Chapter 2
TWO
Devlin
A door opened somewhere in front of me, and I could just make out a few vague shapes through the fabric still covering my head. The sound of boots followed. Heavy breathing. Three men, maybe four? More light spilled into the dimness of the room I’d been held in since my fun little car ride.
I didn’t know how long I’d been in that trunk.
I’d fallen asleep for a while, or I’d lost consciousness.
Maybe I’d just completely disassociated altogether.
I couldn’t be sure. From the sound of the tires and the way the trunk rattled, we’d driven on highways and back roads before the crunch of gravel and uneven dirt took over.
I’d been hauled out of the trunk, no one saying a word to me, and shoved down to sit on what felt like a cot.
My hands were still tied behind my back.
There was some kind of chain attached to them now that rattled whenever I moved, and this stupid bag was still over my head.
My coat was long gone, so I was left with only my jeans, a T-shirt, and boots.
It had felt like hours since they’d left me in this room, or it could have been ten minutes.
Time was a mystery here. But at least I finally had some company.
I just hoped they had a bullet with my name on it.
Straight between the eyes. Let’s fucking end this.
A massive figure blocked the light from the doorway, and I immediately stiffened. The air in the room shifted. I felt it. That pressure change when someone with real power walked into a room. I’d pretended to be that guy once. Most of Detroit had even bought my act.
The figure stepped closer, and a deep voice that rattled my spine said, “Take it off.”
Yes, please. I wanted to see who commanded this room. Even his voice brooked no argument. And based on the immediate shuffle to follow his command, he had men who obeyed him without question.
The bag was ripped off from the front, jerking my head forward and down.
I stared at the floor, at the boots planted in front of me.
They were massive, at least a size sixteen.
My eyes tracked up denim-clad legs to muscular thighs nearly the size of my torso—up a body that was clearly a weapon.
Fists that were tattooed and scarred, bulging forearms covered in even more dark ink, a massive chest that strained against a thin black T-shirt, a thick neck leading to a square face with a set jaw and crooked nose.
His brow was so prominent it cast his eyes in shadow, but I still stared openly.
I was eager to see who’d signed up to finally end my life.
Because that’s what this had to be, right?
I’d made plenty of enemies, and I was fair game now. No crew. No money. Nothing. I might as well walk around with it tattooed on my forehead.
Open season on the Detroit Devil!
There were a few other men in the room, I could see them in my periphery, but they didn’t matter. They were minions. The man standing in front of me, with his arms crossed over his broad chest and rounded biceps popping, was the real deal.
He shifted closer, and the dim light overhead highlighted his eyes.
Light blue irises surrounded by a dark blue ring.
They were unsettling to look at. His dark hair was buzzed close to the scalp, coming to a prominent widow’s peak in the center of his forehead.
A scar cut across his hairline near his left temple.
I didn’t recognize him. We definitely hadn’t met before.
After one glance, one second in his presence, there is no way I could have forgotten this man.
One of the minions stepped up beside him. “No problems. He didn’t put up much of a fight.”
I nearly rolled my eyes. They’d ambushed me in the dark, tied me up, and thrown me in a trunk. What was I supposed to do? But I didn’t care about what some stupid, low-level grunt said. I cared about him—the man who hadn’t taken his eyes off me, who stared back openly as he studied my face.
The minion was still talking, saying I had to be Devlin Walsh.
I matched the description, and they’d found the fake ID that had been reported to them in my room.
For a moment, I wondered who’d ratted me out, then decided I didn’t care.
The ball was already rolling downhill, and I was ready for the crash at the bottom.
“All you had to do was ask. I would have told you I was Dev—”
The big man backhanded me so hard I saw stars. My vision blacked out for a moment before his composed face, not even a hint of a snarl, swam back into focus. “No one asked you to talk.”
I rolled my jaw around and murmured, “Right. Message received.”
His hands were huge. He could palm my face. He could wrap those fingers around my throat and squeeze until my eyes popped. He continued studying me, still so in control. That hit hadn’t been dealt in anger, but as a lesson. Like he was training me.
I’d always been attracted to power and control.
At one point in my life, I’d even thought Conrad had the kind of power I craved.
But the man I’d imagined, the one who could temper the worst of my impulses, force me to my knees, tell me what to do and then make me, had been a fantasy.
I’d made myself into that man instead, or who I thought he should be.
For a decade, I’d worn power with my tailored suits, diamond chains, and weapons.
I told other men what to do, who to kill, who to fight. Who to be.
I’d only survived as long as I had at the top of the criminal food chain in Detroit because I could read a room and the people in it.
And I was rarely wrong. This man was a natural-born leader, and he exuded power in a way I’d never seen before.
He smelled like it. Wore it like skin. He hogged all the oxygen in the room without apology, like he knew he deserved every breath, while the rest of us sputtered on the leftovers.
My face still stung, and I twitched the muscles in my cheek just to make the pain flare brighter as the skin stretched.
Apparently, my fucked-up brain couldn’t differentiate between the danger of the situation and my attraction to this man’s power, because my head spun with words I never would have said out loud.
Step on me. Hurt me. Own me. Mold me into something else.
My cock thickened in my jeans, and I knew the second-hand denim wasn’t strong enough to contain the bulge. I didn’t even have to glance down. My lips parted, and a soft rasp escaped them before I could hold it back.
The man’s blue eyes narrowed to slits, and his nostrils flared like he was inhaling my scent. My fear. My arousal. He still hadn’t looked away from me, not once, like a predator guarding his prey.
“Everyone out,” he barked.
There was a moment of hesitation from the minion next to him. I felt his gaze flick to me before he signaled toward the door with a nod. Men shuffled out and the door shut, leaving the two of us alone.
Just us.
I shivered as he took a step closer. The cot was low, which put my face level with his massive thighs.
He grabbed a chair from the corner of the room and sat down, but I still had to crane my neck to see his face.
I studied him more closely now. His jaw was too square.
His lips were uneven. His eyes were too wide set.
It was like every feature had one thing off about it.
Maybe he’d be ugly if he didn’t ooze power from every pore like pheromones, but that aura reached down into my guts and squeezed in a confusing twist.
Without breaking eye contact, he braced his elbows on his thighs and leaned in so close I could smell the mint on his breath.
“My face will be the last thing you ever see.”
My breath caught. “Promise?”
This time, he punched me—right in the gut, the same place I’d been struck in my motel room—and I doubled over, gasping as I fought to inhale through the pain. My eyes leaked involuntarily, and my body trembled in shock. When I could finally breathe, I peered back up at him through blurry vision.
“Right,” I rasped. “Not supposed to talk.”
Through the haze, I caught a massive lion head tattoo on his throat, its jaws gaping mid-roar over his Adam’s apple. The ink should have looked stupid, poser-ish, but it worked on him. I wholeheartedly believed he was the king of his pride.
His lip curled slightly, the first real emotion he’d shown since walking into this room. “You killed my father, so I’m going to kill you.”
His father? Well, fuck. That wasn’t good.
No wonder he’d gone through all the trouble of tracking me down in New Jersey.
I didn’t know this guy, or his dad, but I’d been responsible for a lot of lost lives.
And even if I wasn’t to blame for his father’s death, there were probably a dozen other sons who wanted me dead for theirs. He could be a stand-in for any of them.
“His name was Patrick O’Shea,” he clarified. “He ran guns for you.”
Ah, yes. Old Man O’Shea. He’d been a large man despite his age, maybe in his sixties or seventies. Smart. Solid. Brutal. Had a mean glint in his blue eyes that had always made me feel on edge. But Patrick had never commanded a room with the kind of power his son did.
“He thought that because you’re both Irish, he had your loyalty. And I told him he was too old school. I told him the Detroit Devil has no loyalty. I was right. He was wrong. Now he’s dead.”
I bit the inside of my cheek until I drew blood.
My loyalty was earned, not owed. And it certainly wasn’t based on some connection to the old country.
My piece-of-shit father was three generations removed from the immigrants in our family who’d come to America.
I wasn’t even sure why he’d given me this stupid name.
What was I supposed to say to this guy? Sorry? Did it even matter now? The old man was already dead, and his son was going to avenge him.
Maybe he didn’t like my lack of reaction. Suddenly, a big hand wrapped around my neck and shoved the back of my head against the wall. His face loomed over me, still eerily controlled, his expression nearly placid despite his hard tone. “Do you not believe me?”
I swallowed, and his fingers eased just a fraction.
A slight nod let me know I was finally allowed to answer.
I licked my lips, and his gaze dipped there for just a moment before returning to my eyes.
My cock, which had softened after that punch to the gut, gave another kick in my jeans.
Because I was fucked up. “No, I believe you.”
His gaze dropped to my crotch, then slid back up to my face.
His eyes shifted, and his study of me turned a little too real.
Too personal. Too all-knowing. I squirmed under his grip and ground my molars, but all that did was tighten his hand on my throat.
And of course it only made my stupid dick harder, blood rushing south, my panic only making it worse.
No, no, no… This can’t be happening. Why now, when nothing had made me more than half-hard since I’d woken up in that hospital bed?
Embarrassment flushed through my body like a heat wave, and my skin burned.
A breath left him in a rush. “Fuck,” he whispered.
Hand still around my neck, he drew my head away from the wall and leaned my body toward him.
Fingers dug into my pulse point, and his thumb jammed into the underside of my chin.
His head tilted, and his voice pitched even lower, the tones curling around my shaft.
“The devil likes a hand around his throat?”
My heart hammered against my ribcage as my balls tightened.
His lips were close, so close… And those unsettling blue eyes filled my vision.
My brain fired signals in all directions like wayward missiles: danger, attraction, fear, arousal, shame.
I wanted him gone so I could get my head on straight and react appropriately.
I wanted him to never leave, because being the object of his attention was the most alive I’d felt in ten years.
His lips parted for a moment, and then he blinked, pupils narrowing to small points as he shoved me away. I slammed into the cot on my side, head bouncing off the thin mattress. He rose from his chair with such force that it clanged to the ground, and he turned to reach for the door.
No. No fucking way…
Fuck him. How dare he make me feel like this and then abandon me?
How could I get him to stay? What could I use against him?
Of course. Patrick. His father.
“He begged!” I bit out, using my core to sit up despite the bruises on my torso protesting.
I was the Detroit Devil now, taking shots I knew would land.
I wanted him to hurt like I hurt. So I hurled anything I could think of, even if it was a lie.
“He begged for his life! He cried, and he pissed himself as he—”
The door slammed shut.
And he was gone.