Page 111 of The Wrong Man

And I was not here to protect him.

The guilt threatens to swallow me whole, but I force it down. There will be time for self-recrimination later, after Dylan is safe. Right now, I need to be the monster. Cold, calculating, ruthless.

The man who makes people talk.

The man who always finds what he is looking for.

I will find Dylan. And God help anyone who stands in my way.

Chapter thirty-two

Dylan

The room Declan has locked me in is nice. That’s the worst part, somehow. If it were a dungeon or a basement or somewhere obviously terrible, I could hate it properly. But instead it is a guest bedroom in an expensive house, with cream colored walls and a plush carpet and a window that looks out onto a manicured garden.

A gilded cage is still a cage.

I have been here for what feels like days, though it is probably only hours. Time moves strangely when you are trapped. I learned that in Dante’s torture chamber, back at the beginning, when minutes stretched into eternities and I lost all sense of when or where I was.

This is different, though. Dante’s lair was terrifying, but there was a strange clarity to it. I knew what he wanted. I knew what the stakes were. Here, with Declan, I have no idea what is going to happen next. My brother has always been unpredictable, and unpredictable is far more frightening than methodical.

The door opens without warning. No knock, no announcement. Just Declan striding in like he owns the place, which I suppose he does.

“Comfortable?” he asks, and the sneer in his voice makes it clear he doesn’t actually care about the answer.

“What do you want, Declan?”

He throws himself into the armchair by the window, sprawling with the casual arrogance I remember from our childhood. He always took up space like that, making himself big, forcing everyone else to shrink around him.

“What do I want?” He laughs, but there is no humor in it. “What I want is for my life to stop falling apart. What I want is for people to stop betraying me at every turn. What I want is to find the bastard who stole my tiara and make them pay.”

I blink. “Someone stole the tiara? The one you stole in the first place?”

“It’s not stealing when you are taking what is rightfully yours.” Declan waves a hand dismissively. “The Ajellos had no claim to it. They were just middlemen, moving it from one buyer to another. I simply... intercepted.”

“And now someone has intercepted it from you.”

His face darkens. “Someone I trusted. Someone who was supposed to be watching my back. They vanished four days ago, and the tiara vanished with them.”

There is something almost satisfying about watching Declan’s world crumble. He has spent his entire life taking what he wants, stepping on anyone who gets in his way, and now it is all catching up to him. The tiara gone. The Italians hunting him. His own people turning against him.

“So why am I here?” I ask.

“So you keep your mouth shut. And for leverage.” Declan examines his fingernails as if we are discussing the weather. “The Ajellos want my head. But they might be willing to negotiate if I have something they want.”

My blood runs cold. “Why would they want me?”

He smirks. “Your Italian boyfriend would strike a deal to get you back.”

“He is not my boyfriend.”

The denial comes out automatically, a reflex born of years of hiding who I am. But Declan just laughs.

“Please. I saw your face when I mentioned him. You are practically gagging for it.” He leans forward, eyes glittering with malice. “Tell me, Dylan, what is it like? Spreading your legs for the man who tortured you? Does it make you feel special, being the monster’s pet?”

I want to hit him. Want to launch myself across the room and wipe that smirk off his face. But I stay where I am, hands clenched at my sides, refusing to give him the satisfaction.

“You don’t know anything.”