Chapter 50
Chapter Fifty
Ivan
The room I’d been brought to was dark and smelled like mildew.
I was chained to the ceiling like an animal ready to be gutted.
Arms yanked above my head until my shoulders burned, feet barely touching the ground.
Every breath scraped fire through my ribs.
Every twitch sent pain ricocheting down my spine.
This was it. I hadn’t even managed to protect Poppy. I could have taken this scum of the earth right out of this world and saved her. I could have done my duty and disappeared.
My head lolled forward as I fought to regain consciousness. The world swayed, blurred, and doubled. The taste of iron filled my mouth. My jaw screamed when I clenched it, so I unclenched it and let my breath shake through my cracked, dry lips. A door creaked open somewhere in the distance.
There was no point in even trying to lift my head; I couldn’t. The confident gait of the footsteps was enough to tell me who it was.
“Well,” a familiar voice crooned. “The infamous Ivan Cristof. Not so impressive now, are we?”
I forced my head up a fraction of an inch. Donovan Madden stepped into the thin slice of light. Instead of the usual suit he wore, he was wearing a black sweatshirt and black sweatpants. Even his tennis shoes were black. He obviously didn’t want to ruin his clothes with blood stains.
“You’ve been touching what’s mine,” he said quietly.
“She’ll never be yours,” the whisper barely slipped through my lips.
His fist flew forward, and my entire body rocked back with the blow. White exploded behind my eyes. My ribs screamed. The chains rattled overhead as the force swung me sideways before gravity snapped me back into place. The taste of iron only grew stronger.
Another hit came. This one to my stomach.
He knew exactly where to strike to drop a man without knocking him out completely.
He wanted me conscious. So I could be aware- to suffer.
My knees buckled. The chains caught me with a harsh bite of metal into my wrists.
I sucked in a breath, and he laughed, low and harsh.
“Do you think she will call me? Do you think she’ll beg for mercy? Or do you think she’ll try to find you and save you?”
My eyes met his. “I hope she doesn’t.”
“You’d rather die.”
“Then have her beg you,” I finished for him. “Yes.”
His lips twitched into a satisfied smile. “I can arrange that.”
“I didn’t peg you for the jealous type. I thought you had your other plaything.” I managed to get out.
His eye twitched, but the smile remained. “Do you think it's funny to provoke me? I will have as many toys as I want. I’m Donovan Madden.”
I rolled my eyes, even though it shot pain through my face. “And when my brothers find out what you’ve done to me. Dimitri will leave retirement.”
His face paled for a moment, and he turned away from me to begin pacing. “They won’t even find out it was me.”
I laughed, and pain shot through my ribs. “Do you really believe that? Do you know how much money my family has? Do you really know who you’re messing with? You made a deal with Poppy’s brothers for a reason.”
He clenched his jaw as he looked at me. “Her father struck gold in Mexico. Drugs, women, weapons. After Mr. Fairchild was killed, the brothers only grew more creative. I wanted a cut.”
“Why would Donovan Madden want a cut of what they have? Don’t you have enough money?”
He reared back, as if I were in the position to hurt him. “There is no such thing as enough money. There will never be enough.”
I spat blood onto the concrete between us, the metallic taste coating my tongue. “That’s your problem, Donovan. You’re a small man pretending you’re not. Men like you will drown themselves in greed before anyone needs to kill you.”
His eyes narrowed. “Funny, coming from someone currently hanging like a slaughtered pig.”
I chuckled, despite myself. “I’ll die knowing I had her first.”
That was enough to do him in. He yanked a knife from his pocket and rushed toward me.
“She’s mine,” he snapped. “Everything she is—her future, her name, her body—belongs to me.”
My vision blurred, not from the pain but from rage. “She will never belong to you. Not even if she married you a thousand times over.”
His jaw clenched so hard I thought his teeth might crack. A vein pulsed in his forehead as he held the knife between us.
He stepped in, grabbed a fistful of my hair, and yanked my head back brutally. Pain shot down my spine.
“Let me make something clear, Cristof,” he snarled inches from my face. His breath smelled like mint and cigars. “I am not jealous of you. I am simply eliminating a problem.”
I smiled. “I still had her first. Everything. Her body, her love, her laughter. Kill me, and I know she’ll never love you. Kill me, and they’ll come for you. You will never be safe. There is no cave, corner, or shadow you’ll be able to hide in.”