Page 24 of Sick Little Devotion

SAHARA

My mouth drops open.

“I do hate you. I hate you for everything you did to me, Aiden,” I explode, no longer keeping my cool. I thought maybe I could play it off as if I was indifferent to being here, so I could escape easier…

But now? Now, he’s just making me angry.

“I’m doing all of this for you, Sara.” His voice is strained, and suddenly, I realize that I’m staring up at the face of a killer. Alone. And nobody knows where I am. I swallow hard and take a couple of steps away from him. That’s when I catch sight of the back door. This beautiful estate is secluded, but not that secluded. I could run somewhere. I could get help—or just a ride out of here.

Except my hands are still tied. I glance down at my wrists, and then back up at Aiden, whose eyes are boring into me.

“Can you take these off?”

He blinks. “You gonna run?”

“Where am I supposed to run to?” I spit back, lying through my teeth. Aiden used to always be able to tell when I wasn’t being truthful, but over the years I had gotten better at stretching the truth to survive. If he realizes I’m lying now, he doesn’t show it.

“I’ll show you the house now.” His tone is difficult to read as he approaches me. Whatever happened between us a few moments ago, when his hand was between my legs, is dead and gone—and the thought of him touching me makes me feel sick.

And kind of excited, but I push that away.

I should feel sick. He’s a murderer. He broke my heart. He left me.

“Here,” he grunts, pulling something from his pocket.

I eye the knife in his hand as he cuts through the plastic with ease. I wince and the zip ties fall to the floor. I’m finally free to rub the indents that have formed in my skin.

“I’m sorry if they were too tight,” he says carefully, eyeing me. He seems more tense suddenly, and I don’t know if it’s because he thinks I’m going to run or something else entirely.

“It’s going to take me a while to get over the fact you murdered someone,” I say flatly. “Even if he deserved it.” The last statement came out without my meaning it to, and I question my own sanity.

Ron’s death should bother me, right?

It doesn’t.

I swallow the feeling and fall in step behind Aiden as we wander through the house. I don’t look directly at the door that leads to a courtyard, but I make a note of its location. It’s not a clear exit, but might it lead to another? There has to be a way out of here. I need to get back to the girls, and I don’t get why Aiden doesn’t understand that. Except for the fact that he left me. So maybe he really doesn’t.

“This is the kitchen—our kitchen,” he adds as we step into a beautifully, luxurious grayscale kitchen. “I have a staff kitchen as well, but I figured we’d want our own space to cook together.”

I stare at him, blinking. “How did you get… How are you this…”

“Rich?” He laughs with ease, raising his eyebrows at me, as if I’m not a captive in this house. “I have my own business.”

Way to be elusive.

As much as I want to ask about it, I don’t. Why should I care if he’s making money? Why should I care what he did after he left? It doesn’t matter that I melt at his fucking touch. He ruined me. He broke me into a million pieces. I can’t forgive him for that. I won’t let myself. What if he does it again?

“I’m not the enemy, Sara. I never have been.”

My heart skips a beat as his gold-flecked, dark eyes hold mine the way they used to. Before everything went wrong. I swallow hard and look away from him.

“I’ll show you our room,” Aiden says, clearing his throat. His iron grip locks around my wrist, and I want to either slink away or jump his bones. The disparity between the two is staggering and torturous. I don’t feel okay at all. My numbness is morphing into anger and despair.

I don’t like that he’s trying to call this foreign place ours. He’s acting as if the last near-decade of being apart doesn’t exist between us. He thinks he’s a knight on a white horse, but all I see is the devil who broke my heart.

I allow him to lead me up the grand staircase, and I stare out the wall of windows at the moon. It’s still the middle of the night—or very early morning, I’m not sure which. But regardless, it’s dark outside. It’s the perfect cover to escape…

I just have to distract Aiden.