20. Tristian
Chapter twenty
Tristian
The needle hummed in my hand. Usually work grounded me.
Today it wasn’t enough. My phone had been buzzing on and off all day with notifications from my little doll.
It had taken every ounce of effort in me to ignore them—though I had broken this afternoon, reading the string of texts without replying just before I started my shift.
Although, I didn’t have to look to know what they said.
She was begging, worried. Reaching out the only way she knew how, soft and persistent.
I was a cold-blooded bastard for leaving her on read.
I couldn’t answer because I didn’t trust what mental state I was in.
If I went to her like this, angry and bitter still from my meeting with Darragh, I’d scare her off for good, shatter her fragile world.
And scaring her was the last thing I wanted to do.
I wiped the excess ink from my client’s skin, my mind drifting to my father.
He hadn’t called in days, which was never a good sign.
I was a man trapped between three cliffs: play the puppet for Darragh and keep Ingrid safe, bend to my father to keep my mother’s bills paid, or burn it all down and risk my knees still being shattered by that sick Irish fuck. Nothing felt like freedom.
James walked over, nodding to my client as they headed for the door. He caught my eye, his expression grim. “Darragh is at his club tonight…”
I shrugged, forcing a nonchalance I didn’t feel. “Good for him.”
“Told me and Kane to let you know he’s offering you twenty thousand to lose your next match in the ring.”
My brows furrowed. “Is he fucking crazy?”
“Possibly,” James muttered, leaning against the counter. “We know how Darragh can get… give you an offer you can’t resist and use it against you the next day.”
I rubbed my face with my hands. Twenty grand. It was the price of my soul, neatly packaged to pay for my mother’s treatments. He knew exactly where to twist the knife.
I turned back to cleaning, didn’t say much else as I tried to clear my mind.
Kane was just walking in from his break when my phone buzzed again. Another message from Ingrid. I glanced at the screen, expecting to see the first line of text. Instead, I noticed she’d sent me a picture.
Curiosity getting the better of me, I opened it… and my body went numb.
It was a photo of her. She was in a VIP booth, looking painfully small against the velvet upholstery. She was wearing a white dress so tight it traced every curve of her hips—a dress I hadn’t seen, a dress that screamed for the wrong kind of attention.
Beside her, clutching her tight and grinning all too easily, was Darragh.
Beneath that, a message that I was sure Ingrid hadn’t typed:
Ingrid
Making some new friends at The Obsidian.
Kane drove like a man possessed, but it wasn’t fast enough. When we reached the club, the bouncer stepped aside the second he saw the look in my eyes. I didn’t care about the sweat, the liquor, or the grinding bodies. I stormed through the club, James and Kane at my heels.
When I stepped into the VIP area, the sight of her nearly broke my restraint. She was exactly where the photo placed her, coiled up next to Darragh, whose grip on her shoulder was possessive. She looked so small against him.
“Tristian, my boy, you’ve come to join us!” Darragh said, his voice dripping with mock warmth.
Ingrid’s head snapped up. Our eyes locked, and I saw the sheer terror dissolve into a desperate hope.
“I must say,” Darragh went on, “I have so enjoyed getting to know Ingrid here—or doll, isn’t that what you call her?
She’s been telling me all about herself.
A harpist, in this day and age! Interesting, eh?
And I believe there’s something else, too.
You’re getting into art, is that right? Thinking of becoming a painter like da Vinci here, are you? ”
Ingrid foundered. “I—” she sputtered. “I didn’t—”
“Didn’t tell me? Ah, no, but you didn’t have to. You see, doll… I have eyes everywhere. Tristian’s gym… in dear Noah’s workplace… public parks.”
My chest tightened. He’d seen us the other day.
“Let go of her, you bastard,” I snarled.
“Fine, fine,” said Darragh. “We’ve gotten friendly for long enough.”
He let her go—but not before running his fingers through Ingrid’s hair. Like he owned her.
I lunged before I could even think. Kane caught my shoulder, anchoring me back. It was the only thing stopping me before I could commit murder.
“You can go now, sweetness… I very much enjoyed your company,” Darragh said.
Ingrid didn’t wait. She scrambled onto her feet, stumbling, and then she was running.
She collided with me, her arms winding around my neck in a vice grip.
I pulled her into my chest, burying my face in her hair, breathing in the scent of her that hadn’t yet been completely drowned out by the club’s filth.
She was shaking so hard—convulsive, terrified tremors I could feel through my own body that made me want to burn the building down.
Darragh smirked at us from his chair. His goons had folded back in alongside him, watching. So were the others in the VIP room, Brandon especially over a half-drunk glass of something malty. Even the lapdancers working the poles had stopped to watch this unfold.
“Very interesting, isn’t it, your little doll paying a visit to my club tonight?
” Darragh purred. “It’s almost as if the universe wanted us to come together, get to know each other.
Or.” He leaned forward, the smile falling, a predatory sneer coming to his lips.
It was a look I knew all too well. “Perhaps it wanted you and I to come together again, Tristian.”
“Fuck you,” I growled.
Anger flashed in Darragh’s eyes. But he didn’t set his dogs on me.
Easing back into his seat, legs sprawled open, his glass dangled from his grip. “I’ll forgive this little infraction—emotions are running high I can see. You can go for now… but I want you to consider my offer, Tristian. Today was nothing but a glimpse… Refuse, and the worst of it is yet to come.”
I didn’t give him the satisfaction of a reply. I gripped Ingrid’s hand and pulled her toward the nearest bathroom. I shoved the door open, ushered her inside, and slammed the lock home.
I turned to her. She stood by the sink, tiny, trembling hands hovering near her mouth, her eyes wide and searching. She could see the carnage in my expression.
I approached her slowly, each step deliberate. She backed up until the cold porcelain kissed the backs of her thighs.
I planted my palms on either side of the sink, caging her in. She bounced on her toes, nervous and breathless, my arms like iron bars on either side of her. She was trying to retreat, but there was nowhere to go. Nowhere to run.
“Doll…” I said, my voice a low growl.
She shook her head, her breath coming in shallow hitches. I reached out, my thumb and forefinger catching her jaw, squeezing just enough to force her to focus on me. Her hands moved to make space between us, but my own caught hers, caging them onto the counter.
“Mind telling me… what you’re doing here in this tight little dress for all of the men in the building to be watching your every step?”
She stared up at me, eyes wide, jaw tight, struggling to hold herself together. I let my gaze drop once, hungry and slow over the full length of that white dress… or rather the lack of it, then back up to her face. Making sure she felt exactly what every man in that building had been looking at.
What was mine.
Her breath caught. “I’m sorry.”
I leaned in closer instead. I could almost hear her racing heart. “You and I both know that’s not going to cut it, doll.”
She breathed heavier. The closeness of my body to hers was magnetic. Every urge in my body was drawing me to her. Every thought in my mind was pulling me back.
“I didn’t want to come,” she started, and my hand tightened on her.
“Getting somewhere…”
“M-May and Amber—they’re the ones who put me in the dress.
They dragged me here, and I didn’t want to come, but—but you weren’t replying, and so I came, but then I lost them on the dance floor, and some p-people started touching me, and I went back to the bar when the bartender gave me apple juice a-and then someone took me to see Darragh and then—”
I pressed a finger to her lips, silencing the frantic tumble of words. “Breathe…” I whispered. She was so damn precious, her chest heaving, her cheeks flushed with the heat of her panic. She obeyed instantly.
Like she always did. But I didn’t know yet if she was obeying me or if she was just obeying. The way she’d been taught to. That bastard had trained her to go small and quiet the second a man used that tone.
I hated that she’d got anywhere near this place.
I hated that Darragh had fucking touched her and that I was the reason she said yes to coming out.
I softened my tone. “You’ve had a long night, baby…”
She nodded, her eyes pleading for a forgiveness she didn’t even need to ask for. I believed her. Every word. She was too pure for a place like this, and the fact that I’d let my own selfishness lead to her being here made me sick.
I slid my hands to her waist and hoisted her up onto the counter. She made a tiny sound, something between a gasp and a whimper, that went straight to my dick. Her thighs brushed the outside of my hips as her legs dangled, her tight white dress already riding up her thighs.
She was captivating. Every man in that club had likely been picturing what I was seeing now, eye-fucking her openly while I tried to hide the way my mind was doing the same. The thought made me want to go back out there and start swinging.
“You ignored me…” she whispered, voice cracking. The hurt in her voice cut deeper than any of Darragh’s threats. “Y-You just left me on read for days. Did I do something wrong?”
She started messing with the hem of my shirt, her fingers trembling. She was clinging without even knowing she was doing it, desperate for reassurance, for closeness, for me.
“Not at all, doll… I was wrong to ignore you, but I… was going through some things…” I was being a coward again, hiding the truth, because I couldn’t handle it myself.
“Like what?”
I almost hesitated. Might as well just come clean now—but I couldn’t. The threat of Darragh was too fresh, too real. I needed her calm, safe first.
“I’ll tell you later, baby… I should’ve answered you. I know.” My jaw tightened. “I was in a bad place and I didn’t want to drag you into it. It’s not an excuse… but it’s the one I have.”
She was quiet. Her trembles were subsiding steadily, but she wasn’t out of the woods yet.
I looked into her eyes. “How ’bout we get out of here?”
She gazed at me. “I don’t… I don’t want to go home,” she murmured.
Heat rose in me. “Then don’t,” I said, low. “Come to mine.”
A look came across her then, a look of both fear and thrilled excitement warring for place on her pretty porcelain face. Her fingers moved around my back, gripping.
“I’d like that,” she whispered. “I’d like that a lot.”
Her fingers curled into my shirt, tugging me closer.
I grabbed her hip, fingers digging in, my restraint on the brink of collapse.
I forced her to the very edge of the sink, my mouth hovering over hers as she clutched the fabric in her fists.
Our eyes stayed lock, tension in the air suffocating, the scent of her fucking intoxicating, hitting my senses like a drug.
Her mouth found mine, first tentative but needy before she pulled back gently. But I chased her lips, devouring her, wanting…needing to taste her again. I’d been starving for her for days.
My hand slid into her hair, gripping at the root, angling her head back so I could kiss her deeper. Harder. She gasped into my mouth, her whole body arched into me like she couldn’t help it.
Days of silence, Darragh’s hands on her, every man in that club looking at what was mine… I poured all of that anger, that tension into the kiss, refusing to let her breathe in anything but me.
I groaned into her mouth, fingers digging into her hips to keep myself from grinding into the heat of her.
God, I wanted to do everything to her.
She didn’t know what she was doing to me.
Or maybe she did.
Maybe that was the problem. Because I was selfish, I was fucked up, I didn’t deserve something this soft, this breakable, this goddamn innocent.
But here she was in my arms, so dangerously close, so fucking tempting.
And all mine.