Chapter 1 #2
My car is parked two streets over. By the time I reach the black Bentley, I’m sweating through my ruined shirt, and my vision swims at the edges.
Fumbling with the keys, I finally manage to unlock the door and collapse into the driver’s seat.
I grip the steering wheel until my knuckles turn white, resting my forehead against the cool leather.
Reaching for the bottle of water in the middle console, I pop the lid, sit up, down the entire contents, then scrunch up the plastic and throw it into the passenger-side footwell.
Firing up the engine, I set off at a steady pace, making sure not to draw too much attention to myself.
Being pulled over now would be about my luck, but it also means Connor will find out.
I crawl along, and ten minutes later, I pull up outside my building and breathe out.
I recoil from the stench and crack the door, tumbling out of the car and nearly meeting the pavement with my face.
I lean against the metal of the car, my breath coming in ragged pants.
The building’s lobby is a trek that feels like a fucking marathon.
I push off the Bentley and stagger toward the glass doors, my reflection a ghostly, bruised stranger I don’t want to know.
Inside, the doorman, a young lad named Finn, takes one look at my face and his polite smile vanishes. He makes a move to help, but I shoot him a glare that freezes him in place. I don’t need his pity. I don’t need anyone’s.
The lift ride up to the penthouse is torture. The mirrored walls show me exactly what Liam saw. A fucking disaster. The spare part, broken and stained.
My key card fumbles in the lock before the door clicks open.
I stumble into the sterile silence of my pristine apartment.
White walls, minimalist furniture, floor-to-ceiling windows showing a panoramic view of a city I feel no part of.
It’s a showroom, not a home. I rip off my ruined jacket, the movement sending a fresh bolt of agony through my ribs.
Fuck it. Fuck everything. I head for the bathroom, shedding clothes as I go, leaving a trail of failure on the polished hardwood floors.
The shower is my only destination. I need the cleansing water to burn the night off me.
I turn the chrome tap until it won’t go any further and step under the punishingly freezing spray.
I grunt as it takes my breath away, but it also clears my head.
It’s a fucking ritual at this point. Stand here until my balls shrivel and then down three coffees with two painkillers until I’m sober and can do this all over again later.
“It’s a charmed fucking life,” I mutter and turn my face into the arctic blast, reaching for the soap and sponge. The water stings the split in my lip and the raw scrapes on my knuckles. I scrub at the dried blood on my inked skin, watching pink-tinged water swirl down the drain.
Feeling halfway back to human, I shut off the water.
Grabbing a towel, I dry off before reaching for my toothbrush, followed by enough mouthwash to mask the scent of stale booze.
Wrapping the towel around my hips, I stride through the bedroom and see that Millie has arrived.
She has tidied the clothes, and the scent of hot coffee wafts through the air.
With a smile, I move through the apartment until I reach the kitchen and see her pouring a mug.
“You’re a godsend, woman.”
“And you’re a fecking mess, man,” she retorts, shoving the coffee at me and then two painkillers.
“Ah, but you love me anyway,” I say, popping the pills and chasing them back with hot, black coffee.
“No, I tolerate you because your da pays me to be here to clean up after your sorry arse.”
The caffeine kicks in, and I grin. “Says you.”
She narrows her eyes. In her late forties and a looker, she wouldn’t have me even if I declared my undying love.
Her husband would have my fucking head, for a start, and I would literally die without her.
It is one relationship I won’t fuck up, even on my drunkest night. The rest… they can go to fucking hell.
I finish the coffee and pour another one as Millie goes off to clean, who knows what?
The apartment is spotless. I’m barely here.
Gripping my mug, already feeling like a new man, I wander back to my bedroom and place the mug on the dresser.
Grabbing some sweats and a tight tee, I pull them on and sit to yank on my socks and running shoes.
“You headed to Seamus’?” Millie asks, eyeing me up when I return to the kitchen for coffee number three, which I down in four gulps.
“Yeah. I need to hit something.”
She tuts at me, but says no more as I grab my keys from the bowl where she placed them after finding them either on the floor or in my pants. I can’t remember. The lift ride down is faster than the one up.
The Bentley roars to life, and I peel away from the curb as the engine growls with power and control. Two things I haven’t had in a long time.
Five minutes later, I pull up outside Seamus’s gym. Inside, the air is thick with the scent of sweat, leather, and liniment. It’s a cathedral of controlled violence, and it’s the only place I ever feel anything close to peace.
Seamus is punching a bag with controlled strikes, and he looks up as I enter. He takes in my face, the split lip, the bruising bloom on my cheekbone. “O’Neill,” he grunts. “Looks like you lost.”
“Round one,” I correct him, stripping off my tee.
I stalk past the grunting men heaving weights and the rhythmic skip of ropes on wooden floors.
My target is in the back. A heavy bag, scarred and stained, hanging from a rusted chain.
I don’t bother with wraps. The pain will be part of the penance.
I square my shoulders, plant my feet, and let the rage fly.
The first punch is a raw, guttural explosion of everything I’ve been swallowing for the last twelve hours. The impact jars my arm to the shoulder, a brutal shockwave that makes the bruises on my ribs sing.
I hit it again. Harder.
Another punch.
Again.
My knuckles split, a raw scrape of skin against worn leather.
Blood smears on the bag, dark and satisfying.
I ignore the sting, the fire that lances up my arm.
The pain is a good thing. It’s real. It’s a fucking anchor in the shitstorm of my life.
I pour every ounce of failure, every drop of whisky-soaked regret into my fists.
The bag swings, a heavy pendulum marking the rhythm of my self-destruction.
Sweat drips into my eyes, blurring the already bruised world around me.
My breathing comes in ragged, tearing gasps.
I can feel Seamus’s eyes on me, can feel the judgment from every corner of the gym, but I don’t give a fuck.
I hit the bag until my arms are lead, until my ribs are screaming with every twist of my torso, until the only thing left inside me is the hollow, aching burn of exhaustion.
I slump forward, resting my forehead against the still-swaying leather, my bloodied knuckles pressed against the rough surface.
Thirty grand. I still have to find thirty fucking grand.
Read On: Crucible