He throws me down onto the bed, and suddenly, it’s too much. Suddenly, I’m doing what I’ve been swearing I wouldn’t let him see me do.
I cry.
The tears come hot, trickling down my cheeks as the sob wrenches from my throat.
“Please,” I gasp out, curling into a ball. “Please don’t do this.”
I close my eyes tight, and the room goes quiet.
Finally, I open them to see him staring at me, frowning, his lips tight. He shakes his head.
“Who the fuck do you think I am?”
“I - I don’t know.”
“Who.”
“I don’t know!” I scream. “A bad person!”
I gasp as he lunges at me, his arms going to either side of me as he half hovers over me on the bed.
“You’re right, little girl,” he snarls, making my heart leap into my throat. “I am a bad person. I’m a very bad man.” His hands move to my wrists, and my traitorous body betrays me again as I shiver at the sound of that baritone in my ear.
“But I’m not that kind of bad man.”
His powerful hands yank my arms above my head. He grabs a cord of some kind - this one fabric, not plastic, and ties it firmly around one wrist before he loops it over the metal of his headboard and then does the same to the other wrist.
He moves off of me, grabbing more ties and doing the same to each foot individually, keeping me pinned on my back to the bed.
“Please,” I whisper. “What are you going to do with me?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” he says evenly, his eyes fixed on me. “But keep breaking my fucking furniture and we’re going to have problems.”
He whirls and strides to the far side of the room. He flips a switch, killing the lights in my half of the loft before he slumps down onto one of the sofas.
The adrenaline is fading. The booze is fleeing my body. And slowly, my eyelids feel like cement.
I’m barely aware of giving up fighting it as I slowly let my body sink into the darkness.
Chapter Seven
Connor
She struggles for another half an hour, still pulling at those binds as if she’s going to break free.
She won’t. Leaving her alone before was a mistake, one that I won’t make again.
The thing is, I don’t make mistakes. Not ever.
It’s so wrong I could laugh. Because it seems tonight has been my night to finally cash in my chips on “mistakes.” Going to that meet tonight without knowing exactly what I was getting into. Having Mikhail with me, instead of one of the Saints. Not seeing the obvious setup until I’d walked right into it.
And her. Literally every single thing about her since the second she yanked me around by the shirt in that bar. And from that second on, there isn’t a single thing I haven’t fucked up where she’s concerned.
I shouldn’t have kissed her - not before I walked into something as serious as that meet. I shouldn’t have taken her after, either. A single bullet, an extra shot of whiskey tonight, and an extra prayer with Father Murray on Sunday, and that should have been that.
And I can keep going.
Shouldn’t have left her alone when I went out to call Liam, and I sure as shit shouldn’t have put my hands on her like I did when I caught her trying to escape.
And here I am doing another thing I shouldn’t be doing where she’s concerned.
Thinking about her like this.
Thinking about that small, tight, lithe little body writhing against me. Or those pillow-soft lips whimpering into mine, or the way her breath caught when my hands touched the bare skin of her hip.
I take a deep breath, closing my eyes and tensing and waiting. Eventually, the creaking of my metal bed stops. Her panted strains stop. I almost want to go check on her, like she’s a fucking infant or something, but I restrain myself.
She goes quiet, and when I strain my ears, I slowly start to hear the rhythmic breathing.
She’s out.
I exhale slowly, groaning and laying back on the sofa. There’s no adrenaline rush here, I lost that a long time ago. Sure, I’m still worked up about the gun fight earlier, but where a younger me would still be buzzing from it like I’d just done a whole gram of coke myself, the older me who’s seen too much is just tired.
Another day, another mess to clean up.
It’s funny to think how we all ended up doing what we do in the Saints. For Liam, it was easy I guess. The enforcer. The muscle. He’s not a thug by any means - I mean my kid brother’s got brains that under different parenting and with different formative years might have gone on to kick some serious ass at college. But then, this ain’t that, and “what ifs” mean shit in Southie. And as it happens, Liam just happens to also be that guy who excels at knocking sense into those who don’t want to see reason.