Chapter 4
CHAPTER 4
R onan O’Malley
There’s a certain kind of silence that only exists in a basement like this one.
The hum of the single flickering lightbulb above. The faint drip of water from some unseen pipe in the corner. The wheezing breath of the man tied to the chair, his own blood pooling at his feet.
I leaned back against the wall, arms folded across my chest, my eyes fixed on the man in front of me.
His name was Mickey Donnelly. A face I’d known since I was a kid, back when he was just one of my father’s loyal soldiers. He’d been at my first communion, sitting two tables over, drinking whiskey and laughing too loud. And now he was sitting in front of me, wrists bound, face swollen, the smell of sweat and fear clinging to him like a second skin.
Disloyalty always has a stink to it. You can smell it before you see it.
“You disappoint me, Mickey,” I said, my voice calm and strangely even. The kind of tone that made men squirm more than shouting ever could. I stepped forward, the soles of my shoes clicking against the concrete floor. “You had a choice, didn’t you? You could’ve come to me, told me what was going on. But instead, you went behind my back to the Italians. To the fucking Benedettis, of all people.”
At the mention of their name, Mickey’s head snapped up, his bloodied mouth opening to protest. “It—it wasn’t like that, Ronan, I swear. It wasn’t like that?—”
“Then what was it like?” I asked, cutting him off. I crouched down in front of him, meeting his eyes, my voice still quiet. Controlled. “Help me understand, Mick. What part of ratting on your own to a bunch of greasy bastards who’d slit your throat for shits and giggles wasn’t betrayal?”
He flinched at the word betrayal, his lips trembling. “I didn’t have a choice!” he pleaded, his voice cracking. “They—they came to me, said they’d kill my family if I didn’t?—”
“Don’t lie to me.” My voice dropped lower, colder. The kind of voice that stopped people from talking midsentence.
He swallowed hard, his chest heaving. “I—Ronan, please. I was gonna tell you, I swear. I just needed more time?—”
I stood abruptly, letting the chair he was tied to wobble under him just to fuck with him.
“Time,” I repeated, pacing a slow circle around him. “Time to do what? To sell out more of our operations? To keep feeding them information?” I stopped behind him, my hands resting on the back of his chair. “You know what your problem is, Mickey?”
He didn’t answer, didn’t even try. Really, there was nothing he could say, so I said it for him.
“You always thought you were smarter than everyone else,” I continued, my voice calm again. “Thought you could play both sides, keep everyone happy. But that’s not how this works, Mick. There are rules. Loyalty. And when you break those rules…” I leaned down so my lips were close to his ear. “There’s no coming back.”
He whimpered, his body sagging against the ropes.
The guy standing in the corner—one of my men, a younger guy named Eamon—shifted nervously. He was new to this. Still learning how to stomach the dirty work.
“Eamon,” I said without turning around, “give me your knife.”
I heard the hesitation in his step as he moved toward me, heard the faint metallic scrape as he pulled the blade from its sheath and handed it over. I took it without a word, the weight of it familiar in the palm of my hand. Mickey was trembling now, his shoulders shaking with silent sobs.
“Ronan, please,” he choked out. “Please, I’ll make it right. I’ll?—”
“Stop,” I said, cutting him off. “You made your choice, Mick. You live with it, or you don’t. Simple as that.”
I stepped back in front of him, flipping the knife casually in my hand. I didn’t need to use it—not tonight, at least. I just wanted him to know I could and that someday soon, I probably would.
He flinched every time the blade caught the light, his eyes darting between it and my face. He looked like he wanted to say something else, but no words came. Just shallow breaths and that pathetic, pleading look I’d seen a hundred times before.
I didn’t say anything else. I didn’t need to.
Instead, I nodded to Eamon, signaling for him to take Mickey back to wherever we were keeping him. He stepped forward, grabbing the back of the chair and dragging it across the concrete, the legs scraping against the floor with an awful screech.
I watched them disappear down the hallway, the knife still in my hand. My heart rate hadn’t even spiked.
I turned the blade over once more, then slid it into my pocket.
Business was business. And I had bigger things to worry about now.
The buzzing of my phone against my hip cut through the silence. I pulled it out, frowning slightly at the name glowing on the screen.
Kiera Delaney.
My little sister’s best friend.
For a moment, I just stared at it, my thumb hovering over the answer button. I hadn’t seen or heard from her in months, not since the barbecue last summer. Not since she’d spent the whole night avoiding me, her face turning beet red every time our eyes met.
What the hell could she possibly want?
With a sigh, I swiped to answer and pressed the phone to my ear.
“Kiera,” I said, my voice calm, but edged with curiosity.
There was a long pause on the other end, the faint sound of her breathing coming through the line.
“Ronan,” she said finally, her voice softer than I expected. “I… wouldn’t have called but I don’t know what else to do. I need your help.”
I leaned back against the wall, the knife still heavy in my pocket. I cocked my head, her words hanging heavy in the air.
“Do you now?” I murmured, my lips curving into a small, humorless smile. “Well then, love. This should be interesting.”
Her silence stretched, long and thin, like a wire about to snap. I waited, the phone pressed to my ear, the faint wheezing drip of the basement pipes filling the silence.
I didn’t rush her. Kiera Delaney wasn’t the type of girl you rushed—not if you wanted her to actually spit out the truth.
But I could hear it in her breathing: shallow, tight. She didn’t want to tell me whatever this was.
Which made me all the more curious.
“Kiera,” I said evenly, breaking the silence. “Start talking. Now.”
She let out a shaky exhale, and I could almost picture her on the other end of the line—pacing the room, biting her lip, trying to figure out how to phrase whatever mess she’d gotten herself into.
“I…” She hesitated. “I screwed up.”
A corner of my mouth quirked up, not quite a smile. “That much is obvious. Keep going.”
There was a pause, and then she sighed, the sound so frustrated I almost laughed. “I didn’t mean to, okay? It just… kind of happened.”
“Not an answer,” I said, my voice dropping. “What. Happened.”
Her voice came quicker this time, like ripping off a Band-Aid. “I was at Velvet a couple of nights ago with Leena. We were just having fun, you know, unwinding, and then I saw this guy—this asshole—grabbing girls on the dance floor like he thought they were there for his entertainment.”
My jaw tightened. “Go on.”
“And I… well, I confronted him. I told him off.”
That pulled a laugh out of me, low and amused. “You told him off?”
“Yeah, well, I threw my drink in his face too,” she snapped, her frustration coming through loud and clear. “And he deserved it, okay? He was being a disgusting creep, and no one else was going to say anything, so I did.”
I let the silence drag just long enough for her to start getting nervous.
Good.
She should be nervous. There was going to be a very steep price to pay for my help.
“And?” I pressed.
She hesitated again, but this time, her voice was quieter when she spoke. “And then Leena told me who he was. Marco Benedetti.”
That name stopped me cold.
For a second, I didn’t respond. I just stood there a bit dumbfounded. My grip on the phone tightened. Of all the people in New York she could have picked a fight with, it had to be him.
“You picked a fight with a Benedetti,” I said slowly, tasting each word.
“He was groping girls on the dance floor, Ronan,” she shot back, defensive. “What was I supposed to do? Just stand there and let him get away with it?”
“Yes,” I said bluntly. “That’s exactly what you should’ve done.”
Her breath caught, like she was gearing up for another argument, but I cut her off before she could get started.
“Let me guess,” I said, pacing a slow circle around the basement. “He didn’t take kindly to your little moral crusade, did he?”
She was silent for a moment, and then I heard her exhale shakily. “No. He, uh… he made a call to Columbia. To my dean. I don’t know what he said exactly, but my scholarship is suddenly ‘under review,’ and I?—”
I stopped pacing. “He’s threatening your future.”
I closed my eyes briefly, inhaling through my nose.
Marco fucking Benedetti. He’d always been such a little shit, hiding behind his father’s money and connections like a coward.
I hated him, but power respected power.
“Yes,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper now. “And now the electricity’s gone out in the apartment and I don’t know what to do. I can’t afford to stay without that scholarship, Ronan. If I lose it, I lose everything.”
Kiera was proud—too proud, usually—but there was no pride in her voice now. Just desperation.
Desperation I was going to thoroughly enjoy.
“Are you finished?” I asked finally, keeping my tone calm.
Her breath hitched. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, is there anything else I need to know? Or is that the whole story?”
“That’s it,” she said quickly, then added, “I swear.”
I nodded, more to myself than to her. “Good. Now listen carefully, little girl , because I’m only going to say this once.”
I heard her inhale quickly on the other end of the line.
“You want my help? Fine. But you don’t get to tell me no. Not for this. Not for anything. Not ever .”
There was a pause, the kind of charged silence that made most people squirm. I waited, letting her sit with my words, letting the meaning of them truly settle in.
When she finally spoke, her voice was tight. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” I said, my tone razor sharp, “that you don’t get to pick and choose, love. If I’m going to clean up your mess, you don’t argue. You don’t negotiate. You’ll owe me.”
Her breath caught, and for a moment, I thought she might hang up. But she didn’t.
“Are we clear?” I asked, my voice soft, but unrelenting.
“I…” She hesitated, and I could practically hear her pride warring with her desperation. Finally, she exhaled shakily. “Yes. We’re clear.”
“Good girl. Now I’m coming to get you. You’ll be ready and waiting for me when I get there,” I said, my lips curving into a faint smile.
And then, before she could say anything else, I hung up.
I stared at the phone for a moment, her voice still lingering in my mind, before sliding it back into my pocket.
My palm twitched.
Kiera didn’t know it yet, but there was going to be a very steep price for my help, and I intended to cash in every single moment.
Over my knee with a bright red ass.
And on her back with her legs spread and my cum leaking from her well-used little pussy.
On her stomach with her asshole pink and sore from a rough fucking with my cock.
And that would only be the beginning.
I smiled.
I couldn’t wait.