Well, damn. This chair was like sitting on a rock. “Couldn’t spring for more comfortable furniture?”
He full-on smirked. “No, I like my visitors uncomfortable. It encourages them to leave.”
“Right, then this should be fast,” I responded, shifting on the seat.
“Hank Taylor,” Amelia started, folding her hands in front of her. “He’s made some poor decisions.”
My stomach plummeted. “He’s alive?”
That, I needed to know before all else.
“He is,” Cillian said, though his golden eyes flashed with malevolence. “Though he’ll soon wish he wasn’t.”
I rose from my seat, hands balled. “What are you doing to him?”
“Who are you to him?” Cillian asked, a predatory glimmer in his eyes that I didn’t like.
I closed my mouth, probably something I should’ve done far earlier.
“His son,” Amelia said, her gaze glued to her phone. “It wasn’t a difficult search.”
I sucked in a sharp breath and settled back in my seat, even though my thighs and calves tensed as if I might sprint away at any moment.
“Your father owed us a substantial debt due to a…problem.” Cillian remained as cool and calm as ever, the pale light from the sconces making his curled black horns gleam. “He’s been sentenced to the Pits to work it off.”
Ice rushed through me in a fierce and fast torrent. The Pits were talked about in whispers, part of the thriving underworld in Peregrine City. The entrances were scattered throughout, but they all connected beneath the city proper into a true underground establishment. That was where the seediest gamblers went, anyone looking to chase their darker proclivities. Any sort of vice was for sale there, and many of the people who entered never emerged into the light again.
“How long is his sentence?” I asked, my heart in my throat.
“A decade,” Cillian said. The calmness sparked ire in me. This bastard crushed innocent people under his thumb. My father had probably made one small mistake, and now he would sufferfor the next ten years because of it. And given his age—fuck, would he even last down there? My chest tightened as resolve settled over me.
There was no other choice.
“I’ll do it.”
Cillian’s brow furrowed. “Take his sentence?”
My stomach churned, and nausea rushed through me, but I wouldn’t back down. “Yes.”
Cillian sucked in a long, slow breath, drawing out my torture. Would he accept the offer? Or was he determined to punish my father?
And what sort of debt could my father have owed in the first place? What problem was Cillian referring to?
“I’ll accept a trade,” he said, slowly scanning me over. Cillian’s gaze was that of a predator, as if he’d chew me up and spit out the bones. A shiver ran down my spine, and I clutched the arms of the chair with white knuckles. This was it. I was selling my soul to a demon, and I’d never see the surface again.
Someone like me wouldn’t last long in the Pits.
“Hmm,” he said, his low rumble like the purr of a jungle cat. His gaze hadn’t left me, and I felt pinned by it, unable to move under his scrutiny. “Except you’re not the right fit for the Pits. I’ve been looking for a personal assistant to replace the last one. As long as you’re somewhat competent with files, then you’ll serve your sentence up here.”
With him.
Relief rushed through me that I wouldn’t be sent to the Pits, but hot on its tail came the nausea again. Because I’d still be a prisoner for the next decade. Trapped in the Spires with this demon, whose despicable reputation preceded him.
I wasn’t sure whether my chances of survival were any better.
“Cillian—” Amelia started, and then stopped when his golden gaze sliced her way.
“Do you have a concern with it?” he challenged, the low deadliness in his voice a giveaway that he would brook no argument on this.
