Page 31 of Obey

I hated it... and I knew I didn’t have a choice. Frank said Saraya and Sioux had a plan, and I had to let that be good enough, for now. I had to trust that Saraya knew what she was doing and that she’d get herself free.

And I had to be ready to jump into action the moment she needed me.

Jump too soon and I’d launch right into the fire, and take everyone I loved with me. And I wasn’t willing to sacrifice anyone else if I didn’t have to. I’d already lost Tink and Brock to that man.

So sure, I’d let Saraya carry out her plan. I’d wait for the text from Sioux telling Frank that we could roll, and then I’d break land speed records getting to my girl. I’d get her safe, get her home, and have my night with her. Then I’d leave her here with my men, where she’d be safe.

And I’d go after Devil myself.

Because as far as I was concerned, he was already a dead man walking. It was just a matter of time until it became official. And when it did, I wanted to be the man responsible for it.

CHAPTER 14

SARAYA

MY HANDS WERE SHAKING, and it was making it really, really hard to pour the drinks.

I gulped, told myself firmly to get control over my emotions, and fought to pour the drink without getting the wine all over the desk underneath.

I mean, not that Devil would have noticed. I could have poured the whole fucking bottle on the floor and he would have thought it was hilarious—if he’d even managed to catch me doing it. The man had downed at least two bottles of wine all by himself at this point, and he was beyond drunk.

Thank goodness.

I hadn’t had more than the few sips it took to convince him that I was going to drink with him, and had been nursing the same glass of wine all night—though I’d insisted on being the one to pour the drinks, and every time I came to the desk, I brought my own glass with me. That way he thought I was filling up again. He’d somehow missed the fact that the level of wine in my glass never actually dropped, but I wasn’t going to question that too much.

I guessed it was sort of hard to notice things like someone else’s wine glass when you were so drunk you could barely stand up.

I had definitely been giving him heavy pours and encouraging him to drink as much as he could hold. He’d never been good at wine, which had always gone to his head quickly.

I was hoping he’d had enough to put his head completely out of commission—as in, blacking out—but so far, no luck. Still, even if he was conscious, it would be a whole lot easier to stab him if he was too drunk to move quickly. But only if I was stone-cold sober at the time.

Once I started this, I wasn’t going to be able to afford missing.

When I walked back to him with another full glass, though, I noticed him taking barely a sip before putting it down. I tried not to narrow my eyes at him—or insist that he drink more—and looked at his face instead, trying to figure out what he was playing at. Devil was not a man to take dainty sips, even when the wine was really good. He was the sort of guy who gulped anything that had alcohol in it. Hell, he’d been gulping all night, and I’d thought we were well on our way to blackout level.

So why was he suddenly acting like some sort of wine connoisseur who held a small sip of wine in his mouth to fully appreciate the notes of oak, blackberry, and whatever else might have gone into it? Why was he acting like we suddenly didn’t have enough wine to go around?

He saw me looking and gave me a sloppy but sly grin. “Don’t want to be too drunk,” he said. “Playing the way we’re about to play is dangerous, you know.”

Well, shit. At least he was still slurring his words, which meant he was a whole lot drunker than I was.

I guessed I was going to have to hope that was enough.

“Good point,” I said, taking the excuse he was offering and setting my wine to the side. “We wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt.”

“Any more than they’re already going to be,” he noted quietly.

My heart stopped at the quiet line and I froze for a moment, my hand still reaching out to set my wine glass down. I’d been feeling pretty confident up to this point as I watched him down glass after glass of wine, but with one sentence he had me covered in goosebumps. Frozen with worry.

Terrified.

And in that moment, what had sounded like a really good plan once again started to sound really, really stupid. Sure, we’d played with knives before. It was like role-playing, only more intense. The difference was, we’d done it when we first got together. At the time, everything had been fresh and new and, if not romantic, at least incredibly hot.

It was before he’d started to think I was cheating on him.

Before he’d started trying to kill me—and thinking it was perfectly okay to hurt me as much as he wanted to, as long as I didn’t die in the process.

Things were a whole lot different now than they had been on that first night, years ago.