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Chapter Twenty-Three
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2026-06-16 17:33:46
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The Darkest Devotion Chapter Twenty-Four
GABRIELLAThe bass hits me before anything else does. The music is thumping and the disco is dizzying. Lisa's hand tightens around mine as she pulls me into the crowd.I've been to parties before, if you count Papa’s exquisite dinners where I had to watch from my bedroom window.This is vastly different from those formal events. There are bodies everywhere. Some are dancing, some are doing…other things in the dim corners of the floor, pressed up against walls and each other in corners where the lights are low enough, and none of them seems to care who's watching. Smoke hangs in the air, sweet and heavy, and I have to fight the urge to cough or press my hand to my nose. I don't want to look like what I am.A girl who's never been to a real party in her life.Lisa weaves through the crowd like she's done this a hundred times, and maybe she has, and I follow with my fingers locked around hers, my heart thumping in rhythm with the music.We reach a table near the back where the lighting
The Darkest Devotion Chapter Twenty-Three
GABRIELLAThe pills are in my apron pocket, and every time I move, I feel that small weight against my hip. It’s not physically heavy, but the potency of what I’m about to do makes it so. Nicole folded them into a tissue and pressed it into my palm outside the studio after class today, calm as anything, like she was handing me a stick of gum. ‘Put it in his drink, not his food,’ she’d warned.I nodded and shoved it in my jacket pocket and didn't look at it again until tonight when I slipped it into my apron pocket.I turn back to the cutting board. The recipe on my phone says "finely diced," and what I've produced after ten minutes looks more like a battleground. My eyes are watering, and I tell myself it's only because of the onion, even though I know my hands are shaking for another reason entirely.In two hours I'm going to do something I can't take back, something that could possibly go wrong.When Nicole handed me the pills, I wanted to back down. I wanted to tell her I was not
The Darkest Devotion Chapter Twenty-Two
GABRIELLAThe music cuts out for the fourth time in twenty minutes."Again," Instructor Reyes says from the center of the studio, and no one in the room breathes.We reset our positions. I roll my shoulders, trying to shake out the tension that has been building since the second run-through. The overhead lights in the department dance studio are unforgiving at this hour, and the mirrors lining the far wall give us nowhere to hide. Every mistake in one’s movement or position is right there to be seen by everyone, including yourself.The music starts again.We get through the first sequence cleanly, then the second. When we reach the lift combination in the third movement, the one that has been destroying us all week, we all hesitate before moving forward.My partner's hands find my waist, and I go up, but when I come down, my movement is slightly off-axis, and the whole formation on my side lands in the same graceless manner.Instructor Reyes raises a hand. The music stops and heavy si
The Darkest Devotion Chapter Twenty-One
GABRIELLANice.I turn the word over in my head the entire ride home, sitting in the back seat with my arms crossed and my jaw tight.‘I was nice enough to, but don’t expect it all the time.’I scoff internally. If this is him being nice, then I genuinely don't want to know what the alternative looks like. My mind drifts, unhelpfully, to the other night. To his voice dropping an octave, to the warm press of his hand against my throat. Be very careful about the things you say to me. You wouldn't want to see me truly angry.If that wasn't anger, then what was his anger truly like?What is he actually capable of when he stops holding back?And why does my curiosity about him grow by the second?I shift in my seat and look out the window, watching the city blur past. My neck still feels warm. It's been days. Days since he touched me, days since I stood there like an idiot with nothing to say, and my skin still remembers it like a fresh burn. I reach up and press two fingers to the side o
The Darkest Devotion Chapter Twenty
LEONMy hand won't stop shaking.The tremor is faint, but I feel it all the way up my arm and down the rest of my body.I had her throat in my hand.Two thoughts hit me at once, and they've been circling my head ever since I walked away from her.The first: how easy it would have been to kill her.The second: how impossible it would have been to kill her.Fuck! I couldn't even press hard enough to leave a mark. The thought of choking her, of actually hurting her, felt like trying to breathe underwater. My hand just… refused. My whole body refused. And that terrifies me more than anything else about tonight.I immediately drop to the floor and start doing push-ups. There is an inbuilt gym in the penthouse beside Gabriella’s studio, but I don’t feel like leaving the room right now. If I mistakenly stumble across her, I don’t know how I’ll react. I move to the weights I keep in the corner of my bed, lifting them and going at them until my muscles burn, my lungs ache, and there's nothing
The Darkest Devotion Chapter Nineteen
GABRIELLAThe air outside does nothing to cool the heat and embarrassment crawling up my neck.I can feel him behind me as I storm toward the car. As usual, his annoying presence is like a shadow I can't outrun no matter how fast I move. My shoes click against the pavement in sharp, angry bursts. I don't look back. I refuse to, because I know if I do, I’ll lose my temper completely.When I get to the car door, my hand finds the handle, but something makes me hesitate. Maybe it’s my pride. It’s been barely three hours since my escape attempt, and he still managed to find me. Getting into this car feels like I’m just giving up. Like I’m helpless.But Leon immediately appears beside me, leans in close enough that I catch a whiff of his cologne, and lets out a sharp hiss. "Get in."I've heard him use a lot of tones with me. Cold. Flat. Bored. Even mildly irritated. But this? This is different. He’s angry.And I don’t know if I should be pleased or upset at that. "Don't talk to me like t
The Darkest Devotion Chapter Seventeen
GABRIELLAMy heart pounds so hard it almost drowns out the sound of the city outside the taxi. I rattle off the address to the driver, trying to keep my voice steady, but my fingers tremble slightly where they rest on my lap. I’ve memorized the place by heart, Lisa’s instructions from earlier still
The Darkest Devotion Chapter Nine
GABRIELLAThe next school day is torture before it even begins.I wake up before my alarm rings, dragging myself out of bed and into the shower just to keep my mind from spiraling. Steam curls around me, but it doesn’t clear the raging thoughts in my head. How do I navigate my new life? How do I n
The Darkest Devotion Chapter Seven
GABRIELLAA loud bang erupts in the air. Airbags inflate and slam into my face, hot and hard, snapping my head back. A sharp, acrid smell fills the car, stinging my nose and traveling a slow path down my throat. My eyes remain shut, my body still for an uncountable number of minutes. Until I hear t
The Darkest Devotion Chapter Six
GABRIELLAFor a few seconds after the words are uttered from Papa’s lips, I am quiet. Unable to speak. Unable to think.A bodyguard.I lock gazes with that of the man standing behind my father, the man currently invading my space.My soon-to-be bodyguard. This cannot be happening. He’s tall, the
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