9. Devin
“Are you sure it’s a good idea to get involved in this shit?” Tony’s sharp voice cuts through the silence of the room, pulling me from my thoughts. Even from behind his mask, his words are sharp.
I lounge on the couch, continuing to swirl my whiskey out of habit. I don’t rush to look his way, because even though the rest of the world only sees him and barely hears him, he’s a constant nag in my ear about one thing or another. “We’re already in this shit. Maybe she can unknowingly give us some insight into their inner workings.”
He scoffs, clearly not buying it. “I highly doubt that. She seems fucking oblivious. She just stared out the window the whole ride back to her place while her friends carried on in the backseat. I can tell you that I did not need to hear about the size of our men’s dicks and how they compare to different fucking vegetables.”
I take a long sip of my whiskey, still not bothering to look his way as a rush of anger floods my veins. “Don’t undermine her like that.” I try my best to keep it together and not snap at him, but there’s still an edge to my voice that I know he can hear. “I can only imagine the toll everything had on her tonight. So, don’t be a fucking prick.”
His gaze is just as hot as mine and it burns into me. I avert my eyes and watch the security cameras. The crowd is still thick in the club, and it makes me wonder who the fuck is still down there. Who is in the booths at the back, what information are they gathering, or who the fuck are they planting into our ranks?
Crossing my ankle over my knee, I slouch more into the soft couch as my thoughts drift right to Lena. Who is she to him and why is he so keen on trying to take her back? She was clearly nothing more than someone to keep locked up in a high tower somewhere, showing her off when it was appropriate for his image, and wetting his dick with on occasion.
My fingers curl tighter around my glass, the pressure on my fingertips keeping me grounded as I think about the way she was sitting at home, while that piece of shit brought other women here and more than likely fucked them before going home to her. I need to make a mental note to check the footage and find out for sure. Tally every time he fucked around on her and mark him for every single time.
“Her connection to him is a fucking liability, Devin. We can’t risk having her around and putting even bigger targets on our backs.” I let Tony’s words go in one ear and out the other. He’s skittish, and rightfully so, given his past, but my gut is telling me differently.
There’s just something about her that tells me she didn’t have a single fucking clue of what that piece of shit was up to. He pulled her in, probably in the way that all pieces of shit like that do, with niceties and full glamor. Then, as time went on, he let the mask slip and showed his true self, but she just passed it off as his ego.
A single moment in time that she convinced herself was a one-time thing. I mean, fuck, she was in her mid-twenties when they met and I’m sure that the promise of marriage was on his lips. Empty promises filled to the brim with lies.
Yes, I’m well aware that she puts a target on us. That having her around will shine a spotlight on our checkered pasts, and we risk them catching up to us. But I saw the look of fear in her eyes as he entered the hallway. I saw the woman behind the mask, both literally and figuratively, right through to the pain and suffering she endured at his hand. One that I fully intend to remove.
I can’t even imagine the kind of damage he’s done to her during the years they were together, but tonight confirmed that he hadn’t broken her. It was so goddamn heroic the way she stood up to him. Her defiance shook him, and you can bet your ass that I’m going to keep the footage of tonight for myself and watch that moment on repeat.
Maybe, if she sticks around long enough, I’ll show her what a fucking badass she is for that. But I know that with it shaking him up put an even bigger target on her back. He will be coming back, and he will be after her. He thinks that she belongs to him and wants her back, no matter what it takes.
For men like him, it’s all about status. Sure, he can sleep with however many women he wants, bring women to wherever else he rests his head at night—I know they have another hideout somewhere around this fucking town—but all in all it’s about the woman who stands at his side for pictures. His show woman, the one who everyone sees in the limelight. The tabloids. The one who makes him look like he has life together, makes people think he’s a fucking god.
I’m sure if I searched online, I would see them all dressed up at some gala, looking like the happiest couple on the planet—wholly in love with one another. And I would make sure that Tony figured out a way to erase every single one of them—scrub them from the internet for good.
“Maybe…” I say, my lips pressed against my glass. “Maybe, if we keep her close, it’ll draw the mice out from the hole. She can be the cheese, and we’ll finally have them where we want them.”
My eyes float up to Tony and he’s just watching me with those steely gray eyes. They’re cold to everyone but me, and even though I’ve been looking at them for years, they keep me guessing what he’s really thinking. There’s a connection between us that I can’t fucking deny. Simmering.
“I think that’s a fucking terrible idea and will get us all killed,” he quips. “We’ve been discovering moles left and right and we’ll eventually get the answers we need from them.”
A laugh rushes up my throat and comes out as almost a bark. I drop my foot to the floor and lean forward, my elbows resting on my knees, clutching my drink with both hands. “They’re all fucking idiots who don’t know fucking shit, thinking they can fuck whoever they want and come out ahead. None of them that are here are worth fucking anything to us.”
Tony just continues to stare at me, analyzing my reaction, and I can tell he thinks I’m fucking insane.
And he’s right.
This whole thing is fucking insane, but the minute I laid eyes on her, I knew that she was something special. She deserves so much better than to be around that piece of shit and his posse of miscreants. It makes my blood boil that he ever laid a hand on her, let alone just being able to touch her when he fucking felt like it.
I stare at the screen, watching the feed of the empty hallway, her apartment door closed tight at the end. I don’t fucking want her there, out in the open to be taken back to him at any time. Her friends would have no way of fending them off if they chose to bust down that door.
I clench my jaw at the thought of them being in the line of fire, making my hands itch. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve had this urge. I’m trying to keep my shit together because when I get this worked up, I either need to fight or make someone bleed. I try to keep my calm demeanor about me, because when I get worked up, Tony usually follows suit or will put an end to whatever has me on edge.
I see him out of the corner of my eye as he leans back, his muscular arms crossing over his hard chest. He seems like he’s putting some distance between us, reminding me that my energy can also drive him to that dark place in his mind.
I think back on the timeline, since the last time that we saw Lena and how everything went dark. But did it?
“We thought that they had disappeared because Matt wasn’t coming around, but in reality, he was sending his people in and hiding in plain sight.” I scrub a hand over my face, letting out a breath into my hand.
Tony’s voice is rough, with a sharp edge to it. “I have proof that Vince let Matt in tonight.” My eyes snap from the screen to his. “He was wearing a full face mask. When he approached Vince, they shook hands and he walked right in. No ID check or anything.” My blood boils and if I thought I could, I could haul ass down to the basement and finish that fucker in one go. But he’s either already dead, or Tasha won’t let me anywhere near him while she’s unleashing her pent-up rage. “He ditched it right before he entered the hallway and started this whole fucking mess.”
Tony clicks the screen, showing the footage of Matt approaching the hallway entrance and disappearing through it. It’s not long until his backup crew starts filtering in. It’s like entering the Twilight Zone as I watch the scene begin to unfold from a different perspective, but I’m more relaxed at the thought that a majority of those men are dead or locked up in one of my cells. Only a couple made it out unscathed and those were the ones who dragged Matt to safety.
The reality of the situation slams into me. “There’s no way that Vince did this alone, T.” Tony’s eyes darken at my words. “This runs deeper than we thought.”
Fuck this shit. I get to my feet, my blood pumping so fast as anger roars through my veins that I get lightheaded. “We need to figure out who is the fucking snake in the hen house.” I take a deep breath to try and steady myself, but it’s not working. “I don’t fucking care who it is. I want answers ripped from their lips and their blood on my hands.” I curl the fingers of my free hand into my palm, pressing in my nails and raking them over my skin.
The anger that’s pumping through my veins is making me see red. My hand twitches, and I chuck the glass at the wall without another thought. “Motherfuckers!” I roar as the glass shatters all over the floor, pieces flying through the apartment.
My breaths are erratic, and my vision is blurring at the edges. I’m fucking losing it and I feel like the heathen in me is trying to claw his way out. The need to inflict pain on someone, draw blood from their veins, break their bones, and end their life is almost unbearable.
I feel large hands grip my shoulders and I tense, not wanting anyone to get in my way if I let my rage fully take over. I look up into gray eyes and I try my best to focus on them, but my mind is reeling as they go from gray to black voids.
Maybe he’s right, because he usually is, and maybe she will be a liability for us, but I don’t fucking care. I may not have a hero complex, because I know from experience that those people rarely make it out alive, but I sure as fuck have a god complex. And this club is my realm, and I will do anything to protect what’s mine, and that now includes her.
Tony’s fingers dig into the muscles of my shoulders, his grip almost bruising against my skin. He watches me, not letting me slip from his grip or get lost in the dark corners of my own fucked up mind. His fingers press even harder, and I relax into his hold, letting him sink in deeper.
Finally, my shoulders relax and so do his. I listen to his steady breathing as it comes out from the slits in his mask, and I do my best to match them. He doesn’t normally get this close to me, but his hold is hot on my skin, and I can’t help but see the man behind the mask.
His hands slowly slide down my arms, leaving a trail of fire in their wake, letting them drop to his side as he takes a tentative step back. He gives me a heated once-over before turning on his heel and crossing to the kitchen .
He yanks off his mask as if he’s suffocating behind it and I take in the sharp lines of his jaw, the slight stubble across his face. He pours a finger into a glass and throws it back, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows. He sits the glass down with a thunk before pouring himself another. He braces himself on the countertop with an almost defeated look on his face.
Heaviness pulls at my bones as the last drops of anger leave my body. I come up behind him, the muscles in his back tensing slightly and the air grows thick again.
“We have to help her, T.” I can hear the exhaustion creeping into my voice as it turns low and rough. “We need her just as much as she needs us.” I lean against the counter, pressing my hip into the cool stone, running my hand through my hair for the umpteenth time.
He eyes me, his brow furrowing with frustration. “You can help her and I’ll just follow your lead.” His voice is flat with disdain and he might as well have slapped me. A minute ago he had his hands on me, making me feel like he was raising me up, but now? Well, now I feel like it was a persuasion tactic, and this conversation didn’t go the way he wanted it to. “She’s a liability to our cause, and if she puts you or Tash in danger?—"
I hold up a hand, cutting him off. Maybe I do have a hero complex, because I just can’t give her up.
No, not a fucking hero. Vigilante .
What I don’t understand is why he can’t see how this will all play out in our favor. Having her here will keep people coming into the club who can give us valuable information one way or another. I guess his stubborn ass will have to figure that out on his own.
“Nothing is going to happen to anyone, okay? We will tighten security and have her here as much as possible. That way, if she’s being followed by him, he’ll send someone in for her. They’ll be flies in the spider’s web.” I try my best to smile at him, but his lack of faith in my plan has taken me down a few notches, turning it into a grimace at best .
“This doesn’t have anything to do with—" he starts, but I hold up my hand again, silencing him. He’s lucky it wasn’t my fucking fist this time.
“This has everything to do with Lena ,” I bite out, showing my teeth. “Anything else that comes from it is only an added bonus.”
Tony lets the room go silent, not bothering to take his eyes off me. He’s so fucking calculated and looks at everything under a microscopic lens, when all I want is to have the pound of flesh I’m fucking owed. His piercing gray eyes hold mine and I let the electricity of the room prickle across my skin, causing the hair on my arms to stand on end, but I refuse to let him see the effect it has on me.
After another long moment, he’s the one to finally break the silence, breaking the tension along with it. “Go to bed, I’ll clean up your fucking mess,” he gruffs out.
A condescending smirk pulls up on my lips. “Don’t you always?” And even though my words are laced with the same condescending attitude as the smile on my face, it’s not lost on me how true it is. He has taken care of me as much as I’ve tried to take care of him through our years together. He’s let me see some of the darkest parts of him and I’ve shown him my most deranged. The monsters that live beneath us mingle, as though they have waited lifetimes to be reunited.
But honestly, if he thinks I’m going to let him clean up this particular mess, he’s mistaken. Yes, I grew up with a silver spoon in my mouth, but my father paid more attention to my brother, who he proudly claimed as his son. And as the not-so-golden child, I was usually left with a nanny or other staff members, because even my own mother didn’t have the bandwidth to deal with a child me.
So, instead of just letting the staff do the work for me, I had them teach me everything they knew. Cooking, cleaning, minor maintenance, and most importantly—how to snoop around. That one was an unintentional skill, but I caught on fast that the walls saw and heard everything. I use that skill to my advantage every night with the fuckers who frequent this place as I hide in plain sight, only this time, I have the help of one of my many masks giving me full advantage of the anonymity they create.
I grab the broom and vacuum from the closet and begin to clean up the shards of broken glass. I can feel his heated gaze on me as I work. I find myself occasionally looking up and meeting those haunting gray eyes. Eyes like molten metal as they watch me, and if it was anyone else, I would probably tell them to take a fucking picture, but not Tony. Never him.
I switch out the broom and sweep up the glass I missed, obsessively going over the hard floors until I feel like I would walk around this place barefoot and not risk a shard of glass making a new home in the bottom of my foot.
I chuck everything back in the closet, exaggeratedly wiping my brow, giving him a smirk. I leave the room without another word and close the bedroom door behind me with a soft click.
I never lock my door, and I know he doesn’t either. Even when he first moved in and we were complete strangers, I never felt the need to lock it. I’ve always tried my best to keep everyone out at arm’s length, but I’ve only ever wanted to let him in. Show him what’s behind the magic curtain that is the legend of Devin Green.
After a shower to finally wash the remaining blood off my body, I crawl into bed, always choosing to sleep naked. I stare up at the ceiling and hear the subtle clicks of his keyboard through the crack under the door. He’s quiet, but my ears can pick up his mundane sounds like he’s crashing cymbals through the apartment. He works too much, and I know when he can’t sleep, he gets up and works at all hours of the night as if he can never truly relax. Like I have a lot of fucking room to talk.
I know damn well that I won’t be going to sleep anytime soon. I could go back down in the basement and yank my newest victim out of their cell and use them to burn off some of this pent-up energy, but Tony would never let me out the door. Instead, I pull up Lena’s apartment feed on my phone, watching the black and white footage of the empty hall like a silent movie.
It’s odd, but I feel like someone else is also watching this channel. I can just assume it’s Tony, because I’m sure that if I walked out of this room now, we would be watching the same thing. However, if we could easily get into it, that means anyone else can, too.
I scrub my hand over my face, because I know that if I asked him to, Tony would be able to pull up anything from inside of that apartment. He’s a fucking hacker by trade and once he figures out how to get in somewhere, they’ll never be able to get him out.
As fucked up as it is, I need to see what’s going on inside of there, see what Lena is doing. Goddammit, this woman already has me wrapped around her fucking finger and she doesn’t have a fucking clue about it.
My cock twitches at the thought of my fingers running over her body, and at the thought of how easy it was to get her to come on my fingers. I roughly grip the base of my cock, fighting back a groan as I pump my hand over my hard erection. I was so fucking close to having her tonight, but that piece of shit had to come and ruin my chance. If he thinks that he can have her back, he’s dead fucking wrong.
She’s been on my radar for a while and I’ve finally homed in on her. I will remove the hand of anyone who dares to try and touch her.
I grip my cock even harder at the thought of slicing through skin, watching the blood pour out, their screams of pain as she watches me remove anyone who has ever attempted to hurt her, because she’s fucking mine.
Mine. Mine. Mine. I chant under my breath as my strokes gain speed. My balls constrict, heat building through me as I get off to the thought of her screaming my name as I pound into her, my blood-soaked hand wrapped around her throat, painting her in crimson. I bury my face into the crook of my arm to suppress my moan as I come across my abs.
I lie breathless, my hand still gripping my cock as I stroke through the orgasm, staring at the ceiling. I’ve been waiting for her to show up here for months after having my eyes on her for nearly a year. If I could track her down again that easily, with all the resources at his disposal, so can he. And that just doesn’t fucking work for me.
All of this is fucking dangerous, and it’s been a while since I’ve felt this out of control. My skin itches and my hands ache with the need to destroy every person who has ever wronged her. Who stood by idly as she was manhandled and mistreated. They’ll all be sent to an early grave one way or another.
I let my eyes drift closed, my cock twitching in my hand as I think about all the ways to show her what she was missing while she was trapped by that piece of shit. She deserves to know what it’s like to have the attention of a real man, one who not only destroys our enemies but will light the fucking world on fire for her.
The gasoline is poured and I’m holding the match. All she has to do is say the word, and I’ll strike it because I’m ready to watch it all go up in flames.