Bought (Unchained Vice Book 3) (18 page)

“And the sensation in your hand? Any numbness?”

Jerricho shook his head.

“Pins and needles?”

“It’s all good.” He was both relieved and irritated as he answered the physiotherapist’s questions. The tightness in his chest seemed to ease each day, along with the muscles and tendons in his hand, but he wasn’t going to truly breathe until every last trace of the incident had evaporated into memory. It had been five days since they’d stomped on his hand.

Four days since Scarlet had left.

One day since the scene with Killian.

“All right.” The physiotherapist lobbed a tennis ball at him. “Show me how you’ve been doing your exercises. I want to see if we need to make any adjustments.”

The ball slapped against his palm and his fingers curled and squeezed. The pull that ran from his hand up into his forearm was as uncomfortable as the knot that twisted in his stomach. Fuck, everything still felt frustratingly tight.

It wasn’t just his hand. He was torn. Wanting to stay. Needing to go.

He’d gone to Killian the day before, hoping to find the answer. On some level, he’d expected the man to reject him. On some level, he was curious to explore the chemistry he’d felt during their tango.

On some level, he just wanted to put something between him and Scarlet.

A movement caught his eye. As if Scarlet knew she was on his mind, she had slipped into the bedroom. He hadn’t known she’d come back.

“The exercises are fine, but let’s do another set. I want to see how tired your hand gets.” The voice of the physiotherapist droned in the background.

He moved through the exercise on autopilot, his focus on Scarlet. There was no smile. No look of surprise to find him still here. No clue as to whether that was a good thing. She stood against the wall, watching with cool indifference.

The twinge came from the center of his chest. His siren had him hooked; his body was calling him out on his bullshit. Everything was on the line.

The physiotherapist patted his arm, making him realize he’d finished the next set. “You have a lot of strength in the hand, that’s good.”

On any other day, the platitude would not have cracked his composure.

“It’s not about being strong,” he gritted his teeth. Strong helped. Strong meant stamina, but strong didn’t make a surgeon. “It’s about steady. About precision. Control.” His voice rose, punching each point as he lurched to his feet.

Fuck, he needed to move.

He squeezed the ball so tight, the muscle in his forearm shook. It was that, or throw the ball to smash something. He looked around, searching for something he couldn’t articulate.

But his line of sight kept returning to Scarlet.

Like a focal point, she was the only thing that calmed him in the room.

He let the ball slip to the floor. Putting his hands on his hips, he blew out a deep breath.

“I get it, Jerricho.” The physiotherapist dared to come close to him again. “What we do is part of our identity. It’s going to take a while, but barring you doing anything stupid, there’s no reason to expect any long-term damage.”

Jerricho nodded, not so much to acknowledge the statement but to get the guy out. His gaze was on Scarlet. They needed to talk.

The physiotherapist looked between Jerricho and Scarlet, and cleared his throat. “I’ll see myself out.”

This time, Jerricho didn’t even acknowledge the comment.

Scarlet waited until the silence around them rang with the fact that the two of them were alone.

Eventually, she stirred. “My husband tells me you sucked his cock.”

“He asked. Not as nicely as you ask for things.”

“He won’t pay you.”

Jerricho laughed dryly and shook his head. “You think the money is all that matters.”

“I didn’t, until you left like you did.”

Of course, from Scarlet’s perspective, it was as if he’d taken the money and run.

“I’m sorry. You deserved a proper goodbye.” He didn’t bother to explain his intentions the night of the boxing, the tango, her being too drunk, and him hiding a hard-on for Killian. The next day, he’d snuck out while she was at her therapist like the thief she was accusing him of being.

“I deserved you to stay.”

He shook his head. It was no good to talk like this. To think like this.

He was still leaving.

Even now that Dado was dead.

Even after the study and Killian.

Even with the promise in Scarlet’s voice.

It was there. Promise.

Except she was promising a ghost. Jerricho Black didn’t exist. Until he had a name, he had no future.

The pain of being unable to do what she said transferred to his hand, a dull, throbbing hurt. He clutched his hand and started to massage between the metacarpals, long hard strokes with his thumb, as if the ache was not in his bones.

***

Scarlet weighed her options before pushing off the wall. She didn’t think fighting with him was going to work. Walking up to him, she reached out to take his wounded hand. It twitched as he placed it on her offered palm. So hot on her cool skin. Slowly, she began to massage and soothe it for him.

He bit back a contented groan, his shoulders softening.

“Why did you become a doctor?”

He blinked then cleared his throat. “It’s how nature balances a man like me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I decided young that if I wanted to break people, I needed to learn how to fix them.”

She stared into eyes that reflected so much soul.

“You don’t break people, Jerricho,” she whispered.

“You don’t know me.” The smile was self-deprecating.

“I keep trying.”

“You know I have to go—”

“Shit to do, people to see.”

He laughed, but everything was tinged with an empty sadness.

“You know what I think?” She looked up at him.

“What?”

“I think a man like you, if you really wanted to go, would be gone by now.”

He shook his head. “Don’t romanticize me. Maybe I’m still here because Killian’s paying my medical bills. Maybe it’s because he can help me get information. Maybe—”

Her hand pressed clumsily over his mouth. She wanted him to stop. Stop trying to convince her he wasn’t good enough for her. Just like Killian.

No.

No, she wasn’t going there with Jerricho.

Her fingers grasped as if she could catch and stop the words before they fell further, before they became real. “You can come up with a hundred reasons, but it won’t change the one that matters.”

His eyes burned at her, still talking even though he’d gone quiet.

“I want you here. You belong here.” Her hands were the ones trembling. “I want you to stay.”

The call Killian had been waiting for finally came.

Eli had found Romeo. Only twenty-four hours and he would be in Killian’s hands. The lead from the informer had been correct.

Most people would celebrate the news, but Killian ached with a new tension, a burning inside his muscles all coiled and ready to spring.

He sat restlessly in the back of his car, emotions roiling inside him in a dark and deadly mix. His farm in Berry was roughly a three-hour drive from Sydney. There would be no neighbors, no witnesses.

There should have been no Scar.

He’d argued with Scar for her to stay in Sydney. He’d promised to come back in for her show.

There’d been no surprise when she’d messaged him to say that she and Jerricho had arrived at the farm while he was still at work.
She’d
go back to Sydney for the show. In the last text, she’d told him they were just going to have to agree to disagree.

She was right they disagreed.

He didn’t want Romeo near her. He didn’t want the cunt breathing the same air as her.

She was going back to Sydney and staying there.

“Put some music on?” Joel interrupted his thoughts as the driver looked at him in the rear-view mirror.

Maybe that was it—drown out the busy in his head. “What’s on your playlist?”

“Talking Heads.
Stop Making Sense
?”

He nodded.

The pulsing beat of the drums was almost hypnotic as he closed his eyes.

His phone buzzed in the lap of his pocket and he shifted his weight as he reached for it. Eli.

The rat in your house is Joel Sommers.

For a moment, the letters didn’t make sense. Then he realized they made a name. The wrong fucking name. His thumb swiped over the message to delete, the music shifting from enjoyment to pounding in his ears.

“Joel.”

His voice was soft but the man still heard.

Joel turned down the music and raised a quizzical eyebrow as he met Killian’s gaze in the rear-view mirror. There was the barest tic in the top lid of one of the man’s eyes. It was all there if you looked for it, the nervous tell. Attrition? Contrition? It didn’t matter; there was no saving the damned.

“Don’t go straight to the house.” Killian’s voice calm and smooth. “Go to the old farmhouse first.” It was where they planned to hold Romeo.

Joel grinned, his focus already falling back on the road. “Already part of the plan. Knew you’d want to check it out.”

Killian smiled. Bittersweet. Of course Joel anticipated the request, if not the reason. They’d been together a long time. He liked the man, he really did.

Joel had been with him from the start, both of them trying to make their money off cards in backroom games with the kind of people who’d sooner put a bullet in their head if they made the wrong move. Joel would never have made it on his own, and he’d idolised Killian.

It had been natural for him to tag along. He’d come to Vegas. He’d delivered the gifts when Killian had courted Scar. He’d been in the room when Killian had received the phone call about Daniel.

That’s what made the betrayal hurt.

That’s what made it unforgivable.

He flipped through his contacts and stopped on Eli.
I’ll need a pickup.

Somers?

Yes.

Where?

I’ll let you know.

It was a shame, but that was the way of the world.

***

Killian stood leaning on the old fence running behind the original farmhouse. The building consisted of only three rooms. A security door replaced a regular door on the small bedroom, effectively turning it into a cell. The outhouse was further down the path, rudimentary plumbing only hooked up the kitchen taps. There was nothing comfortable about the place, but then again, there was nothing comfortable about hell.

Joel finished locking the house and came up to stand next to him.

“Have I ever said no when someone from my crew has come to me for help?” Killian spoke while gazing off into the distance. The question was rhetorical. He hired men who needed him, men who needed the chance he gave them—a lifeline that got repaid in fierce loyalty and dedication.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Joel’s puzzled profile as the man looked at him.

“Just answer the question.”

“No.” The man shook his head. “You always help.”

“And you? I ever not help you?”

“I could never repay you for all the times you’ve saved my ass.”

“Then why didn’t you come to me?”

The man’s hand wobbled on the fence railing.

“How much did you owe?”

“Three hundred thousand.” A gambling debt.

Scarlet had been to hell because of the fucking tic in the corner of Joel’s eye.

“Did it ever occur to you they were setting you up?” Killian shook his head. The pot was too big for a working man’s pocket.

“I know. Fuck, I know. But I was in too deep—”

Killian grabbed the man’s jacket and reached for his gun. That was the thing about guilt; it paralyzed you. “You made two bad choices. The first was when you betrayed me.”

Joel staggered back.

Only Superman outran a bullet.

The gun popped. The silencer muffling the sound that would echo up into the valley.

Joel’s left leg buckled as the bullet logged in the lower thigh. He crashed to the ground with a grunt instead of a scream.

“Please, Killian.” He sank to his knees.

“I don’t think they listened to Scar when she asked for mercy, you son of a bitch.” Killian walked behind him and kicked him in the back.

Joel fell forward onto the ground.

“I swear I didn’t know about the kidnapping. They just asked questions about your schedules. What you do. It seemed pointless, you have guards, you have me … I was going to protect you.”

The man cried, and Killian didn’t think it was because he was afraid to die.

“Like you protected me by giving up my wife?” Killian stood on the man’s thigh as he took the shot into the back of the kneecap.

This time the scream rang out. Wild and loud, it set off a flock of corellas in the nearby trees, the collective screeching echoing Joel’s pain. There was a reason kneecapping was feared. The bullet would rip through muscles, tendons, and a rich vein of nerves. It wasn’t going to kill him, just make him wish it had. He’d never walk right again.

“Your second mistake was not coming clean.”

“I’m so sorry.” Joel was panting, face pulled tight in agony.

“I’m sorry too. I’m sorry I took you to Vegas. I’m sorry it wasn’t you who won the seven million. I’m sorry you’re going to go crazy chasing it, but none of that comes near to being how sorry I am right now for ever trusting you.”

“Please, Killian … please …” Babbling incoherently, Joel writhed on the ground.

Killian tucked the gun into his trousers by the small of his back, the barrel still warm, like his anger. The betrayal festered, its bitter taste on his tongue.

Reaching into Joel’s pocket, he pulled out the man’s phone.

Eli answered straight away. “Where?”

“Can you trace the location of this phone?” They were on his property, but he didn’t think Joel was going to be standing up to flag them down. The sun was setting, and in the knee-high scrub of the bush, Joel would be easy to miss.

“Yes. Am I sending a cleaner?”

“No. He’s alive.” Cut loose, the gambling would kill him.

It was after eleven p.m. when Killian finally let himself into the main house. He’d driven to the pub in the next town, sat in a dark corner for three hours, and nursed one beer. It was a long time to be in his head. It had not been a good place.

He showered downstairs, but there was a stink to betrayal that was hard to wash off. Now barefoot and in black sweat pants, he padded up the stairs to Scarlet’s room. He needed a distraction. He wanted out of his head, out of his body. Jesus, he just wanted something that would hurt from beauty instead of pain.

A deep, dull ache echoed through his body, the warm shower having thawed out the numb. Watching Scar and Jerricho might soothe him, but he knew there’d be no release, no real escape. You had to void pain with pain.

***

When Killian opened the bedroom door, Jerricho felt the man’s energy was different. Instinctively, he was up, moving toward Killian who stood halfway to the bed, unaware that his mask had even slipped.

“Killian?” Jerricho was close enough to reach out and touch him.

So close Jerricho could see violence and suffering in Killian’s troubled gray eyes, an intimate honesty.

The man looked like he didn’t know whether to stay or go. He looked torn and raw.

He looked lost.

“What happened?”

Killian’s spine straightened as he shook his head. On the surface, he was back to strength, but Jerricho wasn’t looking at the surface; he was still looking into the man’s eyes—eyes that were begging to find peace.

The gaze of those eyes flicked past Jerricho’s shoulder to Scarlet sleeping.

“She’s good?” The words were hushed. There was no trace of vulnerability now, but the intimacy remained.

He gave Killian a single nod.

“You—”

Jerricho put his finger against Killian’s lips. He didn’t know what the man was going to say or ask. It didn’t matter; Killian radiated need and it was compelling.

The man’s lips hardened under his touch. Killian didn’t like being told what to do.

Inside, Jerricho smiled; the defiance made Killian’s need sweeter.

He slowly dragged his finger across the full lips. A sensual lingering.

The backhand was quick and unexpected. Jerricho had hit Killian so fully, he split the man’s top lip. Killian’s head snapped back the same time Jerricho’s stomach muscles braced, remembering the force of the man’s fist.

Killian could take him.

And Killian could win.

Fuck if that didn’t hit the accelerator to his pulse hard.

Jerricho smiled a hard, cold smile as his body lit up inside.

It was sex, watching Killian slowly raise his hand and wipe his mouth, his finger coming away bloody. The man stared at the blood and Jerricho braced again.

The moment of truth.

Maybe he’d misunderstood the self-harm with the lighter. Maybe he’d read Killian’s need wrong.

But maybe he’d been right, and maybe Killian would acquiesce …

Killian ran his tongue along the injured lip. True to form, he didn’t flinch, just gave a small acknowledging grunt.

Jerricho’s stomach should’ve relaxed, but the tip of Killian’s tongue worrying the raw lip turned the tension tighter. A hungry want pulsed in Jerrciho’s cock.

Killian looked him in the eye. “I’m not submissive.” But there was dark need.

And there was defiance.

“I know.” The tips of Jerricho’s fingers glanced the red mark left on the man’s skin. “But I want you to hurt … we both want you to hurt.”

He pushed his thumb past Killian’s lips, deliberately pressing against the fresh wound as he sank into the heat of Killian’s mouth and stroked across his tongue.

A distraction.

He hooked his leg behind Killian’s ankle and pulled his leg out from under him. Killian dropped as Jerricho fell on top of him.

Jerricho grabbed Killian’s wrist and twisted his arm behind his back as he used his own weight to pin the man to the floor.

Killian was all instinct and violent struggle.

Maybe it was because Jerricho had caught the man by surprise, or maybe it was because Killian wanted this, that Jerricho kept the upper hand.

Killian bucked under Jerricho to try and throw him off, but Jerricho jerked the twisted elbow higher, making the man grunt. It didn’t matter how strong Killian was, he could break the man’s arm if he pulled it high enough.

Hot lust shot through Jerricho’s groin.

His cock rubbed against the man’s squirming legs. Slowly and cruelly, he pulled on the arm as he crushed Killian’s wrist. Muscles and tendons would be screaming, the tension so tight, struggle inflicted more pain than relief.

Jerricho leaned forward and inhaled Killian’s pain.

This was when he was the most dangerous, more sadist than man.

He rested his forehead against the back of Killian’s head. Closing his eyes, he fought to keep control. He tried to take a deep breath, but it was just ragged panting—ragged from lust, just as Killian’s breath was ragged from pain.

He waited agonizing seconds for control before he whispered, “You know what makes my cock so hard?” He ground his groin against the man’s ass. “The fact that you’re not really fighting me. You’re fighting yourself.” He nuzzled against the thick crown of hair. “You want me to fuck you. You’re just not sure how we fit. You bottom, but you don’t give up power.”

Killian made a noise. It could have been a fuck you, but pain translated it into something different.

“You know what I want?” Jerricho’s whisper was silky in its vice. “I want you to struggle.”

He slowly removed the pressure of his knee from Killian’s back. Caging Killian with his body, he wriggled his free hand under the man’s hips, forcing them to slightly lift.

Blindly, he slid his hand into the sweatpants and over Killian’s semi-erect cock.

He squeezed the warm, velvet flesh, smiling as it swelled in his hand.

Killian was oh so still, his struggle no longer on the outside. Humiliation, desire, pain—all the buttons had been pushed.

Jerricho squeezed the cock again as he let go of the twisted arm, letting it fall to Killian’s side. This was how he would control the man now. Molding himself to Killian’s body, Jerricho rolled them onto their sides into an intimate embrace.

Spooning, Jerricho held Killian against his chest, his free hand stroking the man’s cock until it was fully erect. Exquisitely soft and hard under his fingertips, Jerricho varied his strokes as his thumb ran over the head, catching and spreading precum to slick the thick shaft.

Killian trembled against him as if his touch was charged. As if each touch was an exquisite agony.

The shivers rippled against Jerricho’s body. He groaned into Killian’s ear as he ground harder against him. Jerricho wanted to fuck. The animal in him wanted to rip down Killian’s pants and claim him.