Kit also remembered what Bishop had said about Darius.He seems nice, but don’t let that fool you. He’s dangerous.
“What do you want?” Kit asked, trying not to look around too obviously. They were in a lower-traffic area of the mall, between a shoe store and an empty, boarded-up storefront. Public, but not public enough.
Darius’s attention was wholly on him, with palpable intensity. “We need to have a conversation. Somewhere private.” His lips quirked. “It’s personal.”
Ice flooded through Kit’s veins, and his breath shallowed. The illusion of normalcy shattered.
Did Darius know?
What Dad did—what Dad was—that it was all Kit’s fault—
Kit searched Darius’s face for the usual reactions. Pity. Disgust. Sick fascination. Through his daze, he thought Darius almost seemed surprised by his reaction. But Kit couldn’t pay much attention to that, just like he couldn’t pay much attention to the broad, warm hand closing around his arm.
Darius led him unresisting into the alley between the shoe store and the empty storefront.
Kit’s instincts weren’t completely fucked, though. He broke out of his daze when Darius opened a side door to the empty store, digging his heels in and trying to jerk free of Darius’s grip.
That’s when the muzzle of the gun pressed between Kit’s shoulder blades.
12
“Do you want to kill me?”
Kit’s awareness slammed fully back into the present. He could feel his fingers again. He could breathe.
He was almost grateful to the gun for waking him up.
“Be good,” Darius said. “This can just be a conversation. Up to you.”
“Understood,” Kit said weakly.
When Darius squeezed his shoulder and pushed, Kit obeyed the silent directions and moved deeper into the abandoned building, each step mechanical.
He could scream. He could try to get away long enough to use his phone. James could no doubt track his location easily, unless Darius had access to the same jamming equipment as James and Bishop. Fuck, Kit was in over his head.
The worst part was not knowing what this was about. If Darius was even targetingKit Byron—or someone else.
His only physical connections to Darius were the warm hand surrounding his shoulder and the unrelenting metal of the gun, but the man’s presence held him bound from head to toe. Every move Kit made was completely under Darius’s control until they reached an empty back office.
Darius shoved him into the middle of the room, waiting in the doorway while Kit stumbled forward.
“Set your bag down slowly and sit in the chair,” Darius ordered, and flicked on the half-burned-out overhead lights.
Kit couldn’t tell what kind of store this used to be. All that was left in the office were a few chairs in the corner, and one dragged out into the center of the room. Dragged out for Kit. Darius had planned this in advance.
Kit’s cursory, unsuccessful search for anything he could use as a weapon was more because he figured he was supposed to do that, rather than any actual hope of fighting back.
Judging from the way that professional button-down shirt skimmed over powerful shoulders, the absolute confidence in Darius’s every movement, Darius didn’t even need the gun to keep Kit exactly where he wanted him.
Kit set down his shopping bag and sat in the chair. His nerves rose as the position made him even smaller than before.
“Thank you,” Darius said calmly, and lowered his gun. “Now, let’s talk.”
The lowered gun didn’t ease Kit’s nerves at all. Every particle of dust glittered like a weapon in the abandoned office. Every shadow hid secret danger.
Darius hadn’t closed the door, but his presence lounging in the doorway was enough of a padlock. Or an electric fence.
Silence filtered through the dust and shadows, until Kit’s fear gave way to annoyance. He’d gotten kidnapped. Again. Did he really have to lead the small talk?
