Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Harper
A low, rhythmic throb pulses behind my eyes, making the darkness under my blindfold swirl with shapes that aren’t really there.
My mouth tastes like metal and chemicals. Like I licked the inside of a garbage can at a pharmaceutical lab or something equally as disgusting and bizarre.
My tongue is thick. Heavy.
I try to swallow but my throat is bone dry.
I can’t move my arms.
Panic slams into me like a bird against a glass window—hard and disorienting. I jerk, hard, my wrists yanking against bindings. They bite into my already raw and scabbed skin. The movement sends a bolt of pain through my shoulder.
Where the hell am I?
Then it all rushes back.
Fighting with Bryan. Screaming at him in the parking lot. The lights, the cars, the men. Hands grabbing me from behind. Something damp and acrid being clamped over my mouth and nose.
Shit.
I was taken. Again.
I writhe again, twisting my shoulders, and the blindfold shifts. It lifts a sliver—enough for light to bleed in. I tilt my chin, angling for more.
The room is dim but vast, lit by the flickering of old sconces that look out of place and out of time. The light flickers and sputters high above as if even being lit is too much for them to manage.
I’m tied to a chair, placed in a sunken rectangular space. Cracked tile with the faded remains of intricate mosaics crawls across the floor beneath me, grimy with age and disuse. Six feet above my head, the room expands, and the walls rise higher.
What is this place? An old community pool maybe?
It feels like a tomb—smells like one too. The scent of damp air mixes with mildew and rot. Rusted iron grates block foggy windows—too small to crawl through—and everywhere I look, the place drips with faded elegance and forgotten grandeur.
I work against my blindfold, fighting with the cotton to give me more. Now I can see pale marble benches lining the walls, their surfaces streaked with black mold.
And Bryan.
He’s strapped to a rusted chair across from me, head bowed, muscles straining beneath his torn black shirt. Blood crusts at his collarbone, a path of scarlet trailing down the side of his head from a matted patch of dark hair on his scalp.
He didn’t have that when I was fighting with him in the parking lot, so I assume it was inflicted during our capture. I don’t remember much about that.
Just that they moved in fast and caught me from behind with chloroform or something like it.
It’s not surprising it took violence to overpower Bryan, but really twelve against two didn’t bode well for us. And now, we’re here, our wrists zip-tied to the arms of our chairs, our ankles bound to the legs.
“Bryan? Are you awake?”
His head jerks up at the sound of my voice.
Our eyes meet.
And for a moment, I forget to breathe.
Because he looks at me like I’m the enemy. Not the men who drugged us. Not the ones who dragged us into this bizarre cage.
Me.
I tear my gaze away first.
Of course he’s pissed—but so am I. We’re here because of him. Because he went up against Sentinel and the authorities guarding Siobhan. Because he didn’t get us out of that parking lot before his enemies overtook us.
It looks like he’ll be responsible for the death of more than one woman tonight.
Bryan strains against the ties binding his wrists, biceps flexing as the plastic tightens against his skin. “Fucking amateurs,” he growls under his breath, scowling. “You’d think Mason could afford real restraints.”
My mind stalls out on that. “Mason? You think he’s behind this?”
He grunts but doesn’t stop working on the plastic tie. “Of course it’s Mason. Who the fuck did you think snatched us?”
My mouth falls open and I realize if it’s Eddie Mason who grabbed us, this isn’t his fault—it’s mine .
My stomach drops. “I…uh, thought Sentinel tracked us down because of Siobhan.”
A sharp snap frees one of his arms and he focuses on the other. A moment later he has both arms free and is shaking out his fingers.
“No. We ruined Eddie’s auction. Humiliated him. Cost him a fuckload of money and respect. He wants revenge, and we’re here so he can exact his pound of flesh.” He bends to his ankles, gripping the plastic bindings holding his feet in place.
I tense against my own restraints but don’t feel the slightest bit of give in the plastic.
He stands, grabbing behind him to grip the metal chair to lift the seat. As he works to raise the chair into the air, he kicks with first one leg and then the other, until he slides the chair legs out of the ties.
Free of the chair altogether, he slams it down against the floor with far more aggression necessary. Then he bends, pulling at the joins and riveted parts.
The chair is no match for the Dublin Beast and soon he’s pulling two of the metal brackets free from the frame. When he straightens, he swings his heavy arms like a boxer working himself up before a fight.
“What is this place?” I ask.
He glances around and frowns. “An old Victorian bathhouse, I reckon.”
“Doesn’t look like it’s been used in a while.”
He grunts, sliding his boot in an arc across the chipped tiles on the floor. “Maybe not as a bathhouse but there’s a fair bit of blood staining here. I reckon it’s been used as a holding cell before us.”
I glare at him. “Do you have to say shit like that?”
He meets my glare and raises the anti. I’ve never seen his eyes so dark. “Make up yer fucking mind. Do ye want me to be blunt and lay it out for ye in full or do ye want me to spare ye the dirty details.”
“I don’t want either. I want to be back in my hotel room having a shower and getting ready to spend a night researching.”
“And if wanting something could make it so, I’d be home in Dublin with a whiskey in one hand and Yasmine in the other.”
His words echo off the hard tiles and for a heartbeat, I forget where we are. Forget the danger looming, the stale air, the ache in my wrists. Because there’s something in the way he says her name. Yasmine . Not like a memory, but like a prayer.
Like he’ll never let her go.
I swallow past the lump rising in my throat. I could lash out. Twist the knife. Remind him that he’s not the only one who’s lost someone they love, but I don’t.
Not because I’m still tied up and he could walk out of here and leave me—though the thought does cross my mind—but because for us to get out of here, we need to work together.
“What do we do now? What’s the plan?”
His gaze narrows on me and he lets out a long breath. “Well, we can either wait until Mason decides what piece of us he wants to carve off first. Or we try to find a way out of here before that happens.”
“I vote for door number two.”
“In a perfect world, that would be my choice, too.”
I peg him with a look. “And what happens if he comes to exact his revenge before we figure out how to get out of here?”
Bryan flashes me a cruel smile, “I’ll do what needs to be done. Because I’m a thug killer, after all.”
The silence that follows is thick. Ugly.
I swallow hard, meeting his gaze. “If you expect an apology for saying that, there isn’t one coming.”
He snarls, his muscles rigid, his upper lip curling as he scowls at me. “I expect nothing. We had an agreement—that’s the end of it. Ye delivered on yer end, and I’ll hold to mine. There’s nothing more between us.”
I flinch. “Well, it’s good to have clarity.”
“Aye, true enough.” His fingers grip the rusty metal bracket and, with his expression so filled with hostility, I fight not to recoil and reveal just how little faith I have in him right now.
He must read my unease anyway because he mutters a long string of something in Irish and I don’t need to understand the language of his heritage to understand he’s not just angry, he’s furious.
Well, right back at him.
My first instinct was to blame him and his choices for putting us in this situation, but maybe he’s right and this is Eddie Mason is doing.
I’m not sure which would be better or worse.
Scratch that. It would be better for me if this is Sentinel or the anti-crime task force. Then, not only will I be justified in being pissed that this is his fault, but I might have a chance to talk myself out of it.
There’s a chance—however slim—I can distance myself from this whole mess. I have no criminal record and no known affiliation with Bryan or the Quinn family.
If I claim plausible deniability, maybe I can get myself out of this.
Guilt twists in my gut even as I try to sell myself this load of bullshit. I knew who Bryan Quinn was almost from the beginning.
I’m neither blameless nor na?ve.
I may have been swept away by his panty-dampening hotness and his Irish swagger, but I knew.
I chose not to dwell on his dark side because I didn’t want to look too closely at why it didn’t bother me more. Overlooking it and harnessing his criminal connections promised me a greater chance of finding the answers I was looking for.
I never considered myself a hypocrite before.
Bryan killed to get me away from that auction and I was grateful he was capable of that kind of violence. I didn’t mourn the men that never went home that night because I was safe.
He was my savior, my hero—no—my antihero.
But no matter how delusional I was after he rescued me, there’s no way I can shine a heroic light on him when he busted into a motel room and snapped the neck of an unarmed woman in protective custody.
That’s ruthless. Lethal. Cold.
Lost in my thoughts beneath the dim flickering lights, I startle when Bryan advances, brandishing the metal bracket like a knife. I’m about to unleash hell on him when he slides the metal between my wrist and the chair I’m tied to.
Snap! My wrist comes free. He moves to my other wrist and frees that one, too. Then he shifts to kneel between my thighs.
When he drops his head, incessant thoughts of him fill my mind. His hot mouth on my core. The scruff of his stubbled jaw rasping against the sensitive flesh of my inner thighs. The way he spent hours making me come.
But he’s not the man I thought he was.
My body doesn’t care. The ache between my thighs reminds me that only this afternoon he pressed deep inside me, filled me, stretched me, and gave me so many mind-blowing orgasms my throat is still raw from screaming his name.
How the hell did we get from there to here?
Only hours ago, I was so worried about him getting caught in that firefight that I leapt into his arms like a lovestruck fool.
I swallow hard, realizing despite wishing it wasn’t true, in that moment I was a lovestruck fool. I blurred the lines between reality and two physically fit, attractive people with a boatload of sexual chemistry getting each other off while working together.
Friends who fuck.
That was my idea.
Bryan stands and stalks across the room. His brow is furrowed, his usually bright green eyes dark, hooded, and unreadable. He’s a boiling kettle about to blow and I’m not sure if that’s because of Eddie Mason or me.
Or maybe a healthy dose of both.
* * *
Bryan
A Victorian bathhouse—that’s a new one for me.
Our holding cell is a decaying tile box with milky windows a cat could barely fit through and no vents or openings to offer an exit.
It would be claustrophobic if I didn’t spend a huge percentage of my time in rooms exactly like this.
If Eddie Mason thinks this will unnerve me, he’s sadly mistaken.
I’m in my zone here.
It reminds me of the time Brenny and I got locked in a shipping container down at the docks. Only difference is, back then I knew Da would come looking for us. Now? I’m not so sure anyone knows where we are.
Did Kieran see what happened? Did he get away?
If he did, Liverpool is about to be invaded by an army of Irish made men. In that case, it could just be a matter of time. I’m not willing to wait around and take that chance.
If Eddie Mason knows what Harper has been up to, he’ll kill her. He’ll violate her. He’ll degrade her. And then he’ll kill her.
That knowledge fills me with such a primal rage that it burns me from the inside out.
He’s a deranged, slimy fucker—I won’t let him come anywhere near her.
My blood is hot. My fists are clenched. And the silence between us?
It’s screaming like a banshee in my ears.
Even though I freed her from her bindings, Harper is still sitting in her chair, arms crossed, chin tipped up in that way she does when she’s pissed… or disappointed.
Or both.
The shitty lighting catches on her profile, highlighting the stubborn set of her jaw. I shouldn’t care.
I don’t owe her anything. She knew who I was when she suggested us teaming up. She knew who I was when she suggested we color outside the lines. She wanted this arrangement—no questions, no strings.
That was our deal from the start, clear as Dublin rain.
But her silence cuts deeper than any knife that’s been plunged into my chest, and fuck if I know why I want her to understand . It’s like an itch under my skin I can’t scratch, a weight in my chest I can’t lift.
Her tongue darts out to run over her full lips, and I stifle a groan at the base of my throat. I can practically feel it swirling around the tip of my cock, sliding into the slit to catch the precum she’s called from me.
I fight not to curse. All the blood is rushing to my cock but now is definitely not the time.
She hates me.
And fuck me, I hate that she hates me.
I turn away from her before I say something I’ll regret—something soft, or worse… honest . My jaw aches from how hard I’m clenching it, biting down on every word I want to say but shouldn’t.
Let her be angry. Let her build her walls back up so I can rebuild mine. I hate that I betrayed Yasmine and let someone else into my heart.
It never should have happened.
But once we get out of here, I can go home and forget Harper and how she inserted herself into my life from the moment I rescued her on the street.
She led me to believe there could be something beyond the dark loneliness left in me since Yas died. It was misguided at best, lust mistaken as loyalty.
More like a betrayal of our love.
A wave of bone crushing sadness squeezes my heart in my chest, followed by self-loathing and shame.
I rub my palm against the back of my neck and drag in a breath that tastes like mold, rust, and decades of rot. The air in this place is thick and still—like it hasn’t moved in years.
The echo of our breath bounces back at me off the curved walls, the acoustics all wrong, like we’re speaking inside the belly of a cathedral built for the dead.
I climb out of the pool and pace the perimeter, boots crunching broken tile beneath my soles. Cracks run like veins across the mosaic floors, the blue-and-gold pattern long since faded into a muddy, fractured memory of what this place used to be.
The arched windows are high, fogged over with decades of grime, iron bars bolted into the stone. I reach up and give one a solid yank. The metal groans but doesn’t budge.
I try another. Same result.
Even if I got one open, what would be the point?
Each breath I take makes me angrier. This is not the kind of cage I enjoy—not by a long shot.
I cross to the steel door. It’s warped and ancient, its paint peeling off like curls of tree bark. Bolted shut from the outside.
I give it a couple good pounds with the meat of my fist. The hammering knocks echo back at us in the room.
Solid. No flex.
My nostrils flare.
Pressing my ear to the door, I listen but get nothing back. Either there’s no one out there or they’re playing it very cool and quiet.
I take a step back and stare at the door like I could will it open with the heat of my rage. I’ve been locked up before. By cops. By rival gangs. By Da—once, when I was fifteen and thought I was too grown to listen.
But never like this.
Never with an innocent woman in the room.
“Door’s sealed from the outside,” I say over my shoulder, not looking at her. “Windows are a joke. We’re locked in tight.”
Harper doesn’t respond. I don’t expect her to. At least she’s out of her chair and searching the space. She may be frosty, distant, and untouchable but she has a keen mind and is definitely an innovative thinker.
And her being detached is good.
It’s easier to pretend that none of it meant anything.
I rub a hand over my mouth, every muscle in my body itching for a fight I can’t have. A fight I need .
I want to punch a wall. Rip the pipes out of the ceiling. Tear down every inch of this decaying mausoleum until I find a fucking exit or die trying. But I can’t waste my energy. I’ll need it when Mason comes through that door, all smug and stupid and thinking he has the upper hand.
I glance back at Harper.
She’s not looking at me.
She hasn’t truly looked at me since our fight in the parking lot of the inn. And why would she? I’m the man who killed a woman and made her an accomplice.
“Go ahead and say it,” I mutter, turning to face her fully. “Whatever’s rattling around in that sharp little mind. Just spit it out already.”
Her gaze flicks to mine. “What’s the point?”
I bark out a humorless laugh. “All right then. That’s how we’ll play it.”