บททั้งหมดของ Cherished By the Devil: บทที่ 31 - บทที่ 40

GREYI stood by the door watching Poppy sit behind Giulio Rinaldi's desk and open his laptop. A smirk pulled at my lips. Giulio truly was an idiot. He couldn't even install a decent alarm in his office inside this hotel. This might not have been his main office on the top floor of Rinaldi Real Estate, but he still had his computer here, one with access to all company files. Again: the guy was an idiot.The simple device my specialists had made for me was able to jam all signals and disarm simple alarms within seconds. Turning them back was possible, but it required rebooting the entire security system… which was what Rinaldi's tech guys were currently trying to do.Rebooting would take roughly two minutes, and it would take them another minute to locate us. In the meantime, Lanzo kept the guards busy activating a few alarms and setting the laundry on fire. That should have given us an additional minute or two. Now, I could only hope that Poppy would manage to log in to Giulio's comput

GREY“You have a very wise woman by your side, Maledetti,” said Moore as he made himself comfortable on the sofa in my office.It had been Poppy who had managed to convince me I should talk to him. Honestly, I had a few other ideas for how I wanted to spend my evening… or rather night, since it was long after midnight.Poppy had wanted to be a part of this conversation, but she also knew that it wasn't entirely safe for her. Even if I trusted that Moore was a decent guy who simply hated my guts, I would rather not have him asking Poppy questions about her identity…Inviting him wasn't without a risk for me either. Even if I'd made sure he wasn't wearing a tap and didn't try to record our conversation, it would have been safer not to talk to him at all. But I couldn't help but be curious, and a part of me admired his courage to come here.“Drink?” I tossed, mainly because I sure as fuck needed one.“I'm off duty,” he muttered.I nodded. “Drink it is.” I walked to the cabinet and quickl

I didn't know how to stop my voice from trembling as I told Grey about the broken sixteen-year-old I'd once been. How I had lived on the street for two months until I found my first illegal job and a small room to sleep in. How I had found a friend who had made fake documents for me so I could survive and then work legally.“I was nineteen when I met Ardian,” I said, swallowing down a knot in my throat. “I was working at a small diner, which, for some reason, was often used by the Outfit for all kinds of meetings. The owner warned me that I should avoid those men, that it was dangerous to interact with them. And honestly? I was following that advice for a while. But I didn't know that Ardian already had his eyes on me. One day, after I closed the diner, I was attacked on the street, and he appeared to help me. Only two years later did I find out that the attack had been staged…” A bitter laugh escaped me.Grey remained silent. He had barely moved a muscle since I'd begun talking, but

The scenes from our morning replayed in my mind throughout the day, forming the most inappropriate distraction from my work. I had to shift my thoughts to the darkest, most cruel memories to prevent myself from going through the series of meetings sporting a hard-on.Abigail had prepared all the documents Poppy needed to fill out to make her yet another fake last name, a more or less legal one. The sooner the formalities were handled, the better. The last thing I needed was for someone to start asking questions about my delightful roommate.Of course, I wished that matters concerning Poppy were the most important issue I had to deal with. That wasn't the case. The manager hired to replace Mathews couldn't even get a single project done without a few expensive corrections. I wasn't sure if I was more pissed at the fucker or at the HR director who had decided that hiring him had been a good idea. The ever-present incompetence was giving me a serious headache.The dickhead's mistakes had

Grey hadn't returned to the mansion before midnight, and around one o'clock, I'd given up on waiting and went to bed. I wished I could have said I'd fallen asleep as soon as I placed my head on the pillow, but my frantically pounding heart had a different idea about how to spend this night.Lanzo's words replayed in my mind over and over again, each time sending another wave of anxiety. I tried to tell myself that he was wrong and that what Grey and I had wasn't just an illusion of a relationship. But the truth was that it was obvious that this Princess would always have the first place in Grey's life. And after everything Lanzo had told me, I was more certain about it than ever.My ribcage tightened, turning every breath into a shallow gasp. I tried to rub off the sudden ache in the central part of my chest, but nothing I did seemed to soothe it. Finally, I rose from the bed and poured myself a glass of water. “You need to stop yourself from falling,” I whispered to myself. “Grey kno