He let out a dry laugh, standing up as he set his glass down with a deliberateclackon the glass table. “You think this is a choice, eh? You think you get to walk away from me? You work for me,boy. Or people get hurt. You of all people should know that. But if you need a reminder of what it costs to the people around you… I wouldn’t mind giving you a front row seat.”
A broken whimper from the corner of the room caught my attention. My head whipped to the sound, and when my eyes laid on the sight, my heart sank to the ground.
Camila. Ingrid’s sister.
She was bound, a thick gag tied around her mouth. Her flimsy dress hung off one shoulder, ripped, exposing a collarbone. Her hair wastangled and matted, stuck to her cheek with sweat. And her eyes, bloodshot, drugged up, glassy, unfocused, blinking slow, as if the world lagged a full second behind her.
Her head lolled forward, then back again as she drifted in and out of consciousness.
She was so small and broken in the place that had done the same to me.
“She’s a pretty little thing, isn’t she? Got a fuckin’ mouth on her, that’s for sure, but it’s easy enough to settle her down. And I gotta hand it to you, son,” Darragh mused, “you picked a fine pair of sisters. Two beautiful, broken little dolls. A lover and a fighter, both swallowed up by the world.”
“You fucking prick,” I hissed, stepping forward.
“Careful, boy,” Darragh warned, his voice sharpening. “One more step and things get very messy for your little dollbaby.”
I made a move to shut him down, to wrap my hands around his throat right then and there, but the sound of heavy boots echoed from the hall.
Two doors swung open behind me. Before I could turn, the groan from the man being tossed to floor hit my ears.
Kane.
He crashed to the floor first, dragged by the collar, blood smearing down his temple. James followed, a goon’s fist knotted in his hair, forcing him down until his body cracked against wood.
Both of them were breathing hard, already hurt.
I moved on instinct, but three sets of hands clamped down immediately, holding me still.
I stopped, my jaw tight, my hands curling into white-knuckled fists as I struggled against them. “I told you to come alone.”
Darragh looked entirely too pleased with himself. “I’m too wise for that, Tristian. Especially after the shit some of the boys have pulled. You were always too emotional, too prone to these... outbursts.” He steppedcloser, pushing up the sleeves of his dark dress shirt. “I need to teach you a lesson. A reminder of who you belong to.”
He reached for his belt. My skin crawled before he even touched the leather. The silver buckle glinted… and that sharp tongue, the pin that held it firm… it ignited a flash of memory: the whip of the belt, the flash of the silver, and the screaming pain as it tore into my back over and over and over.
Darragh’s laugh echoed, ricocheting in the shadows of my mind, a recollection so vivid it could have been real.
One of the guys kicked my knees in from behind, forcing them to the ground. Another tore off my shirt despite my constant thrashing.
Pictures replayed in my mind, me cowering as Darragh’s men held me down and Darragh did his work, the scars on my back burning as if they had been ripped open once more. Dozens of hours, maybe hundreds, in a chair as Kane and James worked to cover me with tattoos, to hide those terrible scars within the ink, to bury my shame… and yet now it roared to the surface again.
The pain felt almost fresh, stabs of agony ripping through my back as the sight of that fucking belt, filling me with the same fear I’d felt years ago.
“You remember this, don’t you?” Darragh whispered, working the end of the belt out of a loop, levering it up to release the pin. The metal caught the light, mocking me. “It broke you once. It’ll break you again.” His voice softened, mock pity and awe. “Look at those pretty pictures you used to hide what I did to you.” He sighed. “Good inkmanship, mind you. Shame it’s wasted now.”
My body trembled as he rounded us, his footsteps ominous in the air, my heart pounding in my eardrums as I thrashed again, jerking my body to be let free—but it wouldn’t budge.
Then… the room felt smaller. Darker.
Darragh sighed dramatically as he positioned himself behind me, like this was an inconvenience.
“You know how much I hate to do this,” he said, voice thick with false regret. “Trust me, lad… this hurts me more than it hurts you.”
I braced myself for the impact, my body going rigid as I forced a breath through my nose, grinding my teeth. I could feel the air in the room go cold as the belt clattered behind me, his hand ready to strike.
Then—”Fuck!“ Darragh yelled with a grunt of pain.
Chaos erupted behind me.
