Chapter 17

I tookmy chance to escape and went for it. The moment I heard shouts and fighting inside, I turned and legged it away from the warehouse. While I hadn't planned for this to be the opportunity I'd been searching for, I wasn't going to squander it. I ran as fast as I could, heading back toward the car.

Oisín had stupidly left the key with me, and by the time I reached the vehicle, my legs burned and my recovering knee ached. I unlocked the doors, tossed Oisín's bag in the back, and slipped inside to the driver's seat, taking a quick moment to pant through my fatigue from the run.

I stared at my hands clutching the steering wheel, taking in the missing fingertips on my left one.

If I fled now, this would all be over.

I'd get back to New York and grab my mom and brothers before Mr. Killough even realized that Oisín had been taken and tortured and quite possibly killed. We could leave the country completely and never come back.

Yet... yet I didn't move. It was as easy as hitting the ignition and driving to the airport and getting a flight home. Why wasn't I doing it?

I gritted my teeth and stared at the missing fingers, reminding myself of everything I'd been through. The torture. The cage. Oisín.

I'd pissed myself more times than I cared to admit and had been tormented so thoroughly that I never wanted to hear an Irish accent again. Despite all that, I still couldn't turn the fucking car on. I narrowed my gaze at my hands, willing myself to move. To do something. But nothing happened. I was physically unable to.

"Fuck!" I slammed my palm against the steering wheel and stared up at the roof above me. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

I knew the answer already.

Oisín. Fucking Oisín Kelly.

I'd actually started to enjoy myself with him, and the thought of walking away, letting someone else kill him, didn't sit right with me. If anyone deserved to end his life, it was me, but my stupid mind wouldn't even let me do that because I liked him. As if this was some kind of romance novel. I snorted. No. If our relationship was a piece of fiction, he'd be a prince charming, not a psychopath who enjoyed hurting me and receiving pain in return. Everything about our bond was fucked up... but I liked our version of it.

"Turn the car on and drive to the airport." I shouldn't have to convince myself. Anyone else with any semblance of sanity would be gone by now. "Leave, you stupid motherfucker. Haven't you learned anything from your fuckup with Mr. Killough?"

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, my fingers clenching around the leather steering wheel. Finally, I sighed. I wasn't going anywhere. I couldn't, and if that wasn't as insane as it got, I didn't know what else could top it.

I switched on the ignition, but only so I could floor it and head straight toward the warehouse. I took the corners too fast, but I didn't care, even when a lady on a bicycle swore at me and waved her fist as I nearly sideswiped her. When I reached the warehouse, all it took was a split-second decision before I smashed through the wall. The brick crumbled under the force as I slammed on the brakes, causing the car to careen to the side.

Three men scattered to get out of the way, and I used their confusion to my advantage. I shot out of the door and tackled one with my shoulder in his gut, sending him crashing to the floor. I thumped my fist into his face, the crunch of his bones under my knuckles a satisfying noise to my ears.

Someone yanked me from behind, and I spun, swinging my meaty fist toward the second guy. He ducked and kicked me in my recovering knee, and I screamed out in pain as the joint faltered under my weight. Next his knee met my nose and my head snapped back. I fell onto my ass. When he came for me again, I was just as unprepared because the agony flooded my senses, throbbing intensely until I had the urge to vomit.

He punched me in the gut, and I groaned, and when he went to do it again, I used every ounce of energy I had to kick upward, getting him straight between the legs. He yelled, and I winced in sympathy as he collapsed onto the floor, holding his sack.

The third guy must've realized it was his turn because he started to race toward me, but I picked up a brick to my left and forced myself to my feet. I wobbled before I swung the brick straight into the third guy's face, and the strength of my hit was so hard that he did an entire backflip and landed on his front on the floor, knocked out cold.

The first man was up on his feet again, face bloody as he hobbled toward a figure in a chair to the right. It took me a moment to realize it was Oisín, his head covered in a brown sack and his legs tied to the chair. His arms were behind him, and I could only assume they were restrained, too. While he was sagging forward, he shifted slightly, indicating he was still alive for me to save.

"Motherfucker." I raced toward the first dude, my knee protesting so fiercely that it nearly went out from under me again. I ignored the pain to reach the fucker headed for Oisín and propelled myself at him, knocking him to the floor before he could get his grubby hands on Oisín. We grappled with each other, and finally, I grabbed his head and smashed it against the floor three times. Another crunch echoed in the warehouse. Blood crept out from under his head, pooling on the cement beneath, and I slid my gaze back to his face, taking in the wide, dead eyes that stared back at me.

I glanced toward the other two men, and I couldn't tell if they were dead or unconscious. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath as the agony twisted its way up from my knee. Gathering my strength, I pushed to my feet again, crying out when the pain intensified.

"Beastie? Is that you?" Oisín groaned, his head bobbing forward under the bag. "If this is your idea of foreplay, you're a lot more interesting than I first thought."

I rolled my eyes, but the corners of my mouth tugged into a smile. I limped over to him and yanked off the bag. "If this was foreplay, it would be me torturing you, not them."

"Good to know." He laughed and some blood splattered from his lips across his chin, causing him to frown. "Shit. I bit the inside of my mouth when they punched me. Bastards."

I shook my head and hobbled around to the back of the chair. I untied the rope from his wrists and then leaned down as best as I could to do the same to his ankles.

"Why the hell were these guys still here?" he muttered, sounding more curious than angry. He shifted closer to the guy lying very still on his front next to us and stared at the back of his leather biker vest. "Cyanide Gators. Weird. Wonder why Birch's payoff didn't fucking work?"

Oisín stood and wobbled, and I curled my arm around his back to hold him upright. He pointed ahead, and I followed in the general direction, my gaze coming across a car that sat in the middle of the warehouse. I hadn't even realized it was there because I'd been too focused on getting to Oisín. To say that the car was beautiful was an understatement. I wasn't particularly a vehicle enthusiast, but the one in front of us was pretty enough to leave me breathless.

The car was a dark metallic emerald green that glinted. Sleek and sporty, it had a James Bond vibe, with rounded front lights, honeycomb-shaped alloy wheels, and two doors.

"That's it?" I blinked. "That's what all this is about? She's pretty."

Oisín laughed again and more blood splattered across his chin. His right cheek was a giant bruise already, redness spreading out across the bone below his eye. "She's a Limited Edition Aston Martin Valour, originally worth one point five million. Only a hundred and ten were made, so it's worth more now."

I frowned. "But surely Mr. Killough could afford this without having to steal it?"

Oisín shot me an amused grin. "He could, yeah, but where's the fun in that?"

I blinked, then sighed. "Okay, so who does this one belong to?"

He chuckled and winked. "It might belong to one of Thiago Reyes's cousins."

"Fucking hell." I shook my head. I shouldn't be surprised. Mr. Killough always had it out for the Reyes Cartel, and while I wasn't quite sure what had started the war between the Company and Cartel, I knew it was personal.

Oisín winced. "We need to move. They'll be alerted by now. Here, help me over to the car."

I did as he instructed because the last thing I wanted was to deal with more men like the ones I'd somehow managed to take on and knock out. Maybe my size helped or maybe it was just dumb luck, but I wasn't going to find out, not with the way my knee ached to the point I was nearly in tears.

I got him over to the Aston Martin and watched with a frown as he did his thing. It was far less impressive than I'd thought it would be. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and messed around with it, then the sound of locks disengaging echoed in the garage. The rumble of the engine as it started made him grin. I must've looked as confused as I felt because he rolled his eyes at me.

"When the car was still in New York, I paid a couple of guys to clone the key fob. It's not hard, but it is a pain in the ass to haul around the equipment. They sent the code to me electronically, but I didn't get around to stealing the car because I was busy." He waggled his eyebrows at me, and my face heated. "Now we need to move double-time," he said, though I wasn't sure if he was talking to me or himself. He yanked open the door and slid inside.

"So, you get it onto the big truck, and then when it's home, someone makes a key for it?" I asked, genuinely intrigued.

He shot me a smug smile. "I've got someone meeting the truck to make the key while it's traveling, so by the time it gets back to New York, it's ready. Sloan doesn't like to wait."

I shook my head, completely baffled.

He messed around, situating the seat and toying with the gear shift. The thrumming from the purring engine was loud, and it took me a moment to center myself because of how beautiful she sounded. It was a sharp reminder that I would never get a chance to earn a car like this from Mr. Killough. I'd fucked up.

"All right, open that door. We need to go. Now. You follow me in our car." He closed his door with a loud crack.

I wondered if he'd seen our vehicle and how badly the front was damaged. I didn't mention it. Instead, I did as he'd instructed, limping toward the wide front door and hitting a button to open it. While the roller door raised, I went back to our car and slid inside. The vehicle was dented all to hell with one headlight missing—but still running—so I drove through the debris and followed him straight out of the warehouse as he exited.

He raced down the street, the roar of the engine still very audible in my car, and I made sure to stick close. I hadn't been to St. Loren before, so I didn't know jack shit about the area, but I did notice how careful he was, keeping to backstreets and areas where there weren't many people out and about. Within an hour, we reached a truck yard and he showed the security guard a badge through the window, which allowed us access.

The Aston Martin had an intriguing back design, with three tailpipes at the center bottom and a row of bladelike LED lights stretched out across the entire width. It truly looked like a race car, and my jealousy increased.

He drove down a narrow road, and I stayed with him until he came to a large shipping container that hadn't yet been attached to a semi waiting nearby. He stepped out of the car with flawless ease, as though he hadn't just been beaten by three men.

I stopped the BMW right behind him and slid out with a lot less finesse. I limped toward him, eyeing the two guys who stood to the side, clearly waiting for us. Lowering my voice, I mused, "We don't have to send the car back to New York, you know? We could take the car and leave the United States completely. Get away from Mr. Killough."

He sent me a surprised glance and it was new. I didn't think I'd ever seen him look at me that way, but then his mouth curled and he grinned in familiar amusement. His eyes sparkled, and despite the blood dotted over his chin and the deep redness where a bruise was forming, he was still as handsome as ever. "No. As fun as it is to play with flames, Beastie, I don't mess with raging forest fires that can burn me in seconds."

"How poetic of you," I hit back, and a sharp burst of laughter fell from him.

The men walked toward us, and I took note of them carefully. They weren't as tall as me, but they had wide shoulders like I did and thick frames, giving them a bodyguard-type appearance. They wore leather jackets with the words Greek Lords MC printed on a patch on the front, alongside a picture of a skull wearing motorcycle goggles with guns underneath. They wore masks that covered the bottom half of their faces, painted in a design that I supposed was scary.

"Who are they?" I whispered, but Oisín shook his head to silence me.

"Gentlemen." He offered them a charming smile. "I believe it's me you've been waiting for."

One of them with long red hair grunted. "You're the Irishman from the Killough Company?"

"I am." Oisín waved at the car. "And this is what I need exported out of St. Loren to New York City."

The other Greek Lord had short brown hair and gold eyes that were clearly contacts. He stared at Oisín carefully as he shifted forward, his heavy biker boots crunching the gravel beneath them. "We're Greek Lords and work with the Sabbatini Family. We organize the shipping out of here. You got the cash?"

Oisín hummed, reached under the back of his jacket, and pulled out an envelope of cash I hadn't realized he'd had stuffed between his back and his belt. He passed the cash over to the dark-haired man, who flicked it open and did a quick count.

Finally, the Lord made a sound of agreement. "We'll get your car to New York City. It could take up to a week. We'll keep it protected. Your man is already onboard ready to make a key."

"Oh, great!" Oisín flashed around a delighted smile. "And you guarantee the car will get there safely?" Oisín tapped the Lord on the shoulder, and the biker glanced toward the offending digit. "Let me break it down for you. I work for Sloan Killough, who's allies with Riccardo Sabbatini, who your president works with. You piss me off, you piss off your own allies." He leaned in. "Not to mention, if something happens to this beautiful car, I will come and personally cut off your balls and feed them to the alligators."

The Lord swiped Oisín's wrist, knocking his hand away, and I surged forward despite the pain in my knee, ready to shove him.

Oisín grabbed my upper arm and petted my cheek as though calming a wild animal. "Shh, my sweet beast. It's fine. Master can handle one biker." He gave me a self-deprecating grin.

The dark-haired Lord grunted. "Don't insult us, Irishman. It'll get there safe and sound."

Oisín smirked. "Good, because on top of me, you'll have to deal with him." He tilted his head toward me. "And he's already killed three men today. He hungers for blood."

I didn't actually think they were all dead, but I bared my teeth, playing the part anyway.

The Lords didn't acknowledge his words with anything more than a casual nod. They swept past us and headed toward the Aston Martin while Oisín tugged me carefully in the direction of our smashed-up car. I limped. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, the pain intensified until it nearly crippled me, and Oisín wound my arm over his shoulders, holding my weight. He helped me get into the passenger seat before he stalked around to the driver's side and got in.

We watched the Lords as they drove the beautiful car into a large container, then covered it with what looked like a thick sheet. Next, they tied it down so it couldn't shift around. The redhead gave us a thumbs-up to let us know it was loaded before a crane headed in the direction of the container. They secured it with sturdy chains before the large metal rectangular box was lifted onto the attachment for the semitruck.

"Do you think I don't know why you took so long to rescue me, Beastie?" Oisín asked casually, his voice light and carefree.

I tensed, a warning bell echoing in my head. Swallowing, I kept my mouth closed because while I'd teased him about stabbing him, I'd actually tried to escape—and he knew. Fuck. Was I going to die?

"Why didn't you leave?" He slowly slid his gaze to me, stare intense.

Anxiety gnawed at my stomach, knots tying themselves together there until it almost hurt more than my knee. A tic began in my jaw and I glanced away from him.

He slapped my thigh hard, and I flinched, shooting my gaze back to him. He kept his hand there, squeezing with strong fingers. "Tell me."

I gritted my teeth, skin prickling. "I don't know."

"You don't know?" he repeated slowly, testing the words on his tongue.

I sighed heavily through my nose. "I don't fucking know, okay? I couldn't leave. I should've."

"You would've had time to get back to New York and grab your family." Oisín tilted his head. "Sloan wouldn't have known I was dead for a while."

"I know." I laid my palm over the top of his hand and thought about digging my nails into him, but I didn't. There were a lot of things I didn't do to him that I should've. "I got into this damned car, and I couldn't even start it. I thought about how easy it would be to get a flight home and take my mom and brothers away before they found your body. But I fucking came back for you, didn't I? Don't ask me why. I have no fucking clue, man."

"Master."

"What?" I blinked at him, confused.

The flirty smile was back, teasing at the corners of his pretty lips. "From now on, Beastie, you'll call me Master."

"You're not going to kill me for trying to escape?" I swallowed around a lump that lodged itself in my throat.

"Only in the bedroom." His eyes sparkled with lust. "And I did tell you after we got the car safe that we'd be spending some time together before we go home at Sloan's expense. Let's see what else we can do with that knife, huh?"

Relief washed through me, and I even managed a small smirk. "I think you owe me a thank you."

His eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Do you think that?"

I shrugged. "I did save you."

He snorted out a laugh and brushed a hand through his hair. "But you were also going to leave me there." He stroked his chin thoughtfully, his nail scratching at some of the dried blood. "I could be convinced to give you a reward. You were a good boy."

I puffed out my chest, and he laughed.

"First, we're going to need to get that knee checked out again. Come on, seat belt on. We're taking you to a doctor."

I groaned.