Page 5 of The King's Pawn

He reached in. I ducked away and kicked out, catching his thigh. He grabbed my leg and yanked me off the seat and out of the door. The back of my head hit the doorframe, then he dumped my ass in the snow. I writhed, but his big hands grabbed both my wrists, pinching them together in front of me. “Hey!”

More times than I cared to count, he’d slung me over his shoulder, dragging me out of a fight, or that one time whenI’d gotten so drunk, he’d had to carry me home. Not my best moments. He’d seen them all.

He dropped me on my feet and hauled me along behind him, still holding my wrists trapped in his large, rough hand.

“Is this your cabin?” I asked, stumbling up the icy steps behind him and onto a porch.

He elbowed the window glass, shattering it, reached inside, and unlatched the door.

“Not yours, then,” I muttered.

Inside, the air wascolder, if that was even possible. With a flick of a switch, the lights came on, so the murder cabin had electricity, but its small interior was basic, with décor left over from the nineties, complete with a tired leather couch and fluffy stained rug. Killian left me standing in the middle of the living room while he rattled through drawers in the kitchen to my right.

He returned with a length of thick rope.

“Wait, that’s—” He grabbed my right wrist, then my left, and slung the rope around them.

“Asshole.” I yanked and managed to slip free from the rope.

He grabbed my arm, fingers digging in. I didn’t think, just swung my left hand, open, and slapped his face so damn hard a fire blazed up my arm.

Killian paused, shocked for a heartbeat, then smacked my cheek. I reeled, gasping, more alarmed that he’d hit me than from pain.

“You hit first,” he said, like it mattered.

By the time I’d found my balance, the rope was firmly around my wrists. “You can’t do this.”

“Fine, then I’ll kill you.”

I bared my teeth at him. Almost dared him to but swallowed that remark before it could bite me in the ass. He waited for it too. Waited for the excuse to finish what he’d brought me outhere to do. “What are you going to do? You can’t leave me here. Just take me back. Let me talk to my father, let me explain. He’ll have to listen.”

“Stop talking or I’ll tape your mouth.” He stepped back and studied me as though I was some kind of puzzle he needed to figure out.

“Wow. So what are you going to do, huh? Leave me here, like this?” Wait, that wasexactlywhat he was going to do. He was trying to cover all his bases. Which meant tying me up so I didn’t get picked up on the road, trying to escape. “This is a terrible idea. You realize that? Whose cabin even is this? You can’t leave me here. I have needs.”

“Stop talking.” He stepped back and rubbed his face. “Let me think.”

“Oh, you do that? Think for yourself? I thought my father did all the thinking for you.”

“I will tape your fucking mouth, kid.”

“I’m not a kid, old man. What are you, fifty?” I snorted.

“I’m thirty-five.”

Just over ten years older than me. “Ah, sorry, man. Those years have not been kind.” I stumbled back as he huffed and grunted through his decision to keep me here.

In fact, those years had honed Killian Donovan into a man in his prime. He had one of those naturally big bodies that made having muscles seem easy. He worked out when he wasn’t babysitting me. I knew because I’d interrupted one of those gym sessions once when I’d needed a ride home, and I’d watched him lift weights from the sidelines. With muscles like his, it wasn’t any wonder he could bench-press me. That gym session had given me enough late-night fuel to jerk off for a few months, until he’d told my father how he’d caught me scoring some coke.

Asshole.

It was a shame he was up my father’s ass, when I’d fantasized about having him up mine. But I wasn’t thinking about that, since he’d almost executed me. And had now decided on kidnapping instead.

“This is only going to get worse for us,” I said, glancing idly around the shitty cabin.

“Do you want me to kill you? Because that’s option one. This is option two.”

“Why didn’t you?” I asked, fixing him in my sights. “Kill me?”