”

“They’re motivational,” Tristan protested. “Pure joy in ten-second increments.”

The front door slammed, and everyone froze. In the week since I’d basically moved in with Cole and Tristan, I’d never heard that door slam. The hockey players were careful with everything—their bodies, their equipment, their shared spaces. They never lost control.

Heavy footsteps echoed through the hallway—expensive shoes tapping on hardwood, moving with purpose but without the usual confidence I associated with?—

Cole appeared in the kitchen doorway.

My stomach dropped. His charcoal suit was wrinkled, the fabric pulled and twisted like he’d been grabbing at it.

His tie hung loose around his neck, the knot destroyed.

But it was his face that made my chest tighten—pale and hollow, with dead eyes that didn’t seem to register the room full of people staring at him.

Tristan rose from his chair. “Cole?—”

I was already moving, pushing back from the table and crossing the kitchen toward him. Cole’s head snapped up as I approached, shock flickering across his features .

“What are you doing?” His voice was rough, like he’d been screaming.

“You look like you could use a hug,” I said quietly, only loud enough for him to hear.

His eyes widened, like the concept was foreign to him. Maybe it was.

I stepped closer and wrapped my arms around his waist. For a moment, Cole just stood there, rigid and uncertain. Then his arms came up slowly, circling me, pulling me against his chest. His chin settled on top of my head, and I felt some of the tension bleed out of him.

We stood like that in the kitchen, surrounded by the careful sounds of studying, breathing together, his heartbeat slowing beat by beat as we held each other.

When I pulled back to look at his face, his expression was softer. His blue eyes searched mine, looking for I didn’t know what, and all I knew was that I hated the vulnerable furrow in his brow.

Before I could stop myself, I lifted up on my toes to kiss him, soft and exploratory, a fierce need to protect him unfurling in my chest.

Cole didn’t hesitate. He clutched me to him and kissed me back, his lips moving over mine, devouring me like he’d been drowning and I was pure oxygen.

When we broke apart, I could hear the others as they pretended not to watch—pencils scratching on paper, the rustle of textbook pages, the flip-flip-flip of Katie’s flashcards, the careful sounds of our friends giving us privacy.

Hot tears pressed behind my eyes. I blinked them back then stepped away before Cole could see them, before he could see my weakness. He needed something different anyway. I caught his hand, threading our fingers together, and tugged him toward the stairs .

The moment I closed the door to his room behind us, Cole pressed me against it, his mouth crashing into mine with desperate hunger. His hands framed my face, fingers trembling as he kissed me like I was the only thing keeping him anchored to earth.

When we broke apart, both breathing hard, I pushed him toward the bed. “Sit,” I said, my voice rougher than intended. To my surprise, he obeyed.

I knelt between his legs, the carpet rough against my knees, and dragged him down to me, tugging on his tie.

I worked it carefully until I could loop it over his head and drop it on the floor.

Button by button, I worked my way down his shirt, unbuttoning it to reveal the taut skin beneath.

My fingers moved to his belt, the leather smooth and expensive under my touch, but before I could lower my head, Cole caught my face in his hands.

“No.” His voice was rough, broken. “Need you up here. With me.”

He pulled me up, crushing his mouth to mine as his hands fisted in my hair.

I could feel his desperation in the way his fingers dug into my scalp, the way he moaned when I bit his lower lip.

Then he was lifting me, spinning us around until my back hit the mattress and his weight settled over me, heavy and warm and real.

We stripped each other frantically, hands colliding as we fought with buttons and fabric.

Cole’s mouth mapped my throat while I pushed his shirt off his shoulders, tasting salt and the lingering scent of his cologne.

His skin was fever-hot under my palms, muscles tense with barely controlled need.

When his hands moved to my clothes, they trembled against the fabric—his usual brutality replaced by something rawer, more desperate.

The sound of tearing fabric filled the air as he gave up on my buttons, ripping my blouse open. Cool air hit my overheated skin before his mouth was there, sucking marks into the curve of my breast while his hands worked my bra free.

“What happened?” I gasped against his ear as he pressed kisses to my collarbone, his stubble rough against my sensitive skin.

“Doesn’t matter.” His voice was barely above a whisper, breath hot against my throat. “Can’t change it.”

I understood the helplessness of being trapped by circumstances bigger than yourself, controlled by people who held all the power. Instead of examining his complicity in my own powerlessness, I kissed him again—deeper this time as we frantically worked to take off our clothes.

The moment we were skin to skin, Cole pressed every inch of himself against me, like he was trying to disappear into my body.

His hands roamed my body frantically, like he couldn’t touch enough of me at once. When one hand slipped between us, fingers sliding through my wetness, we both groaned at the contact. He was already hard against my hip, his cock hot and heavy as I wrapped my hand around him.

“Fuck, Eva.” My name broke on his lips as he positioned himself at my entrance. “You’re so wet for me.”

His usual control was gone. Instead, he moved with frantic need, one hand behind my head, holding me against him, while the other gripped my thigh hard enough to bruise. When he pushed inside me, stretching me, I whined at the pain.

“Fuck,” I whispered as his forehead dropped to mine, his breathing ragged as he fought for control.

“So tight,” he whispered, his voice wrecked. “Fucking perfect. ”

Our fingers found each other, twining together as he moved. His thumb traced over my knuckles, such an unexpectedly gentle gesture it made my chest ache even as he filled me completely with each deep thrust.

He released one hand to map my face like he was memorizing it—fingertips tracing my cheekbones, my jaw, the curve of my lips before sliding down to pinch my nipple, making me arch beneath him with a gasp.

I wrapped my legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, and felt him shudder against me. The new angle had him hitting even deeper, and I could feel my climax building, tension coiling tight in my belly.

“Cole,” I gasped. “Please.”

His pace grew more desperate, more erratic. When I arched beneath him, my breasts pressing against his chest as pleasure crashed through me, he caught my mouth in a desperate kiss with deeper emotions I didn’t dare name.

Afterward, I curled against his chest, tracing the tattoos on his chest, the scars I hadn’t seen before or maybe I hadn’t noticed.

“My father used to lock me in the wine cellar when I disappointed him,” Cole said into my hair, his voice barely audible. “Started when I was six. No light, no windows, just—” he stopped for a minute, his voice cracking before he continued, “just a lot of fucking dust.”

My fingers traced a thin white line over his knuckles I’d never noticed before.

“Sometimes, I’d count bottles to stay sane. Chateau this, Chateau that. I learned to read French wine labels by seven because there was nothing else to do.” His laugh held no humor. “It was a useful skill for dinner parties when I was a kid. He loved showing off how cultured his son was.”

“How long would he leave you? ”

“Depended on the transgression. Spilled juice at breakfast? Two hours. Cried when he yelled? All night.” Cole’s chest rose and fell beneath my cheek. “Worst was when I was eight. He caught me giving my dinner to a stray. The poor thing was all ribs, obviously starving.”

I stayed quiet, stroking gentle whirls over his skin, letting him talk, my heart breaking for the boy he had been.

“He left me down there for two days without food or water to teach me that weakness has consequences.” Cole’s fingers tangled my hair, not quite gentle. “When he finally let me out, the dog was gone. Slade said they’d had to put it down.”

The casual cruelty of punishing an eight-year-old boy for showing compassion turned my stomach.

“I stopped caring about anything after that—it was easier than risking the cellar.” His voice was matter-of-fact, like he was recounting someone else’s story. “Made me perfect for his world. Can’t be disappointed if you don’t expect anything good.”

I pressed my lips to his chest, tasting salt. His hand tightened in my hair.

“When I was fifteen, he took me to a business meeting, said it was time I learned the family trade.” Cole’s breathing grew shallow. “Turned out to be a foreclosure. Some guy who’d borrowed money to keep his restaurant open couldn’t make payments.”

His casual tone didn’t hide the pain underneath.

“My father handed me the paperwork and told me to serve it. Said if I didn’t, he’d make sure the man’s daughter lost her scholarship to art school.

Already had it arranged—one phone call, and she’d be out.

” Cole’s fingers traced absent patterns on my spine.

“So I handed over the papers and watched this guy’s face crumble as he realized he was losing everything. ”

I stayed quiet, letting him talk.

“But here’s the fucked-up part—my father could have forgiven the debt. The restaurant was actually profitable. He just wanted to see if I’d choose a stranger’s pain over some girl’s future.” His laugh was bitter. “Wanted to teach me every choice has a cost, and the strong make others pay it.”

The parallels with my own story made my heart hurt.

“He bought the building for pennies on the dollar afterward and turned it into a parking lot.”

My burner phone buzzed insistently on the nightstand. Jedediah Carter, demanding information I didn’t have and threatening devastating consequences.

The devil who owned my soul was the same man who’d locked this broken boy in a wine cellar and taught him that compassion was weakness.

Nausea rolled through me as the buzzing continued. Every secret I’d stolen, every file I’d photographed, every piece of information I’d fed to that monster—it had all been used against Cole. Against the team he loved. Against everything that mattered to him.

I was still betraying him. Even now, lying skin to skin in his bed while his fingers traced gentle patterns on my spine, aching to comfort him, I was his father’s weapon.

Cole’s body tensed as the buzzing continued. “You should answer it.”

“No.” The word came out fierce, desperate. I reached over and silenced the phone completely, my hand shaking.

“Eva—”

“No.” I pressed closer to him, as if I could somehow absorb his pain, make up for being the knife in his back. “Not tonight. ”

He pulled me closer to him, dropping a sweet kiss on my forehead.

He has no idea. None of them did.

Cole thought I was choosing him freely, but I was still his father’s spy, still the agent of his destruction, no matter how gently I touched his scars or how desperately I wanted to shield him from more pain.

His breathing evened out, sleep pulling him under. But I lay awake in the dark, my cheek on his chest, his heartbeat steady and strong beneath my palm.

I was going to destroy him, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it.

I’m sorry.