He’s still not talking, so I click my tongue impatiently, realizing I’m going to have to draw him out.
I sit down on the bed across from him, trying to look as harmless as possible. Which is probably not all that harmless, what with the jagged scar flashing white across my face, and the tattoos on my neck that my shirt doesn’t hide.
“Why’d you come to me, by the way?” I ask in the tone of someone discussing the weather.
He huffs out a breath, looking like he’s slowly growing less freaked out. “Well, I know you two have a history.”
He pauses as if expecting confirmation of that, but I merely wait.
“You kidnapped Piper and didn’t harm a hair on her head. So my theory is…”
Okay, I’ve drawn him out enough. I definitely do not want to hear more psychobabble today. Tragen giving me his pseudoanalysis was enough for a lifetime.
In a flash, I’ve whipped out my gun again, and his eyes practically bulge out of his head.
“Okay, man. Okay. Sorry. I didn’t mean–”
“Don’t fucking call meman. And tell me where the fuck she is.”
“Okay.” He swallows. “To answer your earlier question, uhm,more succinctly…” He gulps out the last word as I wave my gun around in impatience, “Piper’s in a lot of trouble, and I can’t think of anyone who could possibly save her, except you.”
The hair on the back of my neck pricks up, but I steel myself so he doesn’t notice my changing expression. I try to steel myself from my own heart too, because I really need to be finished giving a shit.
But I can’t help the way fury chokes my chest at his words.
No one threatens her. No one touches her. No one eventhinksabout her.
No one but me.
“Where is she?” I ask again, my voice cold.
“Listen, man… I mean, er, pal… that is…”
By now, he’s wiping his brow, rivulets of sweat winding down his face, and I do derive just a touch of satisfaction at how he’s coming undone just from my eyes fixed on him.
“I just want to make sure you don’t hurt her,” he concludes weakly.
“I promised already. Haven’t I?”
“Right.” He barely manages to meet my eyes, but when he does, what he sees there clearly doesn’t reassure him.
I exhale, once more fighting the impulse to just kill him. But if I do, I won’t find my snake. And right now, although I hate myself for realizing it, the situation’s become urgent. Because she’s in trouble, and I guess I’m going to have to protect her again.
Before killing her myself.
“Josh,” I say slowly, grimacing slightly at the way that bland milquetoast name feels on my tongue, “you seem to really care about Piper. I understand your predicament. Having to trust the man who’s already kidnapped your friend must not be easy. But you told me yourself she’s in trouble, and I’m the only one who can help. So what sounds better to you: leaving her in the handsof this new, unknown danger, or trusting the man who didnotkill her when he could have?”
He nods his head eagerly, as if my logic makes total sense to him.
Fool.
“You’re right. You’re right. I’ll tell you. She’s with… Logan Colt.”
I was preparing to bring my gun up and shoot him the minute he opened his mouth, but that name stops me dead in my tracks.
Logan… Colt? As in, one of the founders of Devil?
“What the fuck?”
