Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
NORA
The basement reeks of mold and damp concrete. Underneath it, there's a sharper, metallic tang, like old blood or the coppery sweat of pure terror.
It’s a smell that has soaked into the walls. My wrists burn where the rope cuts into raw flesh. Each time I test the ropes, the hemp grinds against the skin of my wrists.
The pain isn’t sharp; it’s a thick, grinding burn that travels all the way to my shoulders. The chair they've tied me to creaks with age, wood soft with rot in places. One good twist might break it, but my shoulders scream when I test the bonds.
A single bulb dangles from exposed wiring above, throwing sick yellow light that makes everything look diseased. Water drips somewhere in the darkness beyond the light's reach. The sound marks time like a broken clock—irregular, maddening.
My tongue finds the split in my lower lip. Copper floods my mouth. Declan's ring caught me there when he dragged me from the van. The memory of his hands makes my skin crawl, but I push it down. Can't afford to feel that right now.
Footsteps on the stairs. Heavy. He wants me to hear him coming.
The door scrapes open. Declan fills the frame, backlit like some twisted savior. His suit jacket's gone, white shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows. Ready to work.
He still looks the same. Tall and lean with sharp cheekbones that first caught my eye across a crowded room at my father's annual Christmas party. Dark hair swept back from his forehead, his blue eyes that seem to change color with his moods. Right now, they're cold as winter ice.
I remember how my stomach flipped when my father first introduced us. Declan. Rising star in the organization. Smart. Ruthless when needed. Loyal.
Loyal.
Declan had smiled at me that night. He'd kissed my hand instead of shaking it, his lips lingering just a second too long against my skin. The electricity that shot through me had nothing to do with the champagne I'd been drinking.
"I've heard so much about Connor's brilliant daughter," he'd said.
Three years. Three years of believing I'd found someone who loved me.
What a fucking joke.
"Comfortable?" Declan asks now, circling behind me. His fingers brush my shoulder, and I jerk away from his touch.
"Like I'm at the Four Seasons," I spit, hating how my voice shakes. "Room service is shit though."
He laughs, and for a heartbeat, I hear the man I thought I loved. The one who'd bring me coffee in bed and read the Sunday paper with me, his feet tangled with mine under the covers. The man who'd listen to my ideas about expanding the legitimate side of my father's business.
All an act. Every touch, every kiss, every whispered promise. Just moves in a long game to ruin my father's operation.
I lift my chin. Meet his eyes. Say nothing.
He circles my chair, fingers trailing along the back. The touch makes bile rise in my throat. Three years I let this man touch me. Three years of lies.
"You know what I need, Nora." He stops in front of me, crouches to eye level. His breath carries whiskey and cigarettes. "Sartori shipping schedules. Security protocols. Which cops are on their payroll."
"I was a secretary."
"You were never just that." His hand cups my jaw, thumb pressing into the bruise already forming. "Too smart for your own good. Always watching, always listening."
I jerk my face away. "I answered phones. Made coffee."
"For two months?" He stands, paces to the wall and back. "Two months working for the man whose family is an enemy to yours?"
"I know nothing at all, Declan."
"The shipments. When do they come in? Which docks?"
"Tuesday and Thursday. Sometimes Saturday if it's urgent."
His hand cracks across my cheek. Stars explode behind my eyes, and the world tilts. For a second, all I hear is a high-pitched ringing.
"Don't insult me with obvious lies."
I spit red onto the concrete between us. "Ask better questions then."
Another blow. This one rocks the chair. My vision blurs, doubles, slowly refocuses. Declan flexes his fingers, knuckles already reddening.
"Their security system. Override codes."
"I don't know—"
"The safe room locations."
"I never—"
"Which of their soldiers would flip for the right price?"
"How would I—"
He grabs my throat. Not squeezing yet, just holding. A promise. "You lived in that compound. You attended their family dinners. You fucked their Don." His grip tightens slightly. "And you want me to believe you know nothing?"
Black spots dance at the edge of my vision. I force myself to stay calm, breathe shallow through my nose.
"I was never..." The words rasp against his palm. "Never one of them."
He releases me. I gasp, pulling air into burning lungs.
"No?" Declan drags over a metal folding chair, sits facing me. "Then what were you? Besides a whore spreading her legs for the enemy?"
There it is. The real game begins.
"At least Pietro could make me come."
The silence stretches, taut as piano wire. Declan's face goes very still.
"What did you say?"
"You heard me." I lean forward as much as the ropes allow. "Three years, Declan. Three years of you pumping away for two minutes before rolling over to sleep."
His face darkens. "You were boring," he spits. "Lying there like a dead fish, never initiating, never—"
"Because you never made me want to." The laughter comes easier now, genuine. "Christ, I thought something was wrong with me. Thought I was broken. Then Pietro touched me once—once—and I understood. The problem wasn't me."
Declan's hand cracks across my face hard enough to taste copper again.
"You comparing me to that guinea fuck?"
"There's no comparison." I work my jaw, checking if anything's broken. "When he fucks me, it's because he wants me, not some trophy to parade around Boston."
"I gave you everything—"
"You gave me lies." Blood drips from my chin onto my torn shirt. "Every kiss, every 'I love you,' every promise about our future. All calculated."
Declan surges to his feet, chair screeching against concrete. He paces the small space like something caged.
"You know what the funny part is?" I watch him through swelling eyes. "I would have been the perfect wife for you because I loved you. If you'd just bothered to pretend you gave a damn."
"I did care—"
"You cared about the alliance. About impressing Connor. About having the princess of the O'Sullivan family in your bed." My voice drops. "But you never cared about me."
He spins, stalks back to loom over me. "And Sartori does?"
Yes.
The answer is a silent scream in my head.
He wants ME.
He doesn't just want what I represent.
"Pietro would burn Chicago to ash for me."
"He let you walk into my hands."
"I walked myself."
Declan's fist connects with my ribs. Pain explodes through my torso. I bite down on the scream, refusing to give him that satisfaction.
"The security codes." He's breathing hard now, control slipping. "Give me something useful or I start breaking fingers."
"I don't know any codes."
He grabs my bound hand, isolates my index finger. "Last chance."
"I. Was. Just. A. Secretary."
He focuses on my index finger, bending it back until it’s at an angle it was never meant to hold. There’s a sickening, wet pop that I feel more than hear, a sound that travels up the bone of my arm. A scream tears from my throat before I can swallow it.
"Security codes."
"Go to hell."
Another finger. The crack echoes off the walls. Tears stream down my face but I lock my jaw, swallow the screams.
"You know what your problem is, Declan?" My voice shakes but I push through. "You still think pain will make me choose you over him. Like if you hurt me enough, I'll remember my place."
"Your place is wherever I say it is."
"My place is with Pietro." Each word costs me, but I need him to hear this. "In his bed. In his life. In his family."
The third finger gives way with a sound like snapping twigs. The scream that rips out of me is pure animal pain, and for a moment, all my defiance vanishes. There is only the blinding, jagged agony radiating from my hand. Get it together, Nora. Don't let him see you break.
"Hard to be in his bed when you're here with me." Declan releases my mangled hand. "And you're going to be here for a while. Until your father decides what to do with you."
"Connor won't come."
"Of course he will. You're his daughter."
"I'm his disappointment." The broken fingers throb in time with my heartbeat. "The daughter who chose a Sartori over family honor. He'll let me rot."
"Then I'll sell you to the highest bidder." Declan pulls out his phone, snaps a photo of my battered face. "Plenty of people want a piece of Connor O'Sullivan's little princess."
"Good luck with that."
He pauses, thumb hovering over his screen. "You really don't care, do you?"
"I'm already dead." The truth tastes like freedom. "The moment I was born, I signed my death warrant. You, whoever—someone was always going to collect. At least I got to feel alive first."
"Alive?" Declan barks out a laugh. "You call this alive? Tied up in a basement, beaten bloody, waiting to die?"
"More alive than three years of pretending to love you."
The phone clatters across the floor. He's on me in two strides, hands fisting in my hair, yanking my head back.
"I should kill you right now."
"Do it." I bare my teeth at him, feral. "Put a bullet in my skull. End this."
His grip tightens. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? Quick and clean."
"I'd like to stop looking at your face."
He releases me with a shove that rocks the chair dangerously.
"I need you alive." He retrieves his phone, checks the cracked screen. "Connor wants his pound of flesh. But if you keep pushing me..." He pulls a Glock from his waistband, presses the barrel against my temple. "Accident happens. You tried to escape. I had no choice."
The metal is cold against my skin. My pulse hammers but I don't flinch.
"I stopped being afraid of you the moment you tried to strangle me in Boston. Everything since then has been borrowed time."
"Time you spent fucking our enemy."
I don't answer. I'm getting tired of this.
He climbs the stairs. The door slams. The lock engages.
Alone again with the dripping water and the dancing shadows. My fingers throb. My face feels like tenderized meat. Every breath sends fire through potentially cracked ribs.
But I didn't break.
Didn't give him anything he could use against Pietro.