The Darkest Devotion のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 11 - チャプター 20

LEONThe bench is cool beneath me, hidden away in a trimmed patch of garden near the school parking lot. The late afternoon sun filters through the leaves over my head, scattering shadows across the cobblestones. Several students wander past, some in groups, some walking alone. They’re all different, individual people, yet so alike in more ways than one. Dripped in expensive clothing, polished shoes, and the latest designer bags swinging at their sides, it’s obvious to anyone with eyes that this is an environment only the wealthy can thrive in. They move with a certain kind of carelessness and reckless abandon that comes from not having a worry in the world. Their only concern is probably what to wear to the next party, and for the academically serious ones, they have the luxury of focusing on that without any outside distractions. That’s a privilege people like me are never afforded to have. I lean back with one arm stretched across the bench and drag my eyes away from the students

GABRIELLAMy heart does a flip in my chest. Jack freezes. His lips hover close to mine, but his eyes flick past my shoulder to stare at Leon, and I see the way his confident playboy persona shrinks under Leon’s gaze. He doesn’t wait for Leon to repeat himself. One look at Leon’s intimidating, quite terrifying expression is enough.My heart pounds so hard I feel it in my throat. Around us, I see a couple of students stop to see what is happening. Some are pretending not to stare; others are staring blankly. The air tenses, filled with whispers of confusion and a hint of excitement at what is going to happen.Jack takes a step back. His face is red with anger, his jaw flexing repeatedly. For a second, I think he’s about to say something to Leon. I badly want him to. I want someone else to look Leon in the face and tell him off. But Jack doesn’t do that. He seems to weigh his options and maybe realizes that it’s not worth it—I’m not worth it—before his eyes turn to meet mine instead. “I

LEONEverything about her gets under my skin and lingers there, from the hair on her head to the tips of her painted toes. She’s the physical, present embodiment of everything I’ve spent my whole life hating, wrapped in a pretty package. I can’t decide what I hate more: her, for existing, or myself, for letting her little acts of mischief get to me.The past few days have been a distraction I can’t afford. Every second I waste watching her, tolerating her excesses, and holding myself back from acting on my anger is a second lost from the mission. But I can’t lose sight of the game plan. Tomaso still doesn’t trust me, and I know better than to rush it. I haven’t worked that long for him to gain his trust. And trust takes time. Trust makes people let their guard down. It makes them sloppy. And when Tomaso becomes sloppy, I’ll strike.My goal is to serve justice, and that doesn’t come cheap. It demands patience. I replay the reminder in my head every time Gabriella opens her mouth.I c

LEONTwo Hours EarlierFor a second, I think I’m seeing wrong. That she’s missing. That she actually slipped away from me. But the longer I stand there, the more it sinks in.For a brief moment, I panic. My brain whirls in a million directions. But I force myself to remain calm. To assess my surroundings. To think.Her phone. There’s a tracker in her phone. I never thought I’d have to use the built-in dashboard Tomaso had installed in my work phone, which is connected to the tracker on Gabriella’s phone. When Tomaso told me about it, I thought it was a little overboard. Now, I’ve seen why. The man knows his daughter more than I do.The screen pulls up a map, and the blinking red dot where her phone is located is…close to where I’m standing. She’s not far. Maybe she couldn’t run away and now she’s hiding somewhere. I let that hope linger in my chest as I follow the dot which leads me to the side of the clinic, not too far from the front door. I get closer to the wall and take a few s

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