Page 59 of The Villain

“Devlin—”

“Conrad is Soto.” I blurted it out.

His brows drew together as he seemed to search his memory. Suddenly, his eyes went wide before narrowing into slits. “Conrad? The guy you…” His jaw clenched, and he made to get up. To do what, I wasn’t sure.

I reached out and snatched his wrist. “Let me explain.”

“Explain faster,” he growled. “The guy rejected you, killed my father, took over your empire, then nearly killed you… And you’re still trying to stop me from ripping his head off? What thefuck?”

“Yes,” I answered. “Now lay back down.” He remained in his near-flight position, halfway off the bed. “Or I’ll just warn Conrad you’re coming.”

Cian looked absolutely murderous as he surged toward me on the bed, stopping just short of blanketing me with his heavy weight. Even in his anger, he held himself back from hurting my bruised body.

But he did collar me with his palm. “You won’t speak to him again without my permission,” he growled in my face.

I didn’t back down. “Listen, and I won’t.”

He blew out a harsh breath through his nose before releasing my throat and settling back onto his side, but not without a grunt of protest and a fiery glare.

I had to start at the beginning, so I told him all of it. I told him about Conrad and Ben. About how we used to steal for food,then stole for fun. I told him how I’d learned to read people, and how power could shift the balance between social classes.

“After Conrad rejected me, I had nothing and no one. And I made it everyone else’s problem. I reinvented myself. Because if Conrad didn’t want me the way I was, then I’d become someone hewouldwant.”

Except it hadn’t gone that way. I’d started small, ingratiating myself into crews around Chicago and doing grunt work. Until I’d found the perfect power vacuum, slipped in, and taken over.

“Conrad hated what I became. I think he blamed himself. So, he created Soto and started making these petty little attacks on my business. Burning down a warehouse here and there. Slipping moles into my crew. Stealing sex workers. Nothing that really hurt me. And to be honest, I liked the attention.”

Cian smirked at that. “Of course you did.”

“You heard what I said to Jace. I had an older half-brother, Dennis, who knocked up some woman he met at the gym. Dennis wasn’t the brightest guy, and her brother Tav overheard him making plans to kill her because he didn’t want kids.”

“Would he have?”

I chewed my lip. “I’d like to think he wouldn’t. But either way, I wouldn’t have let it happen. I might be the devil, but even I don’t want that kind of blood on my hands. The woman pregnant with my nephew? No fucking way.” I shook my head and continued. “But her brother didn’t take any chances. He was a trained fighter. Caught my brother in an alley and beat him to death.”

“Fuck,” Cian murmured.

I shrugged. “I didn’t really blame him, but that didn’t mean I could let it go. The murder sent me into a spiral. As fucked up as he was, he was still my family. The only family I had left. I had to dosomethingabout his murder.” I locked eyes with Cian. “You get that, right?”

Of course he did. That’s why I was ripping myself open like this.

He nodded slowly. “I do, Dev.”

“I caught Tav, tortured him, forced him to fight for me. Threatened his sister and newborn nephew.”

Cian was still listening, but he was also losing patience. “And what does this have to do with my dad?”

“Hang on. I’m getting there.” I gave him a pointed look. “So Tav and Conrad somehow met—don’t know how, don’t care—and they started fucking. And suddenly Conrad was moving at lightning speed. He wouldn’t even touch me, but he had Tav moved into his fucking penthouse within days. And when he found out what I’d done to Tav…” I shook my head. “He went apeshit. I didn’t realize what kind of resources Soto had. I knew Conrad had money, because he spent a lot of his twenties scamming billionaires, but he used everything he could to take me down. And it worked. My men fled like rats on a sinking ship.”

My last-ditch effort, using the last of my men, had been to snatch Conrad and make him suffer with me. I’d kept him locked in a cage in a basement for hours. I’d hurt him. But I’d never gone any further. Maybe because, deep down, I knew he didn’t deserve it.

“Tav beat the shit out of me when they caught me. Ironic. I used him for his fighting skills, and he used them to beat my head in.” I snorted. “Then Conrad told me I could never show my face in Detroit again. His men drove me half-conscious to New Jersey, and took the extra time to fuck me up and carve a few souvenirs into my skin. Then they dropped me at a hospital to get all patched up. Top-of-the-line care, paid for by Conrad himself.” I scoffed. “That fucker… Couldn’t even let me bleed out on some random street in peace. Had to fix me up and send me back out to live with everything I’d done.”

My throat ached. I was burnt out from all this fucking talking. Cian still watched me carefully.

“One of Soto’s men killed Patrick, but Soto was the one who ordered it. Patrick was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” I explained, then blew out a breath. “I can’t let you go after them, Cian. Please. If there’s one thing I ask of you, it’s this. Conrad and Tav… I’ve done enough to them. They deserve to be left alone. It doesn’t really matter that I didn’t pull the trigger. Patrick died because of me. Because of what I did.”

Cian didn’t say a word. His tongue probed the corner of his mouth as his gaze settled somewhere over my shoulder. The stillness of his body made me nervous.