Devil's Riches: A Dark Captive Romance (Cruel Kingdom Book 2)

by Stella Hart

  Something was wrong.

  I got out of the car and strode up the driveway, mentally kicking myself for letting Alexis go into the Paxton mansion without me. I should’ve trusted my instincts the other day. Should’ve insisted that there was something strange about that phone call she had with Edward. It was too convenient. Too much of a one-eighty from his past behavior toward her.

  I passed her silver car at the end of the driveway. It was parked with all the others in a large space near a garden, off to the left. That confirmed she was still here on the estate… but where, exactly? What the hell was going on with her?

  When I reached the portico, I pressed on the doorbell several times, guts twisting with unease. A maid with curly black hair answered a moment later. “Hello, sir,” she said with a polite smile. “May I take your coat?”

  I shook my head. “I’m not here for the party. I’m just looking for Alexis.”

  The maid gave me a blank look. “Alexis?”

  “Alexis Livingston. She came here for dinner. Dark hair, blue eyes, red dress.”

  She smiled. “Oh, you mean Mr. Paxton’s granddaughter?”

  My shoulders immediately sagged with relief. I must have overreacted. Everything was fine inside. Alexis’s phone had simply lost service, or the battery had died and she hadn’t noticed yet.

  “Yes, her,” I said. “Could you please get her for me? I need to talk to her.”

  “Sorry, sir. I think she left earlier.”

  “That’s impossible. Her car is here.”

  The maid’s polite smile wavered. “Maybe I’m mistaken, then. Let me check with Mr. Paxton.”

  She gestured for me to step inside so I could wait in the foyer while she went to find out what was going on. I could hear sounds of merriment coming from somewhere else in the house—music, laughter, clinking glasses.

  Edward showed up in the foyer a moment later. “Nate! What a nice surprise,” he said, striding toward me. “What are you doing here?”

  I gritted my teeth and shook his hand. “Hi, Mr. Paxton. Sorry to barge in like this, but I really need to find Alexis.”

  His forehead creased. “Is everything all right?”

  I couldn’t let him know I was onto him, so I forced an amiable smile. “I’m fine, but one of her friends is having some sort of emergency with her cat,” I said. “She’s been trying to get hold of Alexis for the last couple of hours, because she’s upset, and she ended up calling me when she couldn’t get through to her. She isn’t answering my messages, either, so I thought I’d come here and let her know what’s going on.”

  “Well, that’s nice of you, but she isn’t here anymore. She and Sascha had a few too many drinks earlier.” He paused and leaned his head closer with a conspiratorial smile, as if we were close friends sharing an inside joke. “You know what young women can be like with their liquor. They have no idea how much they can handle.”

  “So where are they?”

  “They were feeling sick, so I arranged for my driver to take them home,” he said. “I’m going to get someone to take Alexis’s car back to her tomorrow.”

  I nodded slowly as I considered his words. Alexis could’ve been in the black car with her sister earlier. I just didn’t see her because of the tinted windows. The sickness story made sense, too. After all, I saw Sascha puking her guts up when she left the car for a moment by the gate.

  “They should be home by now,” Edward continued. “By the way, when you see Alexis, could you give this back to her?”

  He pulled her Fitbit watch out of his jacket pocket and handed it to me. “She accidentally left it here,” he said. “She took it off to show it to me earlier. I couldn’t believe it wasn’t a normal watch. Technology these days is amazing, isn’t it?”

  That explained why the Fitbit app said she was still in the house.

  “I’ll make sure she gets it back,” I said, slipping the watch into my pocket.

  “Thank you. And please tell her I hope she feels better soon,” Edward said, patting me on the shoulder.

  I forced another smile. “All right. I’ll head over to her apartment now.”

  “Actually, you might want to check her dorm. I think she told the driver she wanted to go there. Not the apartment.”

  “Right. Thanks.”

  I left the estate, got in my car, and sped to Blackthorne as fast as I could. Everything about Edward’s version of events seemed to make sense, but at the same time, something felt deeply wrong. I had no idea why Alexis would’ve chosen to go back to her dorm instead of my place, unless she was embarrassed about me seeing her drunk. But that didn’t make sense. I’d already seen her at her worst, and she knew that, so I couldn’t imagine her slinking off with humiliation over a bit of drunken vomit.

  The lights were off in her dorm when I arrived, and no one answered when I knocked. I fumbled in my wallet for the copy of her key I obtained weeks ago and slid it into the lock. The door swung open, revealing an empty room.

  Shit.

  I returned to my car and headed north to Avalon City, heart thudding painfully in my chest. There were only two valid explanations for Alexis’s absence at the dorms. The first was that she’d changed her mind about where she wanted to go and told Edward’s driver to take both her and Sascha to their shared apartment. The second was that Edward was lying about everything.

  I hoped the first one was correct, because if Edward was lying, then that meant Alexis was in serious trouble.

  It also meant I’d failed her. I told her I’d never let anything happen to her again, and now…

  Stop, I told myself. She’s probably with her sister right now, and she’s too drunk to realize her phone is dead. That’s all.

  I arrived at the apartment and thumped on the door. No one answered.

  I kept thumping.

  “For fuck’s sake,” I heard a weak voice say from the other side. “Hold on.”

  The door swung open a moment later, revealing Sascha in a purple chenille bathrobe. Her face was ashen, and an acrid scent hung about her. “Who are you?” she mumbled.

  “I’m Nate. I’m looking for Alexis. Is she here?”

  Sascha suddenly clamped a hand over her mouth and dashed back down the hall. I followed her into the bathroom and watched as she sank to her knees in front of the toilet.

  “Want me to get you something?” I asked as she heaved her guts up.

  “Water,” she croaked.

  I went into the kitchen, located the glasses, and filled one with cold water from the fridge. After that, I had a brief look around. Sascha’s purse, shoes, and cardigan were strewn on the living room floor, but there was no sign of Alexis anywhere. She wasn’t in her room, either.

  I headed back into the bathroom and handed the water to Sascha. She drank deeply and looked up at me. “Thanks. What were you saying before?”

  “I’m looking for Alexis.”

  “She’s not here.” She leaned forward and hurled into the toilet bowl again. Then she wiped her chin and looked back at me. “That fucking food,” she muttered. “As soon as I ate it, I knew there was something wrong.”

  I raised a brow. “You’re not drunk?”

  “No. I have food poisoning,” she said, shakily lifting herself to her feet. “I didn’t want to be rude to my grandfather, so I said it was probably gastro I caught from a friend, but I’m pretty sure his new chef fucked up my food. Probably touched it with dirty hands or something. Stupid fuck—”

  I lifted a palm to cut off her diatribe. “So Alexis didn’t come home with you?”

  Sascha shook her head. “No. I told her to stay at the dinner party because I felt so bad about leaving and ruining the night.” She winced and rubbed her stomach. “I made it out just in time to puke in a garden. It was so fucking gross.”

  I swallowed thickly as the cold reality of the situation set in. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  “Are you absolutely sure Alexis didn’t leave at the same time as you?” I asked Sascha. “Maybe she go
t in the car and you were too sick to notice?”

  A baleful expression crossed her face. “I got food poisoning, Nate. Not a lobotomy,” she said in an acid tone. “Trust me. She didn’t leave with me, and she’s not here. I think I’d know if she was.”

  With that, she got back down on her knees and started throwing up again.

  “Sorry, Sascha. I’d stay here and help you out, but I really need to find her,” I said. “I’ll get you some more water, and then I have to go.”

  “That’s fine,” she murmured, slumping against the bathroom wall. “When you find her, bring her back here. I don’t want to be alone.”

  I got her another glass of water and found a bottle of mouthwash on the vanity to leave by her side. Then I went back out to my car and slammed my hands on the hood. “Fuck!”

  This was all my fault. I shouldn’t have let Alexis or Sascha go into the Paxton mansion without me.

  Clearly, Edward knew exactly what Alexis was up to. He must’ve put something in Sascha’s food to make her sick and get her out of the way, and then he’d done something to Alexis.

  Something terrible, presumably.

  The thought of what might be happening to her at this very moment chilled me to the bone. I got back in my car and slumped in the front seat, hands curling into tight fists as panic and anger burst through me in torturous waves. You stupid piece of shit, my inner monologue whispered to me. They’ll kill her now, and it’s all because of you.

  Why the fuck did I let her go into that house tonight? How could I be stupid enough to believe that her grandfather wouldn’t have a clue that she was there to search for information that would link him to the Golden Circle? My mother literally warned me about it down in the bunker the other day—she said they had eyes and ears everywhere.

  Edward knew. Of course he fucking knew.

  He’d probably come after me next, but I didn’t give a shit about that. All I cared about was finding Alexis before it was too late. I had to. Fucking had to.

  I needed to pull her out of the darkness and keep her in the light forever. Needed one more chance to tell her the truth about my feelings instead of bottling it all up like I’d done over the last couple of weeks.

  It fucking killed me that I never told her I was sorry for everything I did to her. Not properly, anyway. A muttered apology in the front of my car didn’t count. She deserved better than that. She deserved the whole world on a silver platter, and even then it wouldn’t be enough to show her how sorry I was for all the shit I put her through and all the pain I inflicted upon her.

  I knew I didn’t deserve forgiveness, and I didn’t want it. I just wanted her to know how much I regretted everything. How much I cared about her now that I knew the truth about her, and how I was willing to do anything to make her happy, even if that meant staying away from her forever. I’d do it without argument if that was what she wanted, because I loved her so much that my own feelings and wishes didn’t matter.

  Yeah, I fucking loved her. I could finally admit it now. To myself, and to her.

  Too bad it took almost losing her to make me figure it out.

  Almost. That was the key word. I was close to losing Alexis, but it hadn’t happened yet. It didn’t have to happen, either. I’d found her once before, when Greg took her from me. I could do it again.

  I would do it again.

  I sat up straight, adrenaline flushing through my veins. I told Alexis I wouldn’t let anything happen to her, and I intended to keep that promise. Wherever she was, I would walk through fire to get there. Nothing could stop me. Not Edward, not his Golden Circle minions, not even the fucking Devil himself.

  “Hold on, baby,” I muttered, twisting my key in the ignition. “I’m coming.”

  18

  Alexis

  I awoke very slowly. My head felt like it had been split open with a hatchet, and my tongue felt dry and swollen. My vision was blurry, but when I instinctively tried to draw my hands to my face to rub my eyes, I realized they were restrained.

  Cold panic flooded over me. For a moment, I struggled against my bonds fiercely. Then I lay back, trying to get a grip on the situation. Panic and struggle wasn’t going to help me right now. I had to use my brain.

  Where was I?

  How did I get here?

  I closed my eyes, trying to force the foggy confusion out of my mind. I recalled having a hideous nightmare where I slowly became paralyzed at a dinner party. I’d tried my best to slide off my chair to reach help—to reach Nate—but I couldn’t move more than half an inch on the soft velvet seat. The whole time, there was an old man smiling at me as if my paralysis was a funny joke.

  As my mind gradually grew more alert, I realized that the horrible fragments weren’t evaporating from my mind like they usually did after I woke up. They weren’t from a nightmare at all. They were broken memories from something that really happened before I ended up here, strapped to a bed.

  Think harder.

  I took a deep breath and tried to recall my most recent clear memory. It was Nate’s face, drawn with concern. I’m still not sure about this, he’d said as he watched me get dressed up for a dinner party. A dinner party with my grandfather…

  My heart raced faster as the holes in my memories filled up, one by one.

  Edward had drugged me. He hadn’t told me why, but I had a feeling I already knew the answer to that question.

  He knew about my investigation into my father’s case and the Golden Circle. How he knew, I wasn’t sure, but it seemed obvious that he did. I couldn’t think of any other reason for him to knock me out with powerful sedatives and abduct me from a dinner party at his house.

  Another memory floated back to me; a much older one. A text from an unknown number, sent to me weeks ago. I’d forgotten all about it until now, because the morning after I received it, the copycat Butcher left two bodies in the Blackthorne quad. After that, middle-of-the-night texts from unknown senders were the last thing on my mind.

  An image of the message flashed in the front of my mind.

  Stop digging or there will be consequences.

  It had to be Edward. He’d known about my investigation all along. Probably had someone tailing me from the minute I returned to the island.

  When I caught a car following me around the mall and park in Avalon City several weeks ago, that was probably one of his minions too. At the time I assumed it was Nate, but when I spoke to Sascha about it, she’d suggested that it could be our grandparents keeping an eye on us.

  She was right. I should’ve listened to her.

  I forced myself to open my eyes and take stock of the situation. The fluorescent lights above my head and the pale blue walls surrounding me told me that I wasn’t trapped in some sort of dungeon. That ruled out the Blackthorne tunnels, or any of the other tunnels in the vast subterranean network that stretched beneath Avalon.

  I blinked, trying to clear the last of the haze from my eyes. I could see side rails on the white-sheeted bed I was in, and a metal IV stand stood on the left. A saline bag hung from it, and I groggily realized that it was connected to a drip tube in my left arm. On my right, an unused heart monitor and pressure cuffs sat on a table. Across the room was a sofa and a low coffee table with a nice floral arrangement sitting on it.

  I was in a hospital.

  Relief flooded me. I was safe. Then I remembered that my grandfather owned several hospitals, and I realized I wasn’t safe at all. Edward was hiding me here in plain sight. Probably told all the doctors and nurses that I was a criminal. That explained the cuffs.

  A doctor entered the room a moment later, dressed in a white coat over dark blue scrubs. She was middle-aged and had a kind face.

  “Help,” I croaked. My tongue still felt too thick to fit in my mouth, and my throat was parched. “I’m not supposed to be here. Edward Paxton—”

  She smiled faintly and shushed me. “Don’t try to talk right now, Ms. Livingston,” she said. “You’re too weak.”

 
; “But I need…”

  As the doctor leaned over me and attached a clip to my finger to check my pulse, I caught sight of an ID badge hanging from a lanyard around her neck.

  Dr. Selina Redstone

  Hepatologist

  BUTH

  My words dried up in my throat. This woman was a Redstone; a member of the Golden Circle. That meant I wouldn’t be getting any help from her.

  “Go back to sleep,” she said, patting me on the shoulder. “You need to rest while the sedative wears off.”

  With that, she left the room. I heard a faint beeping sound on the other side of the door, and I knew she’d locked me in. Even if I could remove the fabric cuffs around my wrists, I was trapped.

  At least I knew where I was now. Blackthorne University Teaching Hospital.

  I looked around the room again, trying to see if there was a way out that the doctors could’ve missed. There was a large window on the far left, but I could see fluorescent light seeping between the cracks in the white blinds, which told me it was just an internal window. Even if I managed to break through it, I’d still be inside the building.

  Usually, a hospital would be an ideal place to be stuck in during an emergency, but Blackthorne was different. It was the belly of the beast.

  I sighed and lay my head back on the pillow, heart thudding painfully as I wondered what Edward had in store for me. Presumably, it was death, but how? Would he draw it out or make it mercifully quick? Would anyone ever find my body, or would I go the same way as my father?

  An hour or so drifted by. I kept my eyes closed the whole time, letting my guilt and regret pour through me in cold, unforgiving waves.

  This was all my fault.

  Nate told me recently that he thought my biggest weakness was my refusal to be seen as needy or vulnerable, and he was right. I should’ve listened to him when he told me it could be dangerous to go to the Paxton mansion without him. Should’ve found some way to get him on the invite list so he could protect me.