Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Harper
T he cracked tile walls and floor radiate cold through me, dampness seeping deep into my bones. The musty air scratches at the back of my throat and my skin itches like the mildew in the air is trying to crawl under it.
I need to get out of here.
Pushing out of my chair, I take another lap of the space. I focus on thinking outside the box. If the door won’t open, what are our options?
Bryan’s watching me. I feel the heat of those sharp green eyes tracking every move I make.
“Something wrong?” he asks, voice low, casual, but with that undercurrent of suspicion he’s always carrying.
“You mean other than murder, kidnapping, and waiting to be raped by a sex-trafficking piece of shit?”
“Aye, other than that.”
I roll my eyes. “Not a damned thing. I’m fine.”
He raises an ebony brow like he caught me in a lie but doesn’t call me on it.
I don’t offer anything else… because the truth is… I have to pee. Badly .
It’s the kind of pressure that makes your spine ache and your bladder feel like it’s plotting your death. I clench against the worst of things and glance toward the bolted steel door again, moving to check it myself.
Bryan watches me push at the frame. The thing is a sheet of metal. There’s nothing to grab hold of or to pry open. “Ye don’t believe me that it’s locked up tight?”
I don’t answer him.
Because this has nothing to do with not believing him and everything to do with wanting something— anything —to distract me from the fact that I’m trapped, uncomfortable, and probably going to wet my pants.
He pushes off the wall, following me with that infuriating, smug little tilt to his mouth. “Ye’ve been squirming like a worm on a hook for the last ten minutes. Want to tell me what’s actually going on, or should I guess?”
“I said I’m fine,” I snap.
“Yer not.”
I spin on him, the words tearing out of me in frustration. “Fine! I have to pee , okay? Is that what you want to hear?”
He shrugs like it’s the most mundane thing in the world. “Then cop a squat. We might be here for days. Ye can’t hold it forever.”
My mouth falls open.
“That’s your solution? Just… pee in the corner?” I eye up the corners in question and wonder how many diseases I might contract.
He points toward the bottom of the decrepit pool basin, to a massive rusted grate set into the cracked floor at the deep end. “There. It’ll be just like peeing in the shower.”
I stare at him, horrified. “Who does that?”
He gives me a deadpan look. “Everyone?”
My eyebrows shoot up. “You’re disgusting.”
He barks a throaty laugh. “Don’t look at me like that. It’s perfectly normal. Warmth running over your body added to the sound of falling water— bam , yer bladder’s like, ‘let’s go’.”
Damn. The last thing I want is to think about Bryan Quinn in the shower—but that mental image crashes in anyway. Water streaming down those tattoos, dripping from the ends of his dark hair, his hand braced on the wall, muscles flexing with every shift?—
Nope.
Absolutely not the time.
I shake it off and stalk toward the grate, wishing it would somehow transform into a working toilet if I just stare hard enough. It’s big—maybe the size of a manhole cover—and corroded around the edges. But it’s the only thing in this cursed room that even vaguely resembles plumbing.
“Yer not going to last forever and if Mason or his minions show up, ye’ll need to be in fighting form.”
Both of those things are true, but it doesn’t make me any happier about it. Heat rushes to my cheeks as yet another humiliating moment punches me in the face. “Fine. Turn around. I don’t want you watching me.”
He chuckles, slow and rough, then obediently turns his back. “Ye’ve come on my face a half dozen times and I’ve seen every inch of yer body up close and personal, but whatever ye like—have your modesty.”
I glare daggers into the back of his head even as I reach for the waistband of my jeans.
* * *
Bryan
I stand with my back to her, arms crossed, eyes locked on the rusted steel door like it might do me the courtesy of bursting open and letting me beat the piss out of Eddie Mason with my bare hands.
Behind me, I hear it—soft at first, then the unmistakable sound of her relieving her bladder.
That this is a hard line for her is as bizarre as the woman herself.
I close my eyes and focus on my breathing, giving her space. It's not like I haven’t seen every inch of her, tasted her sounds and sweat, memorized the way she tightens around my cock like she was made for it—but this?
This is what unsettles her?
Maybe it’s too familiar—too human.
Who the fuck knows? Women are batshit at times.
I stand there and the silence is heavy and long. I wait. Another minute ticks by. She doesn’t say anything.
“Are ye done? Can I turn around?”
“Oh, yeah. Check this out.”
I pivot, expecting to see her pulling herself together or maybe glaring at me again, but she’s not. She’s kneeling over the grate, palms flat on the cracked tile as she peers down into the rusted circle like it’s a portal to the gods.
“Ye missed the point, trouble,” I say, cocking my head. “Once it passes through the grate, it’s gone. Ye don’t get it back.”
She throws a glance over her shoulder that could blister paint. “I’m aware, genius. But while I was peeing, I heard it splash. On water. ”
She points down between the metal slats. “It got me wondering if this place is still connected to something.”
My brow furrows. I take a few steps closer, squatting beside her, careful not to slip on the ancient, damp tile.
“You think it’s tied to the storm drains?”
“Maybe. It’s a bathhouse, right? All that water had to go somewhere. ”
I stare down between the slats. It’s dark as sin, but I can hear it now, too—a faint trickle, the echo of something deeper than just standing water.
A tunnel. A drain. Maybe even a chance.
“Let’s have a gander, shall we?” I stand, scanning the room for what we can use. “If that tunnel’s still open, it could lead out to the city runoff.”
“Think you can fit?” She eyes the broad span of my shoulders.
I grin. “Not gracefully.”
She snorts. “Is grace one of your strong suits?”
“According to the journalists who cover my cage fights, it is. It’s been said that I don’t just fight—I flow. Another reporter said watching me is like watching poetry spill blood.”
She pegs me with a skeptical look, but at least she’s looking at me again. I find the busted leg of my chair, twisted and jagged but solid. I wedge it under the lip of the grate. Harper grabs the other half from where I tossed it earlier and does the same on the opposite side.
We lock gazes and I dip my chin. “Ready and—push.”
Nothing.
“Again.”
Still, nothing happens.
“The rust is fighting us.” Harper sets down her lever and goes back to where I tossed the metal brackets I used as a blade to free her from her bindings. “See if we can score some of it away.”
The two of us drop to our knees, hacking and digging at the seam of the grate. Bits of cold, broken tile bite into my kneecaps but the adrenaline is pumping now, so there’s no stopping.
Harper works one side. I take the other, jamming the rusted metal into the seam, making chunks of old iron flake off like scabs.
Then the bracket slips.
The sharp edge catches my palm, and heat flashes through my hand like lightning. “Feckin hell!”
Blood wells fast, dark, and immediate.
Harper sits up, her eyes narrowing on my clutched fist. “How bad is it? Let me see.”
“It’s just a wee scratch,” I lie.
She doesn’t buy it. Of course she doesn’t.
She crawls over and grabs my wrist, uncurling my fist. The gash is a long, nasty slice, shallow and filthy.
“Just a scratch, my ass. You’ll need a tetanus shot, for sure. That bracket probably has more rust and bacteria on it than a sewer rat’s teeth.”
I peg her with a droll stare. “We’re about to crawl into a sewer, trouble. Now you’re just jinxing us.”
She looks up at me, exasperated. “Bryan. I’m serious.”
I wave her off with my uninjured hand. “We’ll deal with it later. If Mason and his men get here before we’re gone, blood poisoning will be the least of my problems.”
She hesitates, then grabs her tool and slices at the hem of her shirt. Gripping the torn piece, she tears a strip all the way around. Then, she wraps it tight around my hand. “If your arm falls off, I’m not carrying you.”
“Noted.”
She ties the two ends of the makeshift bandage and tucks in the edges. When it’s done, she looks up at me, her fingers lingering on my skin before she pulls away. “Are you good to try the levers again?”
“Better than good.” Reclaiming my chair leg, I wedge it into place again, grit my teeth, and give it.
We both strain, metal groaning in protest.
“That’s something,” Harper grunts. “Keep at it.”
The two of us work and push and give it all we’ve got. And finally, with a sharp snap and a screech that echoes off the tiled dome above us, the grate lurches upward.
Harper scrambles back and I heave the thing off, tossing it to the side with a clang that shakes the walls.
Below is a tunnel—narrow, black, and reeking of wet stone and rot. I peer into the mouth of it, barely wide enough for a regular-sized grown man.
I’m far from that.
“I’m not sure I’ll fit.”
“That’s what guys always say.”
I give her a look, thankful that at least for now, the icy chill of her disdain has melted. Straightening, I wipe my palms on my pants. “But, seriously. That’s going to be tight as a coffin for me.”
“You’ll fit. It’s our best chance of survival.” She places a hand on my back—a brush of her fingers, warm and quick.
She doesn’t flinch when I meet her gaze.
“We’re getting out of here,” she says. “Both of us.”
For the first time in hours, I might actually believe it.