Chapter 41
HAYES
The splash of cold water startles me awake.
Lurching forward, I’m stuck, tied to the metal chair, ass numb and uncomfortable. Dripping dark strands fall into my eyes as I blink them into focus.
Grey cinderblock walls. Cold hard dirt under my feet. The smell of wet mold and old blood. The large wooden dungeon door with three different metal locks. A two-way mirror to my left.
Fuck. It’s a torture room.
I knew it was coming, but I didn’t expect to be kidnapped off the street to do it. Leave it to fucking Linwood to make an entrance. Give him a little bit of power and he runs wild with it.
Looking up, I see the reaper leaning against the wall, arms and ankles crossed. In a pair of steel toe combat boots, a pair of jeans and an old band shirt, he looks normal—and that scares me.
I see the silver tray next to him, his favorite knives already placed on top.
“I thought Maeve was doing it?”
My voice scratches something horrible, but I ignore it, keeping the reaper in my sights.
“I wanted all the fun,” he comments, smirking slightly. “You know how this goes, Prince. You’ve been in my shoes. Want to make it easy?”
I glare, biting my lip.
“Codeword.”
Snorting, I shake my head. “You didn’t really think I’d give it, did you?”
He shrugs, pushing off the wall. Picking up his knife, he inspects it under the singular bulb. “Worth a shot. Ethan did.”
Pussy. “How did Maeve take it?”
Killian smiles, thoughts of how vicious Maeve was floating through his mind. “Less than pleased.”
“So this is your revenge, huh?” I adjust my hands. I could try to break out, but the point of this is to endure. To not give up the codeword. I can hang in until time ends.
“Revenge?” He glances back at me. “Revenge for what?”
“For when we were kids.” I clear my throat. “You always threatened to gut me if I was a rat.”
He laughs, unhinged in the silent room. “I did say that.” Holding the knife up, he grabs my hair yanking me back. The blade touches my Adam’s apple with the slightest prick of pain and I still. “Are you a rat, Hayes?”
“Fuck you,” I snap, smirking. “We both know that’s not who I am.”
He pivots, cutting the blade into my still sore arm. Growling, I try to rip away but the restraints hold firm.
“That’s true. You might not be a rat.” He tsks, watching the blood well up. “But now that I have you as a captive audience, I can ask you anything I want.”
Exhaling the agony, I glare at the bastard. He’s enjoying this a little too much. “Fine. Ask away.”
He licks his blade, tasting my blood. That’s nasty. “When I was gone, and it was just you and Maeve,” he begins, drawing the tip over my knuckles, “did you ever sleep with her?”
Barking out a laugh, I roll my eyes. “You have me strapped down, a prisoner with a knife to my body, and you’re asking this?”
He slices the back of my palm—spots with minimum blood loss but maximum hurt. Fucking jerk knows what he’s doing.
I cough, fighting against the pain, stomping my feet. I’ve had worse but damn, if the reaper isn’t fucking terrifying with a blade and that sinister glow in his eyes from the potential blood. He’s a rabid dog, willing his prey to die so he can gnaw on the bones.
“Call me curious.”
“You’re a sadist.”
He winks. “That too.”
The blade draws along my opposite hand, blood falling from my body. “I won’t ask again, Prince. So you better answer.”
Scoffing, I look away. I’m not giving into his depravity.
More slices to my arm and shoulder for my trouble, has me cursing him out, foot kicking the dirt ground in pain. “Christ, reaper.”
“Want to talk now?” His smile is bright and cheery.
“I never fucked Maeve,” I spit. “Hell, that girl is so traumatized, any time someone got too close, she’d try to stab them. No one is stupid enough to try. I’m not sure how you managed it.”
“Maybe she’s worth getting stabbed over,” he comments, shrugging. He twirls the knife, and quickly jabs it into my shoulder joint and I bellow out a shout. “Codeword.”
“Drop dead.”
He nods, appreciatively.
The next three hours go like this. Killian asks something completely off topic—if I’ve ever seen Maeve naked, do I know her dress size, if I’ve ever spoken to Reese—and when I don’t answer, I’m cut, sliced, stabbed. When I do answer, the same.
I don’t break. I don’t give him my codeword.
But fuck if I don’t want to kill him for this shit.
Wiping his hands on a rag, the reaper nods at me, my body slumped, chest heaving. I’m bloody, tired, and depleted. It’s taking everything in me to not lose consciousness. “You’ve lasted longer than I thought you would.”
Wincing, I lick my parched lips. “I could go all night, reaper.”
“Maybe some other time.”
He douses me with old water and I gasp against the shock.
“Now that we have a minute,” I pant, doubled over. “I have a question.”
He hums. “Sure. I’ll play.”
“How did you know who I was?” Glancing up, he tilts his head, looking for the meaning in my words. “You knew who I was when I came to The Wharf. How?”
Killian nods to himself, cleaning his knife. It’s methodical and precise. “You look like your mother.”
The wind rushes past my lip with a heavy sigh. “What?”
“Your mother.” His gaze flickers over me as if double-checking. “Liv was Senior’s favorite for a long time. He brought her everywhere.” He puts one knife down to clean the next one. “When I came into the clan, I met her one night. She, uh, was kind to me.”
I don’t breathe as I listen, afraid I’ll miss something. “What was she like?”
“Beautiful.” He clears his throat. “Soft. Too soft for this world.” Those dead eyes hold my stare as he says, “I gave her the drugs to take her life. Senior was slowly killing her. And you?” He drops the blade. “Not having you was torture. So I took mercy on her.”
Everything rushes in my mind. Killian assisting my mother with her suicide. Killian knew who I was. Killian knew my mother.
“Hate me, yet?” he asks, smirking, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
“I should,” I agree. But I can’t find it in my body to hate him.
He saved her. He gave her peace. It’s hard to reconcile the reaper I know with the kid passing drugs to a hopeless woman in captivity who couldn’t hold her child.
But he did it. There’s a flicker of admiration for him in the depths of my black soul.
A knock on the door pulls him away, and there’s a few hushed words over the blood pounding in my ears. I can only peek, my eyes swollen from his fists, but I notice Finn standing there, Killian gripping the doorway with white knuckles.
He pulls the door open wider. “Watch him. I’ll be back.”
Killian stalks through the halls, and I’m left with Finn, who quietly shuts the door. There’s a finality with the way the lock clicks into place and I will my eyes to widen.
Something is happening. The niggle at the back of my neck sparks like lightning in an electrical storm and I’d be an idiot to ignore it. Later, I’ll think of my mother. Right now, I’m in danger.
Finn looks down at me, smirking. “Poor little kiddie, all tied up.”
My heart stops, the old nickname a frigid burst of cold, chilling me to the bone.
The nickname all the Johns called me. The only name I had until my mother called me Hayes before her death.
“What did you say?” My voice sounds like the growl of an injured animal ready to attack.
“Oh, did you not know I knew that?” He kicks my shin, something snapping, but I refuse to answer. I’m pretty sure he didn’t break it, but it could be fractured. And it fucking hurts. “Roman said it was an old nickname. A family name? Kiddie.”
I wince as if hit. It’s nails on a chalkboard, digging into my ears. That name is what I hear in my darkest of nightmares, when I can’t wake up fast enough to stop what they do to me.
Coughing, I push myself upright. If he’s going to kill me, I’m going to stare at him head-on.
“You’re the leak.” I roll my neck. “Pretty cliché, but hey, you do you.”
Leveling a gun at my head, he presses the barrel into my bruised temple. If I wasn’t restrained, bloody and beaten, this would not be happening.
But everything aches and he caught me at the right time. Fucking coward.
“Roman said I’d be his second—and not under some bitch.” God, he even sounds cliché. “All I had to do? Get rid of you and take Collins to him.”
“She’s your cousin,” I say, eyes hard. Distant, but there’s still some blood between them. “You’re just going to give her to a man who breaks women? Who uses children for profit?”
Finn shrugs. That when I know he has no conscience—and why my hackles always rose with him. There’s no soul in his eyes, no compassion. No kindness. He’s as dead as a corpse.
It’s the same eyes as all the men who would visit me. Whether they came smiling with presents, or grinning with glee to hurt me, they all had lifeless eyes, souls gone.
“We all have a part to play.”
“Now, what?” I ask, looking at the door. “You kill me and try to escape? You know as well as I do, Maeve won’t stop until you’re dead at her feet.”
“You think you matter that much to her?”
I snort. “Oh no. I just know how fucking spiteful she is. She’ll hunt you down, bring you back to string up and kill you just because you dared to come after her.” I try to shrug and fail. “That’s just Maeve.”
Finley narrows his eyes, mind spinning. He knows I’m right. He knows his cousin well enough to know her ability to hold a grudge can level buildings.
Slamming the butt of his gun into my head, I tip over, falling to the muddy ground. My vision blackens for a few moments and my head splits in two. Stomach rolling, I fight the urge to vomit, tongue burning with bile. That’s another concussion.
Groaning, I dig my head into the dirt, willing the pain, the dizziness to stop. Did he really have to hit me? Fuck.
“I have a better idea,” he says, snapping the ties. I flail out blindly, clipping his chin before he wrestles me down. He snaps zip ties on to my hands, pulling me up.
Everything is doubled and I blink away the pain as he grins.
“You’re coming with me.”