Unfortunately for Tobias, I’m sure I’m just another villain in his story. It’s my birthright, same as the rest of these losers.
“What do you need?” I ask, rubbing sleep from my eye as I close the door behind them as softly as I can. We don’t need to cause any more fuss for Micah’s neighbors than we already have this past month.
Colm gives me an appraising look. His eyes run up and down my body—mostly exposed because I stumbled out here in just my boxer briefs—and I get the feeling he’s looking for physical weaknesses.
“You look good. Better, Sav,” he says while clapping me on the shoulder in that warm, masculine way some guys just master without meaning to.
“I don’t know about you, Colm, but I’m not here for a lap dance. We’ve got work to do.”
Eamon’s voice is like a cheese grater to my fucking nerves. I force myself to look him in the eye, and I can’t help but smile a little when I notice the bruises already forming on his throat from when I attacked him earlier.
With a faux-innocent expression, I gesture toward them.
“What happened to you?”
If I was hoping to catch him off-guard, that was stupid. The smug shit always has something to say for himself.
“Just some bitch,” he tells me, a glint in his eye and a wicked smile playing on his lips. “She didn’t like the way I was fucking her. But don’t worry, she’ll get what’s coming to her.”
Anger curdles in my stomach, and I have to shove down the urge to strangle him all over again. Colm is looking between us with a wary expression that tells me he’s reading between the lines here more than I’d like, but thankfully, Lucky breaks the tension.
“Come on, Savage! We caught one. It’s finally time for a little fucking violence, after being cooped up in this shithole town for weeks.”
He punches me on the arm harder than he needs to. When I look at him, he’s practically bouncing on the balls of his feet in excitement, like a little kid on Christmas morning.
“Wait, caught one of who?”
“The Aryans! The motherfucking Aryans! Come on, let’s go torture some information out of him.”
He’s already tugging at my arm, like I don’t need to get dressed first. Eamon is still smirking at me, but Colm is the only one who seems to be taking this seriously, so I study his face.
“Your father gave orders. We need to extract some information from him, and you’re still the best. He told us to come get you and then go work the guy over.”
Something inside me sinks right through the floor. I think it was that teeny-tiny piece of hope that I’d allowed myself to have that maybe Father had forgotten about me. Or that maybe I wasn’t worth anything to him anymore. That I could just drift away into nothingness, and I wouldn’t have to deal with this anymore.
Of course not.
My thoughts flicker to Micah. What would he say if he knew what I was about to do? If he knew that not only was I a violentpiece of shit, but also that I specifically excelled in this truly dark side of an already dark business?
“You good to do this, Sav? We can tell Padraig that you’re still?—”
“I’m fine.” I cut Colm off, partly because I know my father won’t take no for an answer if he’s sending them here specifically to get me, and partly because Eamon is already looking at me gleefully, like this is exactly what he wanted to happen. “Let’s just go.”
In my head, I tell myself I want to get them out of the apartment as quickly as possible so there’s no chance of Eamon and Micah crossing paths. But deep down, I know that’s an excuse. Micah won’t be home for hours. If I wanted to take a stand against my father, now would be the time to start.
Instead, I say yes, the way I always do. Because I’m weak, and the thought of fighting him is worse than bearing the shame of giving in.
It didn’t take longfor me to get dressed and into Colm’s Escalade with the others. In fact, the whole thing happened so quickly, it sort of feels like I blinked and ended up standing in a barn, on some satellite property we apparently own outside of town.
I don’t have any of my old clothes here, just what Micah’s bought me. And he’s bought menormalpeople clothes. So I’m in jeans and a soft gray t-shirt made of some stretchy material that’s snug across my chest and shoulders, making the sleeves ride up. Nothing else. It makes me feel kind of naked.
I’m standing in front of a man who’s been stripped, beaten and suspended by his wrists from a rafter, but I’m the one who feels naked because I’m about to torture someone while wearing work boots and dark wash denim that my little brother bought me at Target. I’m not sure how that manages to be ridiculous and make sense at the same time, but my brain thinks it does.
We haven’t even started, and I already feel floaty and disconnected from the room around me. God, how was I ever good at this?
Or maybe it’s how easily I disconnect from reality that allows me to be good at it. Maybe you can’t be good at torturing people if your mind stays present.
Well, Lucky and Eamon both look completely present and eager to get on with the show. Eamon is standing behind me, arms crossed over his chest to make himself look bigger, his usual self-satisfied smile on his face, happy to look like an extra in a mob movie.
