The fighter an mm romanc.., p.27
The Fighter: An MM Romance, page 27
I woke up early, while the sun was still barely visible over the horizon. Tav was still asleep, face smushed into the pillow. I watched his back rise and fall, his angel wings seeming to flutter with every breath.
He’d been working out twice a day since his concussion symptoms had cleared, and the workouts combined with his hefty calorie intake meant he’d already added on pounds of muscle. His face was less gaunt, and his ribs barely showed at all. He’d started taking care of himself, and it showed from the glow of his skin to the brightness of his eyes. A swell of affection bloomed in my chest, and I pressed a kiss to his bare shoulder, lips lingering on his soft skin. I thought about waking him up, rolling him onto his back, and sucking him down my throat until he hardened and came, but I let him sleep instead. I pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and slipped from the bedroom without him stirring. In the kitchen, I made myself a coffee and stared out the windows of my apartment as the city bustled below despite the early hour.
I’d been so sure yesterday that keeping Tav in the dark about Soto’s next plans was the right thing to do, but not anymore. He deserved to know, and I had to respect his intelligence enough to tell him. He’d be furious, and he wouldn’t like it, but I owed it to him to have the conversation.
Already, my heart felt lighter. Knowing that today was going to be tough with Tav, I decided that buttering him up with his favorite breakfast would help. Tav on a full stomach was a much more rational person than Tav on an empty stomach.
As quietly as I could, I left my apartment, traveled down the elevator, and exited the doors of my building with a nod to the doorman. The weather was warming up each day, and while a chill remained in the air, I could feel spring just around the corner. The sun shone brightly, and I squinted up at it as I walked to the bakery two blocks away. Tav loved the cinnamon rolls from Get Baked. The first time he’d eaten them, I swore he smelled like cinnamon the rest of the day, and I kept finding bits of sugary syrup on his clothes and in his hair. The thought made me smile, and I hid it behind the collar of my jacket. The streets were busy, people walking in all directions.
I spun the ring on my finger with my thumb. I hadn’t worn it last night around Tav, because I hadn’t wanted to answer questions about it, but I’d slipped it on this morning.
The bakery was crowded as it usually was, but the line moved quickly. I ordered two rolls—they were the size of my head—and clutched the bag full of warm treats to my chest as I made my way back to my apartment. Over cinnamon rolls, I’d come clean.
As I walked, I dialed Nik’s number. He answered after the first ring. “Conrad.”
“I changed my mind,” was the first thing I said.
There was a pause. “That’s a first.”
“I’m amenable sometimes,” I huffed.
He laughed at that, and I glared even though he couldn’t see me.
“All right, what did you change your mind about?” He slurped something, probably a sugary coffee.
“About Tav.”
“What about Tav?”
A shoulder bumped into mine. Hard. I stumbled at the head of an alley, Into the phone, I said, “I’m going to tell him. He should know.”
I turned, prepared to tell off whoever had nearly taken me off my feet. “Know what?” Nik asked in my ear.
I opened my mouth to answer just as two hands grabbed me and roughly pulled me into the alley. A hand covered my mouth, and another batted my phone and the bakery bag out of my hands. I could hear Nik’s voice, but not his words, and I struggled, lashing out at the hands holding me, but there were too many. Four, six, eight, I couldn’t be sure. The crowd on the sidewalk was so close and yet so far away, unaware of my battle in the darkened alley.
Something sharp pricked my neck. I kicked. I punched out. I tried to scream. But my limbs were so very heavy. My brain wouldn’t connect to my body as my brain vowed to fight, but my muscles weren’t working. My vision went dark at the edges, and I clung to consciousness as long as I could until I lost it all.
TWENTY-NINE
Conrad
I came to with a shivering gasp, my body on fire until I realized it was the opposite. Cold. Icy water dripped from my chin, spilled down my bare chest.
My shoulders ached as they were tied behind my back around a chair. My ankles tied to the chair legs. I wore nothing but my jeans. My thumb immediately went to my finger, but the ring wasn’t there. The ring wasn’t there. Beside my chair sat a bucket, likely the source of my current icy cold wet state.
I tried not to panic at the absence of the ring. Maybe the ring was somewhere here in this building with the rest of my clothes. I’d been mid-conversation with Nik, so he’d know I was taken.
I was in a large windowless room, more like an entire below-ground floor of a building, lit by a few bare bulbs in the ceiling. A row of cages lined one wall, and I was in the middle in a big wooden chair with a high back. And sitting across from me, his legs crossed casually, was Devlin. I couldn’t see anyone else in the basement, but there were a lot of dark shadows where men could be lurking. I tensed and fought my way through the haze of whatever drug they’d given me to focus. This had been the end game all along, to give myself to Devlin so we’d be able to pin down his location. But we hadn’t planned on it yet, and I loathed being caught off guard.
I studied Devlin as he brought a lit cigarette to his lips, inhaled, and then rose from his chair. He leaned down and exhaled right in my face. He knew how I hated cigarettes, and I refused to cough. Instead, I inhaled his second-hand smoke like I’d been doing it all my life.
He grinned. And then he reared back and slapped me in the face.
My head whipped to the side to absorb the blow, although it hadn’t been too hard. This was a warning. A warmup. Still, my skin stung
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” Devlin pulled his chair closer and perched at the edge of the seat, so our knees touched. He didn’t look well. His skin was sallow, and his eyes bloodshot. He couldn’t hide a tremor in his hand, and he wore jeans, boots, and a thin T-shirt. All of it dirty. I had him running scared. Soto had him running scared.
He gripped my chin, and his fingers dug into my cheeks. “I’ve known you were Soto for a while, and that was fine. I liked the competition. It was fun. I wasn’t going to hurt you for that, Conrad. Not at all.”
This time when he pulled back his elbow, it was with a closed fist, and he slammed it into my temple so hard that I saw stars. It’d been a long time since I had to take a hit. I’d been in plenty fights, but when I was much younger, and Devlin was strong despite his obvious distress.
“But what I can’t forgive,” he seethed, his cigarette breath making my stomach roll. “What I can’t forgive is you fucking the man who killed my brother. For putting him under your protection.” He inhaled sharply and his voice boomed in the enclosed space. “For moving him into your fucking home!”
He punched me again, in the stomach this time, and at least I saw it coming and had time to brace. Still, the hit was right at my kidneys and left me gasping for breath as pain seared through my side. How the fuck did Tav do this all the time?
Devlin gripped my chin again, forcing me to look at him. “That could have been me. I would have been so much better for you than that dumb Husk.”
I inhaled through my nostrils. My head throbbed, and my side ached, and this was only the beginning, I was sure. I had to focus, and I couldn’t let him bait me with insults about Tav.
Devlin leaned closer and brushed his cheek along mine. He’d used to do that when we were young, before we hit puberty, back when he was touch-starved for affection. But now it was a mimic of a caress, devoid of all the innocence it had meant back then, and I wanted to hurl. “I know you’re only with him to make me jealous. To hurt me. I forgive you, baby. Just kick him out, and we’ll be okay. No more hitting, okay? I won’t hit you again.”
I closed my eyes as Devlin’s stubble rasped along my skin. I hated the feel of it. The smell of him, cigarette smoke with the pungent tang of liquor. He’d been drinking. His fingers slid down my chest to palm my very soft cock through my jeans, and bile rose in my throat. I would have rather him hit me. Rip out a tooth. Snip off a finger. Anything but touch me when I could still smell Tav’s cum on my skin.
“No,” I whispered. “No, Devlin.”
He pulled back and cupped my face. “No what, baby?”
“I love Tav, and that has nothing to do with you.”
His stared at me for a moment, and then his eyes shuttered. He slowly dropped his hands from me and stood to his full height. With the thumb on each hand, he cracked the knuckle of each finger one at a time. Each sound was a warning bell, and I paid attention. I inhaled. Exhaled. Inhaled. Exhaled. I thought of Tav.
When the first punch came, I was ready, but that still didn’t prepare me for the strength of the blow. Blood filled my mouth as Devlin unleashed on me. My head. My body. Thighs. Everywhere he could touch, Devlin inflicted pain. His spit sprayed me as he cursed. As I felt a tooth loosen in my mouth. My nose crunched. Pain became my friend and enemy as my brain sloshed in my skull until I lost the battle.
I opened my eyes. Well, one eye. One didn’t open, and I didn’t need to touch it to know it was swollen all to hell, as was likely my entire face. But my hands were no longer tied behind my back. In fact, I was no longer in that damn chair either. I lay on my side on the concrete floor, in one of those cages I’d seen earlier. Blood pooled below my head, which certainly wasn’t good. A bucket in the corner was my only friend, along with a single bottle of water. I reached for it, and my shoulders screamed. Heaving myself to a sitting position took gargantuan effort, but I managed to settle myself on my hip as I tipped some water into my bloody mouth. I didn’t want to waste any water, so I didn’t spit out the blood in my mouth, just swallowed it along with the water. I prodded at a loose molar with my tongue.
I was alone in this basement, as far as I could see. A set of stairs led up to a closed door, but they’d left on a few lights for me. How considerate.
My face throbbed like an entire exposed nerve, and my vision was wonky. I didn’t even look at my torso. I didn’t want to see the extent of the damage from Devlin’s anger. He’d been livid. Absolutely incensed. I knew my words would provoke him, but that had been my intention. I wanted his anger, not his misguided attempt to seduce me.
I drank some more water and slipped in and out of consciousness. With no windows, I couldn’t be sure how much time had passed when the door opened and footsteps descended the stairs. I tried to sit up higher to maintain some level of dignity, as much as I could while beat to shit and locked in a cage.
Devlin’s image swam into my vision. He crouched down in front of my cage, smoking a cigarette. He was less manic now, but his eyes were cold. “You’re that noble and loyal that you couldn’t pretend to want me?” He cocked his head to the side and seemed genuinely curious at my response.
For a long time, I’d wondered what Devlin truly felt for me. Was it some sort of childhood idolization? An ownership? It wasn’t affection or love. My current pain proved that. “Is that what you wanted?” I asked him. I struggled to form clear words with my swollen lips. “Did you want me to pretend?”
He shrugged. “I was curious what you’d do. I thought you were more selfish than that.”
“And what would you have done if I told you I wanted you?”
His lips curled into a smirk. “I would have rubbed it in Husk’s face before I killed him and his bitch sister.”
“You won’t get to them.”
He blinked almost innocently. “Won’t I?”
A different kind of pain sliced through me, and I just barely held off from surging forward and snatching him through the bars of the cage. “You won’t.” But my voice was shaky, and Devlin scented it like blood in the water.
He laughed and sat down on the ground like he was settling in for a long chat. He braced his forearms on his bent knees and took another drag of his cigarette. “I don’t know who I hate more. You. Husk. His sister? Maybe Nik, that commie motherfucker.” He blew out a smoke ring. “Ben too, the traitor.” He dropped the cigarette on the floor and ground it with the heel of his boots. “If you’d accepted your place at my side ten years ago, we could have ruled this city.”
“We wouldn’t be running a criminal empire, Devlin,” I said. “I wouldn’t have allowed it.”
“What are you talking about?” he frowned. “This was always what we were meant to be. You’re the one playing pretend.”
I’d told Tav that I thought Devlin was more obsessed with what we could have been, with an imaginary version of me. And now more than ever, I realized that was the case. I remembered his words when we’d met last. You could have stopped me ten years ago. You could have collared me, and I would have been brought to heel like a dog. No, I couldn’t have. I didn’t have it in me.
He blew out a plume of smoke. “You would have reveled in this life.” His eyes shone bright in the light of the bare bulbs. “We would have fucked and fought and loved so hard, Conrad.” He wrapped his fingers around his neck and squeezed. “You would have collared and leashed me. I can almost feel it now.” His eyes went half-mast, and he swayed as a soft smile played on his lips. “You’d have a collection of things to make me hurt, and you would put me on my knees so good whenever I was bad.”
My gut churned at the thought of wielding a whip across Devlin’s skin—anyone’s skin. I met plenty of people in my life who were into that, and I didn’t kink-shame. But I wasn’t into that. I never would be. I had a dominant streak and liked to be in control, but I wasn’t a Dominant with a capital D.
This life he had built up in his mind—that would have never been us. We would have crashed and burned. I would have broken both of us, maybe even more than I broke Devlin back then.
I’d been so sure that I could have changed this outcome, that one different conversation could have been the butterfly effect to stop Devlin on this trajectory. No matter when Ben and Nik had said. No matter how Tav had pleaded with me not to let the guilt consume me. But I couldn’t be told. I needed to see it for myself. I needed to feel it. And now, with Devlin sitting in front of my caged and battered form, I finally saw clarity.
Devlin was always going to have a villain in his life, someone to blame. And that villain was me. For a while it’d been Tav. It would always be someone or something to give Devlin a purpose and reason to be who he was. Maybe he could have been different once, if he had another father or friends or someone who could have controlled him. But he hadn’t, and so he was this, and that wasn’t my fault.
I shook my head, although the small action hurt. “No, Devlin. I would never have lived this life with you. Ever. I’m not sure you even know me at all. I’m not into inflicting pain, and I don’t want to collar anyone. I’m just someone you looked up to as a kid, and when I rejected you, blaming me was easier than confronting why you act the way you do.”
Devlin went deathly still. His cigarette burned where it hung loosely between his fingers. I imagined him reaching through the cage bars and putting it out on my skin. I wouldn’t put it past him. Devlin always got violent when he was hurt, and I’d hurt him now. Again. But I couldn’t do this anymore, I couldn’t live my life acting responsible for a grown man who knew better. And Devlin did know better. He might have some ideal of Conrad in his head, but I knew Devlin. He had been so good once, so needy and eager to follow rules. But his childhood had been chaotic, and his boundaries were never firm. He acted out, and I was the only one who gave him any stability.
But I’d been just a kid myself then. I wasn’t sure what Devlin needed, or if there was anyone who could get through to him, but it wasn’t me.
“You wouldn’t have been able to change me like that, Devlin. Just like I would never have been able to change you.” I said the words out loud and they settled into my soul. For the first time in my life, I believed them.
Devlin stared at me for a long time before he slowly dropped the cigarette butt on the floor and ground it beneath his boots. He rose and wiped his hands before staring down at me, a snarl forming on his lips. “You’re right.” He laughed cruelly and speared his fingers through his hair as his body began to vibrate. My words were penetrating now, all of them body blows. “You’re really fucking pathetic, aren’t you? Just a piece of shit who gets off forcing another man to his knees but who can’t go all the way.”
I let the insults roll off my back. I didn’t care what he thought of me. Not anymore. Hell, I could barely concentrate on what he was saying as waves of pain wracked my body.
Until he said Tav’s name.
“Is that why Husk does it for you?” He crouched down on the balls of his feet, twirling a knife in his hands. Where had he gotten a knife? I eyed it cautiously. “Is he a good little bitch for you? I bet he doesn’t even fight, because you wouldn’t like that. You just want some obedient slut, huh?”
I ground my jaw and then regretted it when my teeth ached.
“You want to know where you are? You’re in the same basement where I held Husk five years ago.”
I closed my eyes and let a different kind of pain wash over me. I had suspected this might be the same place, but the confirmation stung.
“I made him pay, Conrad. I broke him down here. I gave him pain. You can play house all you want, but a part of me will always have a hold of him.”
That wasn’t true. Tav was resilient and strong. He only feared Devlin because of the threat to his sister. And he didn’t break him. He didn’t break him at all, because Tav was stronger than Devlin. Than this basement and this city. Than me.
Feeling defiant, I lifted my eyes to meet his. And that was a mistake, because Devlin smiled, big and bright and evil. “Oh, feeling brave?” He leaned closer, so that his lips nearly kissed the bars of my cage. “I’ll break you too, Conrad,” he said softly. “And then I’ll send you back in pieces to Husk. He’ll have to live with knowing that you’re gone because he betrayed me.”
