Page 6 of The King's Pawn
He huffed, vanished into the kitchen, then returned with a roll of tape.
“Oh, fuck no. Wait.” I backed away, but he was coming like a goddammed freight train. I tried to turn, stumbled against the couch, and then he was on me, pinning me down. “Fuck, don’t… I won’t say anything.” He hovered a strip of tape over my mouth. “I won’t, please.”
With a sigh, he eased off and let me up.
I stayed on the couch, feeling vulnerable and confused, hot and cold at once, coming down from my earlier binge and the rapidly receding rush of adrenaline he’d spiked almost killing me in the woods. “You don’t need to tie me up?—”
His glare cut me off. Right. Silence. I could do silence.
He went to work shoving the mismatched furniture to the sides of the room, then tied a new length of rope to the loops around my wrist. He tied that off around a big floor-to-ceiling post. I had enough rope around the post to maneuver but couldn’t leave the room or reach a window. What about myneeds? The moment I thought it, he brought over a bucket.
I arched an eyebrow. “Really?”
He pointed at me. “If you escape, I’m fucked.” He pointed at the bucket. “So you will piss in that until I figure out what to do with you.”
“Just let me go. I’ll go north, to Canada. Tell him I’m dead. Nobody will ever know.”
Seemed like an easier solution than whatever this was. But Killian’s dry glare made it clear that wasn’t an option.
He couldn’t keep me in a cabin in the woods forever, and if he didn’t let me go, then he was going to have to confront my father. But whatever, while he figured that out, I’d sit tight, seeing as I didn’t have a choice. And I was still alive.
He’d left the couch in my circle, so I sat and wondered how the fuck this had happened. He’d said I’d slept with a Southies girl and told them about the warehouse deal. Whoever had told my father those lies must have been trusted for him to believe it. Or maybe my father really had just wanted me gone.
“I didn’t do it, you know,” I called.
Killian was slamming cupboards in the kitchen, out of my line of sight.
“Doesn’t matter. He believes you did.” He sauntered back with a jug of water and a box of cereal and stood by the couch, not knowing where to put either. He puffed again and looked at me as though I were a different problem now. Not one to snuff out and be done with, but a problem that needed to be put right.
He put the jug and cereal on the floor.
“Thanks,” I said, sensing he might be having a thoughtful moment in that hard head of his.
“Cereal is all that’s here. I’ll bring more supplies…”
Look at him, getting all domestic. Who knew. “I meant for not killing me, but the cereal is good too.”
His eyes narrowed. “I still might kill you.”
No, he wouldn’t. Or he would have already. I smiled, and he glowered. But whatever he needed to tell himself to make peace with the fact hehadn’tkilled me was fine by me. The cabin wasn’t so bad. I’d passed out in worse places. A few days here, then he’d let me go. He’d have to.
“Now what?” I asked.
“Now I tell your father you’re dead.”
CHAPTER
THREE
Killian
The snowfall had eased by the time I drove back into Boston around 5 a.m. I’d sent a text to Noah’s father with the simple words:it’s done. But that wouldn’t suffice. Not when it came to killing his only child.
I pulled up outside the huge brownstone and rung the bell. The housekeeper let me in. The house was classy-old, made of deep colors, high ceilings, and too many stairs. I found Val King in the breakfast room, sitting in his dressing gown by the window, reading a newspaper with a steaming black coffee in front of him, like his father had done in this house every morning, and his father before him. The Kings went as deep in Back Bay as the reclaimed land all these grand houses were built on.
Valentine King was in his late sixties. He’d had Noah in his later years, probably realizing he needed an heir. What he’d gotten instead was in impetuous wildcard who everyone had told him would settle down eventually, but never did.
And was now—if I were to be believed—dead.