Chapter 22 #2
“What?” I hiss.
“The Feds are here,” he mutters.
For a few seconds, I forget to breathe. The Feds here, on our property? If that’s true, we’re in deep shit.
One look at him, and I know it is.
“What kind of a warrant do they have?” I ask, my voice level, trying not to reveal my panic.
“Nothing yet. They just want to talk.”
I exhale. That’s something. Though I can’t kid myself any longer. Interrogations will lead to search warrants, and that will lead to arrest.
The Feds like to attack when you least expect it.
Drag it out, make you feel safe. Then, when you no longer see them as an imminent threat, they’ll pounce on you, force you out of bed, handcuff you, lead you to prison as the paparazzi snap photos and the world pronounces itself on your downfall, before you’ve even been charged with anything.
When the Feds are on your tail, it rarely ends well.
“They want to talk to all of us?” I ask guardedly.
“Not all of us. Not Logan.”
Yes, that tracks. He’s never been involved in the front-facing stuff. We keep him working behind the scenes. He’s racked up a lot of enemies with his shit-eating smirks and his jokes.
It’s a good thing one of us is staying behind to hold the fort, at least.
“Damien,” says Vale.
“Huh?” I blink, startled from my thoughts.
“Now’s not the time to daydream. They made it very clear they expect us to comply, right away. Otherwise, they told me, they’re coming back with an arrest warrant and handcuffs.”
Fuck.
That word brings to my mind another type of handcuffs, a furry variety currently shackled around my girl’s wrists and ankles. And this Feds business is definitely not going to take only an hour or two.
But I don’t have time to go back. Vale is already pressing on my upper back, pushing me down the hallway.
The elevator doors open onto Logan. He looks at us with concern.
“Are we fucked?” he asks.
I make a sign for him to be quiet. With the Feds on us, we’re probably bugged. We’re going to have to be very careful until we can get Vincent on it. He’s a whiz at hacking into those kinds of systems and scrambling the signals.
Thoughts of my girl, handcuffed helplessly to the bed, crowd out the imminent danger.
The solution to that situation is not ideal, especially because I have a feeling my pet won’t be thrilled about it, but I don’t have a choice.
Still, it takes me a while to accept it.
Before I do, I run all the other scenarios in my head.
Lucy? It might be easier for my pet if a woman saw her in that vulnerable position, but I don’t fully trust Lucy. It’s the first time I realize that.
Everest? No, he wouldn’t understand. He’d be pissed off, and besides, the Feds want to talk to him too.
Vincent? Absolutely not. He’s just a kid, and some sort of protective instinct flares up in me. I won’t allow him to see such depravity. Witnessing murders and torture is more than enough.
I don’t even think of Vale and Igor, for obvious reasons.
That leaves Logan. I know she hates him, but he’s the only one I can trust. He’ll probably taunt me over this for the rest of my life, but I don’t think he’d make fun of her. He wouldn’t be so cruel.
Anyway, if he did, she would absolutely destroy him with those violet eyes of hers. I’ve never seen anyone who hates being made fun of as much as her. It always makes me chuckle when I think of it. Even now, with this annoying predicament staring me in the face.
I don’t want anyone to see her naked. Especially not like this, in such an obscene position. But it looks like I have no choice.
Goddamnit. Why didn’t I go untie her right away? But Vale’s words were such a shock that before they’d even had time to register, I was already being pushed along the hallway.
Maybe I could quickly run back… No. They’re waiting. And Vale’s eyes are boring into me, as usual.
The only thing to do is hope they won’t keep us too long. Just an hour or two. Maybe three. They can only keep us twenty-four hours, anyway, without charging us with a crime.
What if they charge us…?
Even if they don’t, twenty-four hours is far too long to be handcuffed to a bed.
For once, I think of her comfort before my pride, even though I know she won’t see it that way.
But she’ll get over it. She’s gotten over everything I’ve forced her to endure before.
The cell, the loneliness, the broken promise of dinner together…
I’ve noticed an unsettling pattern, though. She seems to be getting over things with more difficulty, lately. The better I treat her, the less capable she is of handling the little things that upset her.
Oh, well. She’ll have to get over it. Maybe this will remind her that I own her. She’s mine to do with as I please. She’s been lucky lately, but that luck can change with a snap of my fingers, and she wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it.
Still, it’s with more than just a pang of compunction that I fumble in my pocket and take out a small key. I toss it to Logan.
“I want you to use this in… five hours, if I’m not back,” I say. Five hours seems like a pretty good number. I’ll probably be back before then, and it won’t be long enough for her to break down. I hope.
Logan stares at the key, a confused expression on his face.
I grit my teeth, aware that Vale is watching us as we walk out of the elevator and toward the entrance of the building, where the Feds are waiting.
“In five hours,” I mutter, “go check on the pet.”
I’ve never known him to be so slow. He’s still staring at the key, probably wondering what it belongs to.
It’s not the key to her apartment door. Each of us Devils has a copy, though I’ve warned them all never to use it without my express permission, and it’s a somewhat bulky metal object that looks nothing like the tiny thing I’ve just handed him.
“Keep your eyes closed,” I warn, and the confused expression dissipates, replaced by a typical Logan smirk.
“Also, fuck you,” I conclude. I hear him chuckle as he presses the elevator button again, while the rest of us walk toward the army of waiting Feds.