Chapter 32
Saint
work song - hozier
“Come on, Saint. I promise to leave you alone if you give me something. Hell, a tear would even pacify me.”
If I ever get out of these chains, I’m ripping that bastard’s tongue out and shoving it down his brother’s throat, then tying it to his intestine.
The metal tightens against my already burning wrists. Ropes of liquid red slink around my arms in different patterns, and my feet jolt off the ground as they clank above, just enough that my boots hover above the floor on my toes.
George snickers. “Lift him again. I think he’s close.”
I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting this dickhead properly until he shot and stabbed me. He’s fucking insufferable. That’s saying something, seeing as Conrad’s been acting like an unmedicated asylum escapee.
It’s fitting, seeing as that appears to be where I’ve been spending my fucking days. I’ve lost count of how long I’ve been in here, wherever the fuck it is.
Every day without fail, I’m awoken by a hose spraying cold water, dragged from my cell, and brought up to this room. White floors, white walls, and the stench is a mixture of chlorine and blood.
It definitely belonged to Clarke White.
Medical equipment lies scattered across the counters and open cabinets, a vast contrast to the metal table that holds an array of tools likely not licensed for the kind of practice it presented itself to the world. The bed nearest the window still has evidence of my bloodstains on it.
The moment I got here, they rushed to me to get the bullet out my side; the other one went straight through. I didn’t let them put me under for surgery—fuck being unconscious, knowing what these oddballs get up to in their spare time.
Conrad, however, seemed thrilled at the idea.
Pain like that is something I never want to experience again. It makes whatever torture these two idiots are trying feel like foreplay.
The doctor had the audacity to tell me to stay well rested, and now I’m beginning to think every single person I’ve come across here has been a victim of Clarke’s experiments.
I’m unhinged, but these guys are fucking lunatics.
George pours the Absconditus vodka on my wound again, making my teeth grit at the sting. It’s not as bad as when he did it immediately after it got stitched. Now it’s just annoying.
Everything they do is fucking annoying.
Whoever taught these pricks to torture people needs to go back and reflect on their actions. They hang me from the ceiling for hours at a time, tried waterboarding me, whipping me, and they’ve even tried imprinting that damn snake from their emblem into me.
They think they’re breaking me. They won’t break my mind; it’s already fucked. My entire life is living in a psychosis.
Their voices are the worst thing they’ve subjected me to.
It’s what I keep telling myself anyway—anything to keep my mind off her. The longer these idiots are with me, the less time they have trying to get to her.
“I know,” Conrads chirps, taking a swig of the vodka as he walks to stand in front of me, his unfocused eyes glaring up at me.
George walks towards me too. I don’t know if either of them are high or just drunk, but the glaze over their eyes tell me they’re on something. It’s all they’ve done since I got here, and I can’t quite figure out if this is how they are, or if they’re masking the fact their empire is threatened.
“What if we brought Indie here? Maybe that would get a reaction out of him.”
The chains clatter as I yank hard against them, my body betraying me. They haven’t said her name once, and it’s been a blessing. I’ll endure everything they give me, every test, every fucking experiment they want.
Anything to keep them away from her.
George cocks his head. “Why didn’t we think of that before?” A smug fucking grin creeps on his face. “I bet she’s missed you, Con.”
I bite my tongue until the metallic taste fills my mouth. The more I react, the more they’ll use it.
That’s the worst thing they can do to me.
When Louisa texted me and told me she needed to speak to me about Indie after our call, I was curious. Conrad had been hovering around before she eventually reached out.
Her performance was for show, to keep up appearances—so she said. She wanted Indie out of there when she found out they’d abducted her.
I’d already offered myself as a replacement when she first called. It was a taunt as much as they were trying to fool me to the manor, but I meant every word.
Louisa did whatever deed she needed to win the Judge over. It wasn’t much of a fight.
After all, he wants me and my dad the most.
He blames him for their secret finally breaching the safety of their walls. The number of people they’ve taken over the years, no one’s ever come close to uncovering them. No one had the resources to go up against them, even if they did know.
And the information we have on them?
That’s the prize he’s really after.
I told Louisa I’d willingly go to the Montgomerys, then I’d kill the twins, and that she would work to get me out. Them capturing me in the woods wasn’t a part of the original plan, and I realised I might never be able to get back to Indie.
As all things are with the Omnia, nothing is what it seems, and I need to trust that Louisa will get the word back if she had any truth in what she said.
Conrad steps into me, dragging the tip of a knife along my throat, letting it dance across my pulse. I doubt he’s ever used one properly. He likes to taunt his victims, which I’ve unfortunately had to hear when he brings them over, bored I wouldn’t show fear for him.
One swift kick of my foot would take it out his hands, and I could strangle him with my thighs.
“Probably,” Conrad answers. “You’d like her too, she’s got a—”
His words finish with a snap of teeth as I send my knee under his chin. It took every bit of strength I had left gripping the chains, but when clatters of white drop to the ground, revealing his broken grin…
It was fucking worth it.
George sends a scalpel into my side. White-hot pain erupts in my stomach again, and he motions to pull back, until a voice stops him.
“What the hell is going on here?!” the Judge’s voice booms.
My narrowed eyes follow him as he strolls in the room, eyeing his embarrassment of creations.
He’s not concerned about me being in here; he’s joined them at times. He’s likely as pissed as he looks that one heir to his throne is missing half his teeth, whilst the other is ready to kill what the Judge needs most.
It’s the only reason I’m alive, and why everyone else thinks I’m dead.
“Sort yourself out,” the Judge grits to Conrad, who throws me a death glare, teeth in hand, and scampers out the room.
He only acts threatening to women. If I wasn’t in these restraints, he’d run for his fucking life.
George lifts his hand to remove the knife but stops when his dad barks at him to leave it, and he obeys like the little bitch he is.
The bay windows stretch across the back wall, revealing the mixture of greens and browns as the leaves sway wildly in the wind. It’s getting late, the sky turning to a deep grey as the Judge stalks in front of my view, his silhouette standing stark against his backdrop.
His sons are nothing like him, likely an effect from nepotism.
Where they’re chaotic and act like fiends, he’s a stone wall. He wants order, respect and compliance. Everyone around him gives him it willingly, though when he isn’t looking, they cower from behind him.
Conrad and George though?
Their men turn in the other direction when they see them. I’ve even seen a few outright ignore them. They don’t have the same respect as their father.
No one in this family scares me. All men fall. We just drop from our grace in different ways.
At this moment though, I feel the room is filled with two separate demonic entities, both willing to fight for dominance, only one winner.
He thinks it’s him, seeing as I’m the one shackled, but if given the chance, I’d rock his fucking world.
But he isn’t mine to claim.
The Judge steps into the light, staring up at me. “My sons tell me you haven’t given them any information, Saint. This disappoints me…You agreed as part of the exchange.”
“Mind’s a little fuzzy on that part,” I growl. He wants everything.
All the information I hold, how I obtained it, where I got the people I work with.
He’ll use it to conspire against my father, and whilst I know he’d be able to handle it, I’d never give him up, even if he thinks I’m dead.
This is a risk I knew would take me one day. The odds against me surviving and bringing down this society were slim, too many moving parts and other criminal organisations on a payroll to let me walk free at the end.
That didn’t bother me, not when I knew Indie wouldn’t come to any harm because of it. Her being separated from me all those years meant that there wasn’t a connection to her, nothing to hold over my head in case this happened.
Now it’s a different story.
He knows who my father and I are, he always did, that it was our mother that started our vengeance.
It’s always creeped in the back of my mind whether Indie’s assault was because of me. I shove it down with a fury, because if left to fester, that would fucking destroy me.
But if it was, the Omnia never came for us after that. They’re big and bold enough to have done something about it, so it never made sense why they didn’t make another move, or announce it when they called me out on stage at the manor.
Then Indie mentioned that her sister didn’t learn her lesson from the Montgomerys, and I knew then when she mentioned burying family that they killed her father for whatever Louisa did.
She left something pretty fucking vital out during our chat, and it’s no surprise.
It makes me think back to what the Chief said.
The web only spins bigger, and it seems it all links back to Louisa.
Fuck.
I don’t know if I should have trusted her. My instincts had no time to let me think about it; as soon as the offer of keeping Indie safe was presented, I wasn’t giving a fuck about the smaller details.
The muscle behind my ribs contracts. The only offering I could give to fix any fault on my part was to do this on my own, risk my life in exchange for a chance to get those who hurt her.
I should have known it wouldn’t be that fucking simple. I was too consumed with how I let my greed overpower me all those years ago, that I would have done anything to try make amends for it.
I want to regret it, say out loud that she would have been better off without me.
But that selfishness still grips me tightly, because I can never let her go.
Now that hero complex has washed off on me, I need to kill this fuck’s spawns fast, because I need to get back to my girl. Gluttony might have me in its hold, but I’ll never waste time, not when it comes to Indie.
The Judge snickers, taking a step closer as his hand wraps around the scalpel, twisting it in my side. A guttural groan breaks free, and he speaks over it. “No matter, you’ll give me something soon.”
I force a gritted laugh, despite this leathered-looking fuck rearranging my organs with a blade. “You think?”
He huffs a laugh right back, yanking it out as warm liquid pools out my side, the splatters hitting off the floor. The sensation makes me feel woozy, and now I’ve got stab wounds at either fucking side.
“She’s a very good actress, my Louisa. You might have thought she was on your side.” He shakes his head, wiping a cloth over the blade. “Make no mistake, her loyalty to the Omnia runs deeper than any bloodline. And she’s got Indie right where she wants her.”
Every single fibre in my body halts.
I can feel the shadows blanket me, pulling their darkness over me as I stare at him.
He raises his greying brows. “Oh, you thought she was telling the truth? I’ll need to pass on the compliments.”
The knife drops to the floor with a clatter. It feels like the metal is hitting against my skull, and white-hot rage burns within me.
I know he’s trying to fuck with me.
It’s Louisa that’s got him eating out of her paw.
Either that, or he’s right. If he is, that bitch needs to be awarded with an Oscar. Hell, a fucking lifetime achievement award.
He strolls over to the door, turning to look at me when he reaches the threshold. “I’ve also been made aware you have something else of mine. The girl. I don’t care for her name, but no one takes from me, Saint. No matter how worthless it is. Because when they do, I take something back.”