Page 52 of The Villain

“Dev—” I hated the tremor in my voice. Every syllable was agony. “Dev?—”

Muffled voices reached me from somewhere in the distance. I couldn’t make out any words, like my ears were filled with cotton.

“You can’t die,” Devlin whispered in a choked voice. His cheek was so warm against mine. “You promised. Youpromisedme you’d be the last face I’d ever see. You have to stay alive and keep that promise.”

I tried to talk, tried to move, tried to answer him… But I couldn’t make my body cooperate.

Devlin’s body shook against mine. Then a quiet sob. “I’ll tell you the truth. I’ll tell you anything you want.”

Another cold chill washed through me, one last moment of clarity cut through the fog. Like my brain needed to solve this puzzle before my body drained of blood. I forced my vocal chords to work one more time. “D-didn’t… You didn’t k-kill… father.”

A door slammed open somewhere above us. Voices grew louder. Footsteps rattled the floorboards above our heads. Devlin fingers squeezed mine tighter. Once. Twice. A rhythm that felt timed to the slow beat of my heart.

The footsteps moved farther away now. Devlin’s lips brushed the shell of my ear. “You promised, Cian. You fucking promised.”

Darkness began to take over my consciousness.

And in that tiny crawlspace, with my blood pooling on the cold concrete, I never got to tell Devlin that my promise had been revoked.

Devlin

I lost all sense of time and reality as I lay on top of Cian in the dark, trying to keep him warm. The smell of his blood hung thick and cloying in the air. Every breath rattled, and I feared the people above us would hear it. That they’d tear off the rug, rip open the floorboards, and finish the job.

I pressed my ear to his chest and listened to his heartbeat. I counted them, then counted the spaces between them. I listened as those spaces grew too long. I listened as his breathing grew more labored. I listened as my perfect man, my unstoppable lion king, suffered in my arms.

And there was nothing I could fucking do.

Cian’s phone was somewhere in the warehouse. I didn’t dare bring it with us, not when one noise could give away our hiding spot. I’d made a split-second decision to hide him because he’d been going into shock, bleeding too badly to flee. But now whoever shot him was in the warehouse, searching for us. Their footsteps still stomped overhead. I hadn’t gotten a good look at them before Cian had slammed the door shut—just a masked, hooded figure in the darkness with a gun.

Hours might’ve passed. Days. Entire lifetimes. I wondered if some archaeologist would find our bodies thousands of years from now, the two of us entwined in a grave of our own making. I cried in the darkness, my tears mingling with the blood slicking the concrete below us.

Voices shifted and changed. Footsteps walked, ran, then walked again. Cian’s heartbeat was undetectable now, or maybeI was losing my mind. I pressed my cheek to his lips, desperate to feel his breath.

“Please,” I whispered. “Please don’t die.” He had promised.

Promised. Promised. Promised.

Fuck, I was so weak. I didn’t want to be here without him. It’s not like I’d expected forever. I hadn’t even expected more than another month. But I wanted what he’d promised. I wanted blow jobs in the morning. I wanted the rasp of his razor against my skin as he shaved me. I wanted his fingers gripping my chin. And most of all, I wanted to feel the way I felt when Cian focused all of his attention and power on me.Claimedme. As toxic and fucked up as we were, he’d already given me more than I’d ever believed I could have.

“You told me you wanted to be my entire world,” I whispered. “And you are. Youare.”

Time continued to pass in a blur. Then finally, I heard a familiar voice. One that belonged to a man who had threatened me. Hated me. But he was loyal to Cian, and that was all that mattered.

“Rhys,” I croaked as I pulled myself away from Cian’s body. “Rhys!” I hollered through a sob. Then I punched the floorboards above me.

Light filtered through the cracks as the rug was ripped back. Hands tore at the floorboards, and I threw a hand over my eyes to shield them from the sudden brightness.

“Fuck!” Rhys roared.

A man yanked me out of the crawlspace and roughly tossed me aside. Then four more lifted Cian into the office. I couldn’t see Cian’s face, but as Rhys laid him on the floor, I watched as one of his tattooed hands flopped lifelessly to the side.

“I can’t feel a pulse!” someone shouted. “Jesus, there’s so much blood.”

And I broke. I broke into a million pieces.

I pressed a hand over my mouth and tasted Cian’s blood. Rhys was suddenly in my face, hauling me to my feet as he snarled, “Whathappened? What thefuckdid you do?”

My entire body shook as I looked into Rhys’s furious eyes. He was going to kill me. Right here, next to his best friend’s cooling body, he was going to kill me.