Edge (Parker Reed #2)

  My palms became sweaty, a tingle of iced cold fear gripping at my spine. “Devin.” My voice was small, weaker than what I would have liked at the moment. Memories of Devin holding me captive time and time again forced their way into my mind.

  He moved around his desk and grabbed some ice from a bucket. Placing them into a handkerchief, he handed me the wad.

  I tentatively took it from him and placed it against my lip. The ice soothed the pain but Devin being nice to me confused the hell out of me even more. “What do you want, Devin?”

  He slumped into the large leather office chair and rubbed the dark scruff on his angular jaw. “Why do you think that I want something?”

  “You’ve threatened me. Killed Patrick. Demanded that I come here alone and you’re being nice to me.”

  “I do want something from you but that’s not the reason I’m being nice.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out two small black velvet boxes. When he opened them, he placed them on the desk and turned them towards me.

  My gaze landed on a gold band shining up at me from the one box and two cufflinks that had P.R. engraved on them in the other box. “What…what is this?”

  “Your dad’s wedding ring and Parker’s cufflinks. If you do as I say, the next time you see both of them,” he snapped the boxes closed and placed them back in his jacket pocket, “the ring will be on your dad’s finger and the cufflinks on Parker’s shirt. If you don’t do as I tell you, I will send you every single piece of them until they are no more.”

  Tears burned my eyes. “Parker…he’s at home. You…you’re lying.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Am I?” He pulled the phone from the receiver and pressed a button. “Put him on the phone.” He pressed another button and waited.

  “Fuck you, you bastard. When I get out of here, I swear I will kill—”

  Devin pressed a button again, cutting off the voice.

  Never in my whole life, even after everything with Devin, would I think that things would get worse. Even lying in Devin’s bed after he had taken me and made use of my broken and beaten body, I still thought that things couldn’t get worse. I was wrong. Hearing Parker’s voice did something to me. A piece of me deep inside of myself snapped. It was that part that had hung on, that had latched onto Parker the first moment I had met him. That part that kept me sane. I embraced it and allowed it to grow into the darkness that had been there since the first time Devin had raped me.

  “Show me my dad,” I demanded, keeping a firm grip on the arms of the chair that I was sitting in.

  “And why would I do that?”

  Tears burned my eyes and I glanced down at my hands in my lap, playing the part of the helpless victim. The timid female who needed the help of a man. If only Devin knew but he didn’t. Not yet. Not until I allowed him to.

  “If you want to see Parker again, you will do—”

  “No!” I snapped. “I know there’s always something more with you. Show me. Please. God, if you ever loved me, you’d do this for me.”

  His eyes sparkled before he leaned forward. He steepled his fingers, brushing the tips along his chin. “You are the only one that can talk to me that way and get away with it.”

  “I’ve never gotten away with it,” I mumbled.

  “I let you live, didn’t I?”

  A laugh escaped my lips. It was cold and maniacal. My palms twitched, itching with the need to beat the shit out of the man sitting across from me. “You’ve gotten cockier.”

  He barked a laugh. “And you’ve grown some balls.”

  “I’ve had some help.”

  Devin’s brows narrowed in the center. “I bet you have. Parker’s unconventional ways satisfying to you? You like being treated like a slave?”

  My jaw clenched, remembering what he had already seen. “You don’t know shit about my life and what Parker and I do.”

  “So tell me, Keely. Do you like to fly?”

  S SOON as I stepped into Devin’s office, I felt like I had lost a part of myself. Every time I was with him, my sanity dwindled, bringing me to a place that scared me. I could feel the thick billowy darkness threatening to consume me. Eventually, if I wasn’t careful, it would take over my very existence.

  “Did you and your sick perverted ways get off on seeing Parker fuck me?” I asked, crossing my leg over the other. I wouldn’t let Devin win. I had enough of giving into him. I wouldn’t allow it anymore. Not this time.

  Devin smirked, tapping his fingers against the desk. “Is that all you can do?”

  “You know.” I sat forward, making sure to push out my chest. “I bet all of this time, you’ve had a crush on Parker. That’s why you’re so pissed.”

  A heavy fist slammed against the wooden top. “I will not have you come in here—”

  “What, Devin? There is nothing that you can do or say that will make it all better. You killed Patrick. You have my dad and now Parker.” I shrugged. “There’s no point in playing nice anymore when I know you’re not going to let me out of here anyways.”

  He rose to his feet, pacing back and forth a couple of times before stopping in front of a large mirror. “There was a time that I loved you. But now,” he glanced back at me, his eyes darkening. “I would call it obsession.”

  I swallowed hard, waiting.

  “I should have treated you better, Keely. But I also shouldn’t have let you go.”

  “Troy is the one that helped me leave. He—”

  “He gave you the idea to set me up.” He grinned. “I already know that.”

  “How?” I asked, frowning.

  He winked and flipped a switch on the wall beside the mirror.

  Suddenly, Parker appeared before me. He was in a room, tied to a chair, a gag in his mouth and that was when I saw it. Blood.

  “What did you do to him?” I screamed, shoving to my feet and ran to the window. “Parker.” I banged on the window. “Let him go,” I begged.

  Devin grabbed me around the waist and pressed a button on the wall. “Tell Keely what you did, you bastard. Tell her!”

  A large man walked up to him and pulled the gag from his mouth. Parker licked his swollen bloody lip and spit at the guy’s feet. His fist landed against Parker’s face, knocking his head to the side.

  “That’s all you fucking got?” Parker coughed between deep raspy chuckles.

  “Tell her,” Devin demanded, talking into the speaker against the wall. He kept his arm around me, holding me tight against him.

  “She knows everything.” Parker coughed again.

  “Does she? Tell her how you told me that Troy helped her get away. That he saved her. Or how about when he convinced her to set me up so my ass would get thrown in jail. Tell her!”

  “Fuck. Fine. Keely, I overheard Troy talking to you. It was so many years ago. I never saw you. I never knew that it was you.”

  Tears burned my eyes and I shook my head. “I don’t care. I don’t. Devin, it doesn’t matter. Please, stop this.” It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way.

  Devin ignored me and pressed the speaker button again. “Who told me that I was set up, Parker?”

  Parker’s shoulders slumped. “I did.”

  My heart sunk to the soles of my feet. “But he didn’t know that it was me.”

  “No. He didn’t but I put it all together. Who wanted revenge against me the most? You did, Keely. You act all innocent.” Devin pushed me backwards. “You think you’re such a victim in all of this but really, you want me dead just as much as I want control. Just as much as I want pure and ultimate power.”

  “That’s not true.” I pushed against him but his hold on me only tightened. “Please.” I met Parker’s gaze through the one-way window. Although he couldn’t see me, I could feel his stare boring into me. His lips moved. He was saying something but I couldn’t hear him. His lips continued to move, speaking to me.

  My eyes widened briefly before I turned back to Devin, keeping a straight face. “Tell me what you want.”
br />   He smiled. “That’s my girl.” He nodded towards two men that came into the room. “Strap her to the chair at the table and do the same to her arms. I’ll untie her when I need her hands free for what I have in store for her.”

  “No,” I yelled. “Please.”

  The men grabbed me by the arms, forcing me into a chair at the head of a large table. They bound my ankles to the feet of the chair with rope and did the same to my middle and arms.

  Devin grinned, and placed a laptop on the table in front of me. “How’s the rope? Too tight? Does it turn you on?”

  “Fuck you.”

  He grabbed my jaw, digging his fingers into my cheeks. “We did that already. You weren’t a fan, remember?”

  “That’s because you raped me,” I bit out.

  “Not always, princess.” He kissed me hard on the mouth, biting my split lip.

  I cried out at the sharp pain, trying to shove out of his rough grip.

  He chuckled. “I wish I could have loved you more.”

  “I wish you would have left me alone.”

  Devin released my face and pulled up a chair beside me. “You know what I need, right?” he asked, trailing a finger up the length of my arm.

  “I can’t.”

  He nodded once. “Look at the show displayed just for you, princess.” He cupped my jaw, forcing me to look at the one-way mirror again. This time two men were seated in the small concrete space. Both were strapped to the chair. And both were gagged, bloody, and beaten.

  My gaze slid between the two of them. “Daddy,” I whispered.

  “That’s right, Keely. Daddy and Parker. Two of the men that you love. I should have grabbed Troy. That would have made things way more interesting.”

  “Please.”

  He grabbed my head, forcing it back and stared intently into my eyes. “I don’t give in to begging.” His lips brushed down the length of my jaw to my ear. “Pet.”

  Chewing my bottom lip, I took deep breaths.

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me that you wanted to be treated like an animal? I could have put a collar on you, made you eat out of a dog bowl. We could have had so much fun.” His fingers wrapped around my throat, tilting my head back. “Look at the beautiful image before you, Keely. Your father and your boyfriend. What would you do if you had to choose between them?”

  My eyes widened. “No.” I swallowed hard. “You wouldn’t.”

  “I would,” he growled in my ear. “Look at them. Would you choose your dad, who left you so many years ago? Or would you choose your boyfriend? The one who lied to you and kept so many secrets from you?”

  “Parker had no choice and I thought my dad was dead.”

  “And he never tried to contact you,” he said in a sing-song voice.

  “That’s because you had him, you bastard!” I yelled.

  “Watch the attitude, princess.” He tugged my head back further. “And watch the show.”

  I went to ask what he meant when two larger men moved in front of Parker and my dad.

  “Now,” Devin ordered.

  The men simultaneously lifted their right hands, clenched them into fists and landed them against Parker’s and my father’s faces in a hard blow.

  “Again.”

  They repeated their movements every time Devin gave the command.

  “Stop! Please. Stop.” I fought against my binds, the ropes digging into my skin. “Please. Stop,” I screamed.

  The men gave two more hits before Devin gave the order. “Enough.” He leaned down to my ear. “Now, Keely. You see the computer before you?”

  Tears blurred my vision but I nodded.

  “Good girl. I want you to hack into the FBI headquarters and erase every file on me.”

  My eyes widened. “What! I can’t do that.”

  “Again!” he shouted.

  “No!” I watched as the Parker and my dad got punched over and over. In their faces, their stomachs. Bile rose to my throat, threatening to spew everywhere. “Please,” I begged, tears streaming down my cheeks.

  “Are you ready to comply?” Devin asked, gripping my throat.

  “I…I don’t know what you want from us,” I cried, struggling against my restraints.

  “I told you. Erase everything. Make it so I don’t exist. I know you can do it. I’ve seen you at work. Or did you forget everything? Are you a bit rusty?”

  The men continued to beat Parker and my father, over and over again.

  “Fine. Stop! Please, God, stop. I’ll do it. Whatever you want,” I sobbed. “Just stop.”

  “Good girl. Enough!” he shouted. “You made the right choice, Keely.” He unbound my wrists and pulled the laptop closer to me. “Now, do your magic.”

  Wiping the tears from under my eyes, I took a couple deep breaths.

  “Oh and Keely? After that, I want you to place five million dollars into this account.” He placed a piece of paper with a long set of numbers written on it beside the computer.

  “How do you expect me to do that?” He was delusional. There was no way that I could get him that kind of money when I had no idea how much time I had.

  “Use your imagination. Hack into every bank in this fucking world if you have to, but I expect that money to be placed into that account in…” He looked at his watch. “You have twenty minutes.”

  “Devin, you can’t be serious. You expect me to send that kind of money to some offshore account in the middle of God knows where?”

  He pushed me forward, placing my hands on the keyboard. “If I have to bind you to this table until you agree, I will. I will watch you tremble. I will listen to you scream until you give me what I want. Do you want Parker and your father to die? Is that what you really want, Keely?”

  And there he was. The real Devin that I knew. He had always battled with the darkness inside of himself but unlike normal people, he let the darkness win out. “I just want my family. I want…” I let out a sob. “I want this over.”

  “Then do as you’re fucking told,” he snarled in my ear.

  I bristled and inhaled a deep shaky breath. “Fine. Just please…please leave them alone.”

  “Hurry up, princess. Time is money.” He laughed at his joke and walked up to the one-way window. “All of this, just because of you. If you would have stayed with me, none of this would have happened in the first place.”

  Brushing my fingers over the keyboard, I gave in. I let the image of Parker and my dad, bound and gagged, guide me to do what Devin wanted. To give him what he thought he needed. He needed help. But who was I to make that call?

  “You can’t use me leaving as an excuse for everything that you’ve done,” I told him, clicking key after key.

  He poured a dark liquid into a glass tumbler, eyeing me over the rim of the cup. “Tell me the real reason that you left.”

  My fingers paused on the keyboard and I glanced down at the rope binding me to the chair. “Really? You’re asking me why I left? Look at me. Look at what you’ve done to get your own way. You don’t care about anyone but yourself. You’re a cold, sadistic bastard who rips through anyone and anything to get your own way.”

  He grinned. “You know me so well. Now, get to work.”

  I cursed under my breath and went back to the task at hand. Hacking. A cursed skill. And how the hell was I supposed to transfer all of that money?

  “Fight.”

  Remembering the one word that Parker had mouthed over and over to me made a small smile spread on my face. Alright. I got this. Screen after screen came up. Employee records. Evidence files. Staff. Convicted felons. Bingo.

  Glancing at Devin, I made sure he was occupied before I quickly did what I had set out to do. When he forced me into this seat, I had no idea what he had wanted. But knowing I would be able to do it quickly, I was kind of surprised that Devin did give me a more difficult challenge.

  Clicking the keys, I bit back a smirk as I transferred Devin’s records to my own personal laptop. Like I had said before. No one
ever truly disappears.

  Once that was done, I had worked the system into thinking that Devin was never a convict. He was now a good boy. And a loyal citizen of the United States of America. Unless you hacked into my computer, of course.

  “You are now non-existent,” I lied.

  Devin raised an eyebrow and walked up to me. He glanced at the screen before turning to me. “How many copies did you make before you deleted the files?”

  “I didn’t make any copies,” I said, keeping a straight face.

  “Transfer the money,” he barked and walked back to the one-way window.

  Hacking into bank after bank, I transferred smaller funds into the account number Devin had given me. But not before I sent the account number to Colin.

  I was under no instruction by him or Jones or even Parker for that matter. I had lost all contact with them once I stepped foot into the hotel lobby. Parker clearly had been detained by Devin’s men and now here we were. The plan was changing and I had to think fast. I just prayed that my gut intuition won out.

  A light knock sounded on the door, startling me out of my thoughts.

  “Come in,” Devin snapped.

  The door opened, revealing a young woman dressed in housekeeping attire. She placed a tray of silver dishes with lids on top of the table. Her dark hair was pulled back into a tight bun, no hair out of place. Her gaze met mine. She gave me a small smile.

  Liz.

  Liz Varon, Parker’s receptionist I had met so many months before, winked at me. Someone followed in behind her and that was when I saw Aidan Match. What the hell was going on? He didn’t acknowledge me as he stood by the door, crossing his arms under his chest.

  The last time I saw the both of them was at Parker’s funeral. Did they know that he was alive? Confusion coursed through me but I kept my composure.

  Liz left the room, quietly shutting the door behind her but Aidan stayed put against the wall. That’s when I noticed the gun sticking out of the holster in his hip. Maybe he was working with Devin. After all this time. Wouldn’t surprise me anymore. I had no idea what was going on.

  “Keely, where’s my money?” Devin asked, waving his phone. “I don’t see it in the account yet.”