Page 49 of The Fighter

“I didn’t think you had it in you to laugh like that.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t so sure either.”

I went silent, waiting for him to offer something without me prying it out of him. I wasn’t even sure where to start. When I’d laid out my life in front of him, I’d only been focusing on two things—the pain squeezing my heart and his thick fingers in my hole. But as I looked back, Con hadn’t seemed too surprised orappalled about any of it. He’d told me he’d have been right next to me burying a body.

He looked down with a soft smile as he placed a hand over my chest, lightly squeezing my pecs. “I grew up with Devlin in a trailer park in Rathburn, which is about ninety miles outside of Detroit. Along with our other friend, Ben. He was at the fight last night, but I’m not sure you remember him. He just recently bought Collar. That was why I was at the bar that night we met, to help him decide on renovations.”

I clasped my hands over my stomach, unsure what to do with my hands as Con rocked the foundation on which I’d built my knowledge of him. While a part of me guessed he hadn’t been born with money, I hadn’t expected him to be childhood best friends with Devlin Walsh, of all people.

“We weren’t good kids. We all came from abusive, shitty homes in one form of another.” He shook his head. “We were delinquents. We stole from gas stations, boosted cars, robbed people. Devlin got into selling drugs by the time we were in high school, and Ben and I would be his backup in case shit went south. I was never the best fighter, but I could hold my own.”

Just the thought of Con scrapping over a bag of dope was baffling to me. He was so put together, so sophisticated. I gestured a hand around his bedroom. “How the hell did you turn it around into this?”

“I was a juvenile criminal, but I didn’t get caught. And I didn’t miss school. I got a small scholarship to a local college and took out loans for the rest of the tuition. Ben came into some money when his grandmother died. We still weren’t good people well into our twenties. You have to know that. But Ben and I wanted to be. We tried to rise above what we were, but Devlin...” He shook his head. “Devlin didnot. He didn’t want to.”

I sat up and stretched out my legs beside Con’s, facing him. “What happened?”

Con’s gaze drifted, and he seemed to be battling with something until he came to a decision and once again held my eyes. “Ten years ago, we parted ways on bad terms. Very bad terms. And then he went off the rails. He started on the path to become the Devlin he is today with ruthlessness. And I’ll always blame myself for having a part in that. If only I had been able to control him.” He clenched his jaw and looked away.

I’d recognized a weight to Conrad from the first we met, and I hadn’t been able to identify it. But now I could see some of the guilt he carried over the actions of his former friend. I squeezed his knee, remembering the way Devlin had dug his fingers into me at the same spot. “You’re not responsible for anything Devlin does.”

He stared out his window, face blank. “Maybe one day I’ll believe that.”

“Con—”

“Look I need to rip off a Band-Aid and tell you something. I’m not quite sure how you’ll react, but I’m hoping you’ll understand why I did what I did last night. And why I’ve kept you here and moved all your shit in.”

I didn’t tell him that I would have to be moving all my shit back by tonight before Devlin found out. Even if Con know him back then. He didn’t know him now. “Okay.”

He pulled his lips between his teeth before letting them out with a pop. “I’m Soto.”

Soto? The man encroaching on Devlin’s territory? The one who none of Devlin’s men spoke about unless they wanted a beatdown? I stared at Con.

He stared back.

I burst out laughing. “Right, and I’m fucking Santa Claus.” Con wasn’t laughing, and mine died pretty damn quickly. “Wait, are you being serious right now?”

“Yes.”

Soto was the boogeyman. The name whispered in the dark. The faceless man who’d made Devlin his target. Every time Soto did something to Devlin’s properties, like steal a gun shipment, one of his minions ended up dead because he could never contain his rage.

“A few people know me as an associate of Soto’s, kind of a right-hand man. And even fewer, like a handful, know that I’m really Soto. Or I’m the man behind Soto. Because Soto isn’t really a person but more like a vigilante meant to fuck up anything Devlin touches.”

My laughter was slightly hysterical now. The odds. The fucking odds. That the man who wanted to fuck me in some random bar ended up being the one man who Devlin Walsh feared. How the fuck was this my life? “Did you know who I was when?—?”

“I didn’t know you at all. Not one bit. I didn’t usually follow Devlin’s illegal fights. I tended to put my focus in his sex trade, drug runs, or gun sales.” His jaw shifted. “But I did ask around about you after you left my apartment that last time. I was done waiting for you to come to me. I was going to go to you.”

“Is that why you were at the fight? Did you know I was fighting?”

“No, I still didn’t know your identity. I was looking for Casey.”

That made me rear back, and I felt defensive of my sort-of friend. “Casey? Why the hell were you looking for him?”

“Because one of my escorts said his friend knew a rent-boy named Casey who had hooked up once with a man with two-toned eyes.”

I swallowed and ducked my head. “Oh.” Then I looked up with a frown. “Escorts?”

“As Soto, I run an escort business. Usually former sex workers who were taken advantage of under Devlin. I vet their clients and provide protection.”