Chapter 45
Chapter forty-five
Tristian
The Obsidian was a different kind of hellhole without the music. No strobes, no bass, no bodies to hide its sins. All that was left was stale gin, expensive cigarettes, and the scent of a thousand bad decisions. It was a tomb. And tonight, I was here to bury the man who built it.
Kane and James followed me inside, their footsteps heavy on the hardwood. I’d texted Darragh an hour ago:
Want to talk about our deal. Just us. Leave the door unlocked.
The bastard wouldn’t be able to resist thinking he still held the leash.
“Stay on the stairs,” I muttered as we reached the foot of the VIP lounge. “Nobody comes up… and no one leaves.”
They didn’t argue. We’d done enough of that when they tried to convince me to back down.
I walked alone toward the VIP doors. They were unlocked, just like I’d told him.
The room was cast in a sickly amber glow from the accent lights. Darragh sat in his leather armchair like a king, glass in hand, that dark smile already cutting across his face—a look I’d seen a thousand times.
“Tristian,” he purred in that Irish twang I’d spent years learning to hate. “Sit. I understand you’d like to discuss our… arrangement.”
I didn’t sit. I stood in the center of the room, my shadow stretching long and dark across the floor.
“There’s no arrangement. No more fixed fights. No more running anything for you. I’m out. This is the last time you see me.”
Darragh’s smile didn’t falter, but his eyes turned cold.
“Out.” He said it like it amused him. “You don’t get ‘out,’ lad.
You’re the best investment I ever made. I poured years into molding you.
You think I’m gonna to let my prize fighter walk away because he found himself a little pussy that made his heart go soft? ” He leaned forward. “I made you.”
“You tried to fucking break me.”
“I had to. If not… you’d be shacked up in prison for the hundredth time, no? Crying over your mam? If I didn’t take you under my wing… where would you be? I saved you from yourself,” he snapped. “You were a disaster. Wild. Stupid. One fight away from ending up behind some fuckin’ alley.”
“Darragh…” I breathed out, holding back the anger that simmered beneath my skin. “I’m done.”
A flick of irritation curled through his expression. He wanted me loud, out of control, raging like the boy he used to control.
He let out a dry laugh, standing up as he set his glass down with a deliberate clack on the glass table.
“You think this is a choice, eh? You think you get to walk away from me? You work for me, boy. Or people get hurt. You of all people should know that. But if you need a reminder of what it costs to the people around you… I wouldn’t mind giving you a front row seat. ”
A broken whimper from the corner of the room caught my attention. My head whipped to the sound, and when my eyes laid on the sight, my heart sank to the ground.
Camila. Ingrid’s sister.
She was bound, a thick gag tied around her mouth.
Her flimsy dress hung off one shoulder, ripped, exposing a collarbone.
Her hair was tangled and matted, stuck to her cheek with sweat.
And her eyes, bloodshot, drugged up, glassy, unfocused, blinking slow, as if the world lagged a full second behind her.
Her head lolled forward, then back again as she drifted in and out of consciousness.
She was so small and broken in the place that had done the same to me.
“She’s a pretty little thing, isn’t she?
Got a fuckin’ mouth on her, that’s for sure, but it’s easy enough to settle her down.
And I gotta hand it to you, son,” Darragh mused, “you picked a fine pair of sisters. Two beautiful, broken little dolls. A lover and a fighter, both swallowed up by the world.”
“You fucking prick,” I hissed, stepping forward.
“Careful, boy,” Darragh warned, his voice sharpening. “One more step and things get very messy for your little dollbaby.”
I made a move to shut him down, to wrap my hands around his throat right then and there, but the sound of heavy boots echoed from the hall.
Two doors swung open behind me. Before I could turn, the groan from the man being tossed to floor hit my ears.
Kane.
He crashed to the floor first, dragged by the collar, blood smearing down his temple. James followed, a goon’s fist knotted in his hair, forcing him down until his body cracked against wood.
Both of them were breathing hard, already hurt.
I moved on instinct, but three sets of hands clamped down immediately, holding me still.
I stopped, my jaw tight, my hands curling into white-knuckled fists as I struggled against them. “I told you to come alone.”
Darragh looked entirely too pleased with himself.
“I’m too wise for that, Tristian. Especially after the shit some of the boys have pulled.
You were always too emotional, too prone to these.
.. outbursts.” He stepped closer, pushing up the sleeves of his dark dress shirt.
“I need to teach you a lesson. A reminder of who you belong to.”
He reached for his belt. My skin crawled before he even touched the leather.
The silver buckle glinted… and that sharp tongue, the pin that held it firm…
it ignited a flash of memory: the whip of the belt, the flash of the silver, and the screaming pain as it tore into my back over and over and over.
Darragh’s laugh echoed, ricocheting in the shadows of my mind, a recollection so vivid it could have been real.
One of the guys kicked my knees in from behind, forcing them to the ground. Another tore off my shirt despite my constant thrashing.
Pictures replayed in my mind, me cowering as Darragh’s men held me down and Darragh did his work, the scars on my back burning as if they had been ripped open once more.
Dozens of hours, maybe hundreds, in a chair as Kane and James worked to cover me with tattoos, to hide those terrible scars within the ink, to bury my shame…
and yet now it roared to the surface again.
The pain felt almost fresh, stabs of agony ripping through my back as the sight of that fucking belt, filling me with the same fear I’d felt years ago.
“You remember this, don’t you?” Darragh whispered, working the end of the belt out of a loop, levering it up to release the pin.
The metal caught the light, mocking me. “It broke you once. It’ll break you again.
” His voice softened, mock pity and awe.
“Look at those pretty pictures you used to hide what I did to you.” He sighed.
“Good inkmanship, mind you. Shame it’s wasted now. ”
My body trembled as he rounded us, his footsteps ominous in the air, my heart pounding in my eardrums as I thrashed again, jerking my body to be let free—but it wouldn’t budge.
Then… the room felt smaller. Darker.
Darragh sighed dramatically as he positioned himself behind me, like this was an inconvenience.
“You know how much I hate to do this,” he said, voice thick with false regret. “Trust me, lad… this hurts me more than it hurts you.”
I braced myself for the impact, my body going rigid as I forced a breath through my nose, grinding my teeth. I could feel the air in the room go cold as the belt clattered behind me, his hand ready to strike.
Then—”Fuck!“ Darragh yelled with a grunt of pain.
Chaos erupted behind me.
My head whipped to the side just as one of the men restraining me staggered, hands flying off my shoulder.
Kane, all bloody, shaking, and furious, had thrown himself at the man holding me down. James threw what looked like lamp at the brick wall heading toward him while shattered pieces from another lay beside Darragh.
I pulled the arm of the man holding me down before head-butting him straight in his face. My ears rung as he fell to the ground, my eyes searching the room for the Irishman in pure rage. He scrambled back, making a frantic break for the hall that led to his private office.
I hit the hallway at a full sprint. He reached his office and slammed the door, the heavy lock clicking just as I hit it. I heard him dragging a heavy filing cabinet against the wood, his breath hitching in panicked, wheezing gasps.
I didn’t stop. I backed up, then threw my entire weight against the door. The frame groaned. Again. Crack. On the third hit, the wood splintered, and the cabinet slid back.
I pushed through. The office was plush—mahogany, velvet, and the scent of old money. Darragh was backed against his desk, clutching the belt in his trembling hand.
“So… This is how you fuckin’ repay me,” he spat. “After everything I’ve done for you? You think I don’t have power over you anymore, boy.”
“You don’t,” I said, closing the distance. My footsteps were slow, deliberate. “You’re just a man, Darragh. A weak, pathetic man.”
He tightened his fist with belt before he swung.
I ducked, the buckle still tearing at my skin, but caught his wrist and squeezed, the bone snapping under my grip.
He screamed, dropping leather, but he wasn’t done.
He lunged like an animal, ramming his shoulder into my ribs.
We crashed into the wall. Pictures shattered.
His elbow slammed into my jaw and pain exploded.
He didn’t give me a chance to recover. He went for my throat, but I lunged, my fist connecting with his nose. Bone shattered, blood spraying across my knuckles. I followed it with a hook to his ribs.
He fought through the pain, trying to lunge at me again like a wild animal. This was the sick fuck I knew. This was the man that tormented me.
I drove another fist into his ribs, before going across his face.
He hunched over in pain. “You… you think you’re free?” he wheezed.
He laughed behind a weak, wet, gurgling sound, teeth red with blood. “Who’s going to pay for your mammy’s hospital bills, eh? Those machines aren’t cheap, lad… You think you can save her without my hand in your pocket? You’re nothing but a street rat without me.”
I hit him again, a straight right that sent him crashing to the floor. His head cracked against the corner of the desk on the way down.
“Surely not… Noah?” Darragh choked out, blood leaking from his ears. “You’re going to work for Daddy now? Be Noah’s good little boy? That’s how you’re going to save your mam, eh? By being Daddy’s little bitch?” He spat this last word, infusing it with every ounce of venom he had.
I was on the ground. My fists flew in a blur. He smiled through every punch, blood poured from his mouth, but he grinned, wide, horrifying, delirious, like he was savoring every blow.
“Atta boy,” he rasped, coughing blood onto my shirt. “Harder. Show me what you’ve learned. Show me what I fuckin’ made.”
I slammed him into the desk. Punch after punch, my knuckles shredded as I destroyed him with my fists.
With every sickening crunch, that awful memory of him whipping me with that fucking belt began to fall away. His threats to Ingrid, the scars that stung on my back, all of it going silent in my mind.
Finally, I relented. Darragh lay face down, blood spraying from his mouth and staining his white silk shirt.
He was a mess now. Eyes swollen, face crimson, body crumpled, he breathed heavily.
“You didn’t make me, Darragh… You don’t own me,” I breathed out. “Not anymore.”
He gave another smile. “I hope...” he wheezed, a final, spiteful glint in his gaze as he gazed up at me. “I hope you like watching me die... because soon... you’ll have to do the same... with your mammy. She’ll go cold... just like me... and you’ll be the one to turn off the lights.”
I leered over him, slow and silent, while the fight raged faintly in the lounge behind us. He tried to keep his head up, tried to lift himself, crawl away, but he couldn’t. And then I saw it.
That fucking belt. It lay by the edge of his feet, gleaming in the dimly lit room. My body moved before my mind caught up. I picked it up, taking a step toward him as he lifted his head one last time.
Then I stepped over him, looped the leather around his throat, watching his face go pale.
He made a pathetic gasp for air as I planted my knee between his shoulder blades and pulled.
His body went rigid. Despite the broken bones, he found the strength to overcome the agony raging through him to grab for the leather encircling his neck.
He clawed at it. But he couldn’t grip it: the belt was too tight, the leather digging too deep into his skin; and besides, his fingers were bloody and mangled.
His mouth opened and closed, but no noise came out.
His hands clawed at the floor, nails scraping for purchase, finding none. His broken fingers slipped uselessly on the wood. His legs kicked once, then again, weakening with each jerk.
I pulled harder. The silver buckle dug into my palms, the metal teeth of the dragon biting into my own skin, but I didn’t feel the pain.
I watched the life drain out of him, the frantic clawing at my arms slowing, then stopping.
His face turned a deep, bruised purple. I held the belt tight around his neck for another minute, making sure the darkness took him under completely.
When I finally let go, he slumped sideways on the floor, limbs twisted beneath him.
I stood there, my chest heaving. My knuckles were shredded, my body covered in blood that wasn’t mine. The belt felt heavy in my hand and I dropped it onto his corpse, breathing out over his lifeless body before I turned and left.
The lounge was quiet now. The goons were prone on the floor, bloody and broken. Both let out shallow snores, gurgling groans that spoke clearly for how much damage Kane and James had done.
James was leaning against the bar, catching his breath, bruises covering him. Kane was untying Camila, who looked like she was slowly coming to.
They both looked at me, then at the open office door.
“Is he—” James started, trailing off.
“He’s gone,” I said.
Kane let out a slow breath. “Only took us getting our asses kicked.” Then he looked at the thugs, his chest still heaving. “What about these assholes?”
“Leave them,” I said, wiping a smear of blood from my cheek. “They weren’t loyal. They were scared. Nothing left to fear now. King is dead.”
Kane tried to stand Camila up, but her knees buckled. She wasn’t able to stand on her own. I stepped in without thinking, shouldering her weight. She looked at me with those vacant, terrified eyes, and for a second, I saw Ingrid—I saw the woman I loved and the life I was finally allowed to have.
I wrapped my jacket around her shoulders. “It’s over, Camila,” I muttered, pulling her close to me by her trembling shoulders. “I’m taking you home.”