Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
Conrad
I came to with a shivering gasp, my body on fire until I realized it was the opposite. Cold. Icy water dripped from my chin, spilled down my bare chest.
My shoulders ached as they were tied behind my back around a chair.
My ankles tied to the chair legs. I wore nothing but my jeans.
My thumb immediately went to my finger, but the ring wasn’t there.
The ring wasn’t there. Beside my chair sat a bucket, likely the source of my current icy cold wet state.
I tried not to panic at the absence of the ring. Maybe the ring was somewhere here in this building with the rest of my clothes. I’d been mid-conversation with Nik, so he’d know I was taken.
I was in a large windowless room, more like an entire below-ground floor of a building, lit by a few bare bulbs in the ceiling.
A row of cages lined one wall, and I was in the middle in a big wooden chair with a high back.
And sitting across from me, his legs crossed casually, was Devlin.
I couldn’t see anyone else in the basement, but there were a lot of dark shadows where men could be lurking.
I tensed and fought my way through the haze of whatever drug they’d given me to focus.
This had been the end game all along, to give myself to Devlin so we’d be able to pin down his location.
But we hadn’t planned on it yet, and I loathed being caught off guard.
I studied Devlin as he brought a lit cigarette to his lips, inhaled, and then rose from his chair. He leaned down and exhaled right in my face. He knew how I hated cigarettes, and I refused to cough. Instead, I inhaled his second-hand smoke like I’d been doing it all my life.
He grinned. And then he reared back and slapped me in the face.
My head whipped to the side to absorb the blow, although it hadn’t been too hard. This was a warning. A warmup. Still, my skin stung
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” Devlin pulled his chair closer and perched at the edge of the seat, so our knees touched.
He didn’t look well. His skin was sallow, and his eyes bloodshot.
He couldn’t hide a tremor in his hand, and he wore jeans, boots, and a thin T-shirt.
All of it dirty. I had him running scared. Soto had him running scared.
He gripped my chin, and his fingers dug into my cheeks. “I’ve known you were Soto for a while, and that was fine. I liked the competition. It was fun. I wasn’t going to hurt you for that, Conrad. Not at all.”
This time when he pulled back his elbow, it was with a closed fist, and he slammed it into my temple so hard that I saw stars. It’d been a long time since I had to take a hit. I’d been in plenty fights, but when I was much younger, and Devlin was strong despite his obvious distress.
“But what I can’t forgive,” he seethed, his cigarette breath making my stomach roll. “What I can’t forgive is you fucking the man who killed my brother. For putting him under your protection.” He inhaled sharply and his voice boomed in the enclosed space. “For moving him into your fucking home!”
He punched me again, in the stomach this time, and at least I saw it coming and had time to brace. Still, the hit was right at my kidneys and left me gasping for breath as pain seared through my side. How the fuck did Tav do this all the time?
Devlin gripped my chin again, forcing me to look at him. “That could have been me. I would have been so much better for you than that dumb Husk.”
I inhaled through my nostrils. My head throbbed, and my side ached, and this was only the beginning, I was sure. I had to focus, and I couldn’t let him bait me with insults about Tav.
Devlin leaned closer and brushed his cheek along mine.
He’d used to do that when we were young, before we hit puberty, back when he was touch-starved for affection.
But now it was a mimic of a caress, devoid of all the innocence it had meant back then, and I wanted to hurl.
“I know you’re only with him to make me jealous.
To hurt me. I forgive you, baby. Just kick him out, and we’ll be okay.
No more hitting, okay? I won’t hit you again. ”
I closed my eyes as Devlin’s stubble rasped along my skin.
I hated the feel of it. The smell of him, cigarette smoke with the pungent tang of liquor.
He’d been drinking. His fingers slid down my chest to palm my very soft cock through my jeans, and bile rose in my throat.
I would have rather him hit me. Rip out a tooth.
Snip off a finger. Anything but touch me when I could still smell Tav’s cum on my skin.
“No,” I whispered. “No, Devlin.”
He pulled back and cupped my face. “No what, baby?”
“I love Tav, and that has nothing to do with you.”
His stared at me for a moment, and then his eyes shuttered.
He slowly dropped his hands from me and stood to his full height.
With the thumb on each hand, he cracked the knuckle of each finger one at a time.
Each sound was a warning bell, and I paid attention.
I inhaled. Exhaled. Inhaled. Exhaled. I thought of Tav.
When the first punch came, I was ready, but that still didn’t prepare me for the strength of the blow.
Blood filled my mouth as Devlin unleashed on me.
My head. My body. Thighs. Everywhere he could touch, Devlin inflicted pain.
His spit sprayed me as he cursed. As I felt a tooth loosen in my mouth.
My nose crunched. Pain became my friend and enemy as my brain sloshed in my skull until I lost the battle.
I opened my eyes. Well, one eye. One didn’t open, and I didn’t need to touch it to know it was swollen all to hell, as was likely my entire face.
But my hands were no longer tied behind my back.
In fact, I was no longer in that damn chair either.
I lay on my side on the concrete floor, in one of those cages I’d seen earlier.
Blood pooled below my head, which certainly wasn’t good.
A bucket in the corner was my only friend, along with a single bottle of water.
I reached for it, and my shoulders screamed.
Heaving myself to a sitting position took gargantuan effort, but I managed to settle myself on my hip as I tipped some water into my bloody mouth.
I didn’t want to waste any water, so I didn’t spit out the blood in my mouth, just swallowed it along with the water.
I prodded at a loose molar with my tongue.
I was alone in this basement, as far as I could see. A set of stairs led up to a closed door, but they’d left on a few lights for me. How considerate.
My face throbbed like an entire exposed nerve, and my vision was wonky.
I didn’t even look at my torso. I didn’t want to see the extent of the damage from Devlin’s anger.
He’d been livid. Absolutely incensed. I knew my words would provoke him, but that had been my intention.
I wanted his anger, not his misguided attempt to seduce me.
I drank some more water and slipped in and out of consciousness.
With no windows, I couldn’t be sure how much time had passed when the door opened and footsteps descended the stairs.
I tried to sit up higher to maintain some level of dignity, as much as I could while beat to shit and locked in a cage.
Devlin’s image swam into my vision. He crouched down in front of my cage, smoking a cigarette. He was less manic now, but his eyes were cold. “You’re that noble and loyal that you couldn’t pretend to want me?” He cocked his head to the side and seemed genuinely curious at my response.
For a long time, I’d wondered what Devlin truly felt for me. Was it some sort of childhood idolization? An ownership? It wasn’t affection or love. My current pain proved that. “Is that what you wanted?” I asked him. I struggled to form clear words with my swollen lips. “Did you want me to pretend?”
He shrugged. “I was curious what you’d do. I thought you were more selfish than that.”
“And what would you have done if I told you I wanted you?”
His lips curled into a smirk. “I would have rubbed it in Husk’s face before I killed him and his bitch sister.”
“You won’t get to them.”
He blinked almost innocently. “Won’t I?”
A different kind of pain sliced through me, and I just barely held off from surging forward and snatching him through the bars of the cage. “You won’t.” But my voice was shaky, and Devlin scented it like blood in the water.
He laughed and sat down on the ground like he was settling in for a long chat.
He braced his forearms on his bent knees and took another drag of his cigarette.
“I don’t know who I hate more. You. Husk.
His sister? Maybe Nik, that commie motherfucker.
” He blew out a smoke ring. “Ben too, the traitor.” He dropped the cigarette on the floor and ground it with the heel of his boots.
“If you’d accepted your place at my side ten years ago, we could have ruled this city. ”
“We wouldn’t be running a criminal empire, Devlin,” I said. “I wouldn’t have allowed it.”
“What are you talking about?” he frowned. “This was always what we were meant to be. You’re the one playing pretend.”
I’d told Tav that I thought Devlin was more obsessed with what we could have been, with an imaginary version of me.
And now more than ever, I realized that was the case.
I remembered his words when we’d met last. You could have stopped me ten years ago.
You could have collared me, and I would have been brought to heel like a dog.
No, I couldn’t have. I didn’t have it in me.