Chapter Eight
Icould smell the sweat and blood from the bag over my head. How fucking hard was it to wash your fucking bags for your next victim?
I don’t know when, but at some point I’d been drugged, unlatched from the bed and pulled into a new room. It smelled different in here, much like the dungeon Conor kept at the docks. It was full of water, sweat, blood and steel. I could only imagine I was in their torture chamber, my arms were pulled tight on either side. It felt like metal cuffs around my wrists, my back was bare, my skin was pimpled with goosebumps in the cold air. I was on my knees and I could feel that the ground was hard underneath me, most likely cement. Pain rocked through my body at the unusual position.
They were trying to wear me down, but they had to know I was harder than this and more stubborn than a mule.
I steeled myself, straightening my back and keeping myself as tall as I could. The squeak of a rusty hinge of the door sounded from my left and I listened as their footsteps came toward me. There were more than two, maybe three.
“Comfortable there, lad?” I heard the deep Corkish accent that I knew belonged to Adrian Moriarty.
“Not bad,” I grunted. “Why not take the chains off and we can talk man to man.”
A loud barrel of a laugh came out of him. “You know, I never met you boys before, but I have to say you ain’t got a dime on your old man. Shame what happened to him, isn’t it?”
Anger swirled at the mention of my father but I remained silent.
“You see, we don’t really have any need for you,” he continued. “But we do know you’re the strongest brother, the one who has kept that family alive. The longer you stay away, your brothers will come for you. They will desert Galway, your estate, everything you hold dear and that is when we’ll take over.”
They don’t know about the Onyx members coming for my seat either. Shit. Was this two different groups coming for us?
How’d we get to be so lucky?
I could almost laugh if I weren’t in so much pain.
“He’s all yours, Ronan. Leave his face. I think Keeva would like him to still be pretty afterward.”
Revulsion piled inside of me at the mention of my betrayer’s name and the thought of her touching me like that again. Adrian left the room. Ronan stood there with one of his men who I didn’t know the name of.
“How the tide has changed, huh?”
He knelt down to look me in the eyes. He had a slight smirk on his face as his man walked behind me. I heard the telltale sound of a buckle being undone, the leather of a belt being pulled through pants.
I knew that sound all too well. My father would punish me by belting me. I knew the slap of a belt on my ass. There was no way in hell Finneas O’Farrell’s son broke over a fucking belting. I steeled myself for the oncoming hit. Ronan didn’t move, he wanted to see the pain in my eyes.
Psycho.
I didn’t look away. I’d show him just how little he could affect me.
The sound of the leather whooshing through the air told me of the pain coming but nothing would prepare me for the slap against my bare back. The leather, stiff and probably new, slapped across my lower back, forcing my hips forward involuntarily. I righted myself, keeping my eyes on Ronan. His smile was getting bigger.
“You think you’re so tough?” I bit out. “You need restraints to keep me down. You could never best me in a true fight.”
“That may be true,” he replied. “But I find this much more fun.”
“You can’t even strike me yourself?”
Whack!
This one cut across my shoulders, taking my breath for a few moments. Again, I kept my eyes on Ronan.
The stinging across the two sites on my back didn’t disappear. It felt like I was cut open, which was entirely possible. That belt was thick and it was stiff. No way in hell I wasn’t going to be bleeding at some point. I was no stranger to a few scars already, a couple more couldn’t hurt.
Whack!
Blood sprayed forward this time, flecking on Ronan’s shirt. The pain was intense, and I could feel my body falling forward. I was only being held up by the metal chains on my wrists, the metal was cutting into my skin from the pressure of my body pushing into the cuff.
Whack!
They were getting more frequent, and if possible, harder. I could hear the sound of the belt hitting the blood on my back and making a wet slushing sound. I could feel the blood and the cuts on my back now, the cold air around me biting into the wounds. The bitter smell of copper filled the air, my blood was being spilled around me and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop it.
Things were turning dark, my eyes were starting to tear up and get fuzzy but I held onto my resolve, keeping myself ready for the next hit.
“Had enough?” he asked me.
“No, I love this shit,” I slurred. “Please, sir, can I have another?”
Ronan was momentarily stunned, his smile dropping and his eyes darted to my torturer before me. He stood up, his hands on his hips.
“Goddamn arrogant prick,” he said. “Your bravado isn’t going to save you. Tell me you’ve had enough now and I’ll put you in a cell where I”m sure Keeva will mount you for the rest of her days. Sounds pretty good to me.”
He didn’t have the balls to keep this up. He never did.
“You heard me,” I spat out. He gave the nod to his man behind me. I steeled myself against the cuffs and waited for the blow but it didn’t come. The door opened, and I heard the startled gasp before I looked up.
That blonde hair I would know anywhere. I loved having those blonde tresses tangled in my fist as I pumped into her as hard as I could, staking my claim on her.
No.
She couldn’t be here.
I tried to make a sound but nothing came out.
“Let him go, now.”
“You don’t give the orders around here,” Ronan said to her. “Get out.”
“Let him go.”
Adrian reappeared, a happy grin on his face that I wanted to kick off with my boot. “Let him go, gentlemen. My daughter has returned, and for her cooperation, I’ve granted her what she wants. His freedom.”
“No,” Ronan stormed toward them. “You and I have an agreement. We need to keep him away from his home. You know why.”
“You’re in my house, O’Brien, you will do as I say. Release him. Now.”
I found a way to look up into her eyes, those beautiful blue eyes that held wisdom far greater than her years and I tried to get to her. I tried to crawl to her, to put her behind me as I fought them, but I couldn’t move. My body fell as my hands were freed, and I landed face first onto the hard floor. I could barely breathe as I inhaled blood, dirt and grime. My body didn’t cooperate, I couldn’t move as I heard the doors slam shut, and I was left in silence.
I was vaguely aware of someone around me as I opened my eyes. My back was in agony, and brief flashes of my torture came back at me as I remembered why I couldn’t move.
“You’re awake,” I heard a familiar voice as I slowly tried to move my head. It wasn’t the voice I wanted to hear though. “I was worried for a moment.”
“Where is she?” I croaked out, my throat dry and sore.
“Who?”
“You know who,” I said, swallowing what saliva I had left in my throat.
“You don’t need to worry about her anymore,” Keeva said, her fingers on my back, applying what I could only imagine was ointment. It stung, but not as much as it did before. How long had I been out?
“How long have I been asleep?”
“A few days.”
“Days?!”
“You needed to rest, you went through quite a lot of flogging,” she said. “But that’s okay. They won’t do it again. They’ve left you now. They wanted her back so badly that they don’t even care about Ronan’s plans now. It’s a little up in the air.”
“Who the fuck are you?” I ground out.
“I’m the only chance you have at ever having a normal life so you best forget that twat and start thinking about how you can treat me a little better.”
“Keeva, get it through your fucking psychotic mind, I will sooner see myself dead than be your fuckboy, understand?”
Her fingers stilled on my back, one of her witch-like fingers stabbed into one of the cuts causing me to grunt out in pain, as my body tingled from the sensation.
“That’s not nice.”
She removed her finger and I felt a new wetness pooling on my skin. She’d opened up a wound again, the psycho.
“What day is it?” I asked her.
She waited a little while, her heels clicking on the hard floor beneath us. “It’s the 14th, why?”
I’d been in their custody for a week. A fucking week and no-one had come to rescue me. They must have thought I was dead.
Shit.
Maybe it was better that way. Killian and Conor could focus their rage on winning this war with the Onyx men and Ronan. I had to find a way to get to Bridget, to get her away from here. She ran from them for a reason, and although I had my suspicions, I didn’t want to think about her being sold off.
She had to get away.
I wouldn’t have her being bartered on my conscience. Hell, if anyone so much as looked at her the wrong way, I’d have them fed to sharks.
The strong, possessive feeling rocketing through my body right now was new. I had never felt that way about anyone before…not even Clem. It was so easy with Clem, because it was just…love.
With Bridget, it was something else entirely. It was primal, animalistic. I needed to possess her in every way, I needed to have her. A need I could never quench.
“What is it about that bitch that you can’t get enough of?” I heard Keeva say finally. I wish I could answer, to make her feel like shit because she needed a hard lesson in humility.
I turned my head to the other side so I didn’t see her heels, and I tried to push the pain from my mind and sleep. There was nothing I could do until I had enough energy to move.
Keeva was pacing, probably trying to figure out what to do with me in this condition. Her heels clicking on the cement floor had a rhythm that was almost putting me to sleep. She could pace all she wanted, no amount of time was ever going to make me want her.
I woke to a loud bang, followed by feeling myself being thrown from the bed. I was thrown against the wall, and now crumpled down on the floor, I felt my ears ringing, and the world was hazy. I opened my eyes, my entire body aching as I looked through smoke and debris, straight into a large hole in the side of the building. Keeva was screaming, blood pouring from her face as she tried to pull pieces of rock from her body. A shadowy figure appeared in the hole in the room, followed by a couple more.
“We got you,” I heard a familiar voice that I knew belonged to Jye say, before I felt arms lifting me up. “Lean into us.”
I didn’t try to stand on my own, leaning all my weight into them as they carried me through the hole and out to a car. They leaned me against the side as they ran about, trying to see if they could find Ronan. In the distance, I was able to focus my sight on a van, people running about, packing things into it and that’s when the blonde hair that haunted my dreams came into view. I tried to run, but I fell to my knees as I saw her, looking at me, her hands in binds as she was manhandled toward the van.
“No,” I groaned as I tried to move. Jye came to my side,to help me back up, and he looked over to where I was pointing. “Save her.”
A bag was lifted over her head and she was bundled into the back of the van, followed by Adrian and who I could only imagine were his sons before they drove off.
“No,” I yelled, pushing against Jye.
“Lor,” I heard Killian’s voice before I saw his face in front of mine. “Let her go. This is part of our plan.”
“What?” I didn’t understand anything right now. How could he let this happen?
“She is working for us,” Killian said. “She offered to do this. She knows how to get them secure and she knows how to get in touch with us when she needs us. We have a plan but you look like you’re on death’s door. We need to get you home.”
“He needs a fucking hospital,” I heard Jye say.
“Once we’re home,” Killian replied. “Lay him down on the back seat. We gotta go before we get arrested again.”
I was pushed into the back of the car, but as I tried to push up and resist, I felt something hard hit me in the back of the head and I fell onto the cushion of the backseat with a thud before everything turned black.