Chapter 14
Piper
“You were going to save her,” realizes Logan in apparent disbelief.
And I’m feeling just as taken aback as he is.
“Of course I was. Who did you take me for?”
Logan sags onto the couch at the other end of the room, letting his head fall into his hands. “I took you for the guy who repeatedly told me that we had to kill her. I took you at your word.”
Damien crosses the room and looks at him with a shadow of suspicion. “And you’d have gone along with me?”
Logan averts his gaze, staring back at me while I wait with bated breath. “You know I always go along with you. I’ve been loyal since first grade. I’d take a fucking bullet for you, Damien.”
“I know you would,” mutters Damien. “But you wouldn’t let her take one. Would you?”
I try to follow along, feeling more confused than ever. Why the hell wouldn’t Logan let me die? Who the hell am I to him?”
Logan stares back at his friend, clearly deciding it’s no use to pretend anymore. “So, what does that mean?” he says bitterly. “This whole time, you’ve been testing me?”
“No, not exactly.” Damien sighs. “She does need to die.”
I don’t know how Logan can possibly look as crestfallen as I feel, but he does.
“Still, expecting you to remain loyal when I’m planning on killing Piper is asking a whole lot of you,” adds Damien.
“Especially with the way you supported me when I wanted to keep Seraphina safe. There was no reason to believe Seraphina wasn’t guilty of taking the nanochip, but you went along with me even though I was putting all of Devil in jeopardy. ”
“Right,” says Logan, his disappointment partially giving way to discomfort.
“So you told Piper,” concludes Damien.
“Told Piper what?”
Damien hisses in frustration. “You told her who she is. You told her she’s Lia’s daughter.”
I arch forward, my heart beating wildly in my chest.
What the fuck?
Lia’s daughter? What are they talking about? I’m Laura’s daughter. Laura Day. They’ve got it all wrong.
The next moment, I’m sagging backward, laughing weakly.
Yes, that’s what it is. They’re wrong. This is a case of mistaken identity or something.
This whole time, I’ve been in danger because Devil thinks I’m someone else.
I was fucking beaten up and nearly raped because they thought I was someone else.
But then… why were my parents killed?
I’m back to feeling lost as Damien glances at me. He freezes, a mirror of Logan who hasn’t moved ever since Damien said those words.
“Actually, I didn’t tell her a thing,” snaps Logan. “But you just did.”
I guess my face must convince Damien of that, because his usual neutral expression slips, and he sits down suddenly on the couch beside Logan, still staring at me.
Logan is also watching me, and through my haze—in equal parts due to my vision and my confusion—I sense that his mind is working fast.
“You said you were going to save her,” he begins.
“No, not save her,” interrupts Damien. “I was trying to save her. I didn’t make any promises.”
“You were trying to,” concedes Logan. “But then you said she had to die because she knew. Except she didn’t, Damien. She didn’t. You fucked up. If you kill her now, you’ll be punishing her for your fuck-up.”
Damien turns slowly to face Logan while I gasp. I can’t believe he’s talking to the CEO of Devil like that. Does he have a death wish?
But Damien doesn’t seem the least bit angry. He merely shrugs his shoulders in thought. Well, I guess they really are friends. The kind of friends who hide things from each other while at the same time talking plainly.
“You’re right,” agrees Damien finally.
Then he heads over to me, takes out a small key and unlocks my handcuffs. Before sticking a gun against my temple.
“Fuck!” I groan under my breath.
“She’s got quite the dirty mouth, doesn’t she?” chuckles Damien.
I’m back to wondering if the most powerful people in the state are just a bunch of psychopaths. The guy’s about to kill me, and he’s commenting on my language.
I squeeze my eyes shut, waiting for death. I can’t stand this constant not knowing. A few seconds ago, I’d started to hope that I’d live after all. Right before that, I was convinced I was going to die. And now, there’s a gun pressed to my temple, so I guess…
“What the fuck are you doing, man?” grunts Logan in a voice that has me hoping again, because he merely sounds annoyed.
“Taking her to the apartment on the fourth floor.”
“Do you really need to stick a gun in her face? What the hell would she do?”
Damien pulls me up a lot more gently than I’d have expected given the dangerous glint in his eye.
“I can tell she’s got some fight in her. I see the resemblance.”
What the hell?
“She’s not the type to run, don’t worry.”
Yeah, well, fuck you too.
Logan puts a hand on my back, guiding me along just as gently as Damien, whose hand around my upper shoulder is a lot looser than before. Though between the two of them, I probably wouldn’t be able to escape anyway.
Not that I’d try. I’m once again allowing myself to hope I’ll live after all.
They take me back to the elevator, and I watch numbly as Damien presses the fourth floor button. At least, I assume that’s the number he pressed, since I can’t see a thing. But I see enough to know that at least we’re not heading to the sub basement levels.
The minute the elevator reaches the fourth floor, they’re back to pulling me along gently, and I swallow nervously, wondering where the hell they’re bringing me.
This floor is a lot nicer than the cell level one, and cozier-looking than the executive floor.
With every step, my feet sink into a plush carpet that definitely feels cleaner than the motel one.
It doesn’t look like the type of floor people go to to get killed.
But then again, with these nutty assholes, who knows?
We reach a door that Damien unlocks.
“This is giving déjà-vu,” groans Logan, as he leads me into a mirror-lined entrance hall.
My hazy reflection has me gasping. I can see enough of myself to notice that my skin has pretty much turned purple. My eyes are swollen, my lip is split, and there’s caked blood under my nose.
Ew.
“Key,” says Damien, letting go of my arm to hold his palm out to Logan.
“What do you mean?”
“Your key to this apartment. No fucking way am I trusting you with it. Hand it over.”
“Fuck you,” hisses Logan, and I gasp once again at this very plain way of speaking to the all-important Damien Wells.
Again, though, the latter doesn’t look the least bit ruffled. “Not that I don’t trust you generally. But come on. She’s Lia’s girl. I could hardly blame you—”
“No, I’m not,” I suddenly interrupt.
My throbbing body and dead brain had been keeping me silent, but this continued weirdness gives me the strength to cut through all that.
“My mom’s name is Laura,” I add.
But those words are merely greeted with a shrug, and they go right back to talking.
“You kept your key to this apartment when Seraphina was locked here,” protests Logan.
I’m back to frowning in utter confusion, wondering why the hell the dark-haired girl whose path I crossed, and who professed to being in love with Damien, would ever have been locked inside this place.
“That’s different. I’m the one who locked her in here.”
“Yeah, because Vale was putting pressure on you. Otherwise you’d have brought her straight up to your place. Which you did the second he died.”
What. the. Fuck?
I’m trying to follow along, but I’ve never been more confused before.
“Logan, this isn’t up for debate. Your key.”
“No fucking way. You can trust me. I won’t let her escape.”
Crap.
“Trust you, like the way I trusted you to kill her when I ordered you to?”
“You can trust me,” insists Logan, “because now that I know you’re not going to kill her, Devil Tower is the safest place for her.”
“I never said I’m not going to kill her.”
Fuck. Me.
“You’re going to have to make your mind up quickly,” my mouth snaps before my brain can put a stop to it. “Because if I hear one more fucking second of this stupid back-and-forth—”
This time, they actually stop talking and stare at me.
Damien is the first to react, by… laughing. And Logan joins in.
“I’m glad mocking me is allowing you to work through your shit,” I add bitterly.
“She reminds me of Lia,” chuckles Damien, still maddeningly talking to Logan about me as if I’m not even in the room.
“Who the fuck is Lia?” I growl. “I don’t fucking know her! My mom’s name is Laura!”
“You need to work on that foul mouth of yours,” scowls Damien, and I swear I want to kick him.
Between him, Logan and Quill, when did I suddenly go from being hunted by murderous assholes who want to kill me… to three dads?
Dads who I’m not entirely sure don’t still plan to murder me.
“Yeah, well, you need to work on not killing me, and giving me some fucking answers.”
Damien abruptly claps a hand over my mouth and pulls me over to the living room that the entrance hall opens out onto, then sits me down firmly on a chair.
“Don’t push your luck. I’m not known for my fucking patience.”
“Me neither.”
I cross my arms, trying to look as angry as he does, but very well aware that he can see right through me.
“Only one of us has a gun, though.” He’s inexplicably gone back to smiling, and I have the annoying feeling that he thinks my anger is cute, even though he’s still clearly pissed at me.
“Damien,” begins Logan.
“Logan.” Damien cuts him off. “I’m aware she’s your daughter—”
Wait, what?
“But that doesn’t give her the right to talk to me however she chooses. She’s clearly had a bad education. I don’t think you’re cut out for this shit.”
“First of all, I’m not her father.”
Oh.
“Stepfather. Whatever. You’re the closest thing she has to family.”
“My father was William Day,” I interrupt, my voice shaking. “My mother was Laura Day. You’ve clearly got the wrong person. This whole thing is a mistake.”
But they’ve gone straight back to ignoring me, and my shakiness gives way to anger. A lot more fucking anger than I’ve been feeling yet, now that I’m in this normal, if luxurious, looking living room that makes the threat of death feel a little less present.
I’m suffering through all this bullshit because they’ve got the wrong girl, and they won’t even fucking pay attention to me!
“I only raised her until she was four, so you can’t exactly blame me for her education,” snaps Logan.
Okay, this is a dream. It must be. It’s getting more absurd by the second.
“Well, I guess it’s time to make up for that, eh?” retorts Damien.
The shadow of a smile breaks out on Logan’s face, and he takes a deep breath in apparent relief, but he merely says, “And how the hell can I if you won’t let me keep my fucking key?”
“Fine,” relents Damien at last. “I guess I really have gone soft, as Vale used to say. First letting this girl live, and then leaving you with the key. I’d better not regret it.”
I sag back in my chair, feeling like those words are final.
I’m going to live.
For a moment, my overwhelming relief crowds out all else, and I let myself relax against the back of the chair.
“Now get her cleaned up, and I’ll have Vincent get her a new pair of eyeglasses. Or two, because your stepdaughter doesn’t look like she takes very good care of her belongings.”
That word makes me tense again. I sit straight back up.
“You’re wrong,” I say loudly. “I don’t have a stepdad. I don’t know who Lia is. My parents were… are… Laura and William Day.”
At last they both seem to register my protest, which Damien reacts to by rolling his eyes. “Your dad was an abusive piece of shit named Carmelo who deserved a far worse death than the one he got. Your mom was a bratty mafia princess named Lia.”
“Not bratty,” cuts in Logan.
“Logan was in love with her,” continues Damien, ignoring him, “and he helped raise you, before it all went to shit.”
I stare at him in utter incomprehension, incapable of even beginning to wrap my head around his words.
I was in part raised… by one of the all-powerful Devil founders?
What the absolute fuck?