Chapter 2

Mom always saidthat Irishmen were worse than the smelliest shits in the sewer, and right now, I had to agree with her. Her hate mostly came from my druggie father, who'd ended up overdosing in his mistress's bed when I was fourteen, but I got why she hated anything to do with the Irish, even if I had it in my blood thanks to my deadbeat dad.

The Killough Company was a necessity for me, a step up into the criminal world. I'd slowly made my mark with drug deals in New York City, starting as a runner for the local gangs to finally joining the Company. I'd only decided to become a Killough man because I wanted to learn how they did business before branching out on my own with a couple of guys.

I'd fucked up, there was no denying it, and if I ever got out of this, Mom would flick my ear and tell me how stupid I'd been. But... I didn't see myself escaping from a guy like Oisín. I'd heard rumors about him and what he enjoyed.

So, I followed him because right now it was my best option for survival. I couldn't escape with my banged-up knee and eight fingers. Plus, half my blood was probably on the floor. Looking this way, the cops would pick me up immediately, and there was no explaining any of this. Not unless I wanted my entire family to die. I let Oisín rush me out of the building to his fancy car, and he set up a towel on the seat with strict instructions not to make a mess. When I was finally inside, I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead against the shiny clean window until he thumped me in the gut with his fist from the driver's seat.

Grunting, I glared at him. "What the fuck?"

"Don't get blood on my car," he snapped, though there was a smile still there, like he was enjoying every second of this. Bastard probably was. "And no sleeping unless I give you permission."

"I'm not your fucking dog." I glared harder when he laughed.

"You're whatever I say you are. You're mine now. You agreed." He shrugged and rotated his hands on the leather steering wheel. "Don't ever forget that. You said yes to this."

"I didn't have much of a choice, did I?" I grumbled, but my words were still loud enough for him to hear, and he laughed again. I sucked in a breath and flinched as the tires bounced on the cobblestone street and jolted all my injuries. I'd quickly decided I hated him and his stupid blue suspenders and perfect brown hair. He was just another Killough man, but a little higher up on the food chain. "If you think I'm going to fuck you, think again. I know which way you swing, and I'm not like that."

Oisín's eyebrows did a dance while he raised them and glanced at me as the car turned onto a new street. Thank fuck, this one was smooth pavement. I had no idea where he was taking me, but I guessed it was his home, where he could keep me as a twisted trophy. All the important Killough men lived outside the city, so I wasn't surprised when he took us onto the highway.

"That's egotistical, isn't it?" He drummed his fingers on the wheel to a beat that didn't exist, then laughter began again. "You're assuming you're my type."

"I'm your type." I snorted and leaned my head back against the headrest.

My entire body ached, from the tips of my toes to my scalp, the never-ending torture taking its toll on me. My knee was the worst, though, and it felt like someone had taken a torch to it and set it on fire. My two missing fingers were aching—the middle and pointer were gone from the second knuckle on my left hand—but they'd stopped the blood with a heated blade that had me screaming. No matter what I'd done during those torture sessions, I'd known no one was coming for me. Cillian and Rowen Shaughnessy and Aspen Kavanagh wouldn't stop until they had the answer they wanted. The only thing that had kept me from giving in to them was the real fear of death. I didn't want my life to be over, even if it was lived in pain.

"Keep telling yourself that," he singsonged. I might be dealing with a psychopath. He was enjoying this way too much.

I curled against the passenger door and stared out the window as the afternoon sky flew by. The aching pain didn't stop, but over the days I'd taught myself to retreat into a safe haven in my mind, where I couldn't feel the agony. This place I'd built was calm and peaceful, and my two little brothers were there, laughing and playing and being the happy kids they were supposed to be. I withdrew so deeply that I didn't realize we'd stopped at first. The car turned off, and Oisín poked me hard in my sore ribs.

I grunted and hissed, and the bastard chuckled cheerfully as he shoved open his door and stepped out. I opened mine, too, and carefully as I could, rose out of the low car to my feet. It was a struggle, and I had to support myself mostly with my arms. Now that I was back to reality, everything hurt again, flames burning in every inch of my body until I thought I was going to vomit. And I did.

I stumbled over to square-shaped hedges and heaved. The watery contents of my stomach tore from my mouth and onto the greenery. I didn't have much to give.

"Daryl will not be happy about that," Oisín drawled somewhere behind me. "He's my gardener."

But I kept vomiting until I couldn't anymore, and my good knee shuddered beneath me, as though about to give out. The thought of landing on my shattered knee had me gasping and grabbing the hedge, pulling myself upright. I could barely walk on my bad leg already; I couldn't risk landing my entire weight on it.

I clenched my eyes shut and breathed through another bout of nausea.

"If you don't move right now, I'll drag you inside," Oisín said, the bored tone making me grind my teeth.

I straightened, took another deep breath, and forced myself to move as much as my painful leg would allow. I felt like a walking wound. As I approached the massive house, I took a moment to appreciate it. This was the kind of place I'd fantasized about getting one day, with its peaked roofs, picture windows, and winding driveway. Everything about the house was gargantuan, from the wide white front door to the sprawl of the building itself.

"How many rooms is this?" I whispered, unable to stop myself. I'd researched estates in the Hamptons, hoping one day I'd work my way to the top and be able to afford something like this.

Then I'd fucked up.

The gray siding complemented the darker slate shingles. This was my type of house.

"Six bedrooms, a theater, a gym, and both an indoor and outdoor pool." The smugness in his voice had my mouth twisting. Of course the fucker was going to brag about it. "Along with some extremely valuable artwork."

"The kind you don't get legally." It wasn't a question. I knew what Oisín did for Killough. He was a world-class thief who specialized in getting his grubby hands on things he had no right to touch.

He didn't answer, though, and jerked his head toward the front door. "Come with me, Beastie. Now."

I'd been called worse, and as tempted as I was to try and leg it, I didn't have a chance in hell with my knee. Grunting, I followed him as fast as I could without making audible sounds of agony, though I wasn't succeeding. The pain was too great. By the time I got to the front door, he was already inside and gone, and I had no idea where to go.

Lights sparked to life behind me even though the last rays of afternoon sun were peeking over the horizon, and I turned to see another car pull into the long driveway, stopping near the narrow front porch. I stiffened when the engine shut off and a redheaded man stepped out of the silver Audi SUV.

"Ah, he's here."

I hadn't realized Oisín had returned, and his voice made me jump, nearly crashing to the ground when I twisted my knee the wrong way. I cried out, too hurt to be angry at myself for the sound, and grabbed the threshold to stay upright. The bandages wrapped around my missing fingers were stark in the light of the house. I tried to focus on that instead of the shooting torture that swept through me.

The redhead made it up the steps, worry creasing his brow when he saw me. "Is this the patient?" His accent was as Irish as it got.

"This is mine," Oisín said, smirking.

"Ah." The redhead nodded like he understood, but concern tugged at his features. "I'll need to check him over thoroughly. I'm not sure we can get away with him not going to the hospital. Just from what I can already see, he'll need surgery on his wee knee or it won't heal right."

"Who the fuck are you?" I managed to get out between gritted teeth. Now that he was closer, he looked familiar. From the apple-shaped face to the bright eyes, and then the Irish accent, he was definitely part of the Company.

He frowned. "I'm Dr. Rory Higgins, and I'm helping ye. The least ye can do is be nicer."

Oisín snorted. "Forgive him, Doc. He's a new adoption. I haven't even had him a day, and I need to teach him some lessons before he'll have discipline."

"Fuck you," I hissed, but nothing I said seemed to affect Oisín.

He laughed again and grabbed my arm, tugging me farther into the foyer. I chomped my teeth down on my bottom lip to stop from yelling out as he dragged me through a doorway and into what I assumed was a living room, with a curved gray couch, a widescreen TV, and a bar at the back. He shoved me on the couch on top of a blanket that he'd laid down, and I gasped as more pain assaulted me.

"Dr. Higgins is here to help you. You'll be nice to him or I'll give you back to Cillian."

I glared at Oisín now that I could see him better, with his fancy fucking suspenders and gray dress shirt that probably cost more than Mom's house. His watch gleamed, flashy and expensive. More than anything, I wanted to kill him, but I could barely move now that I was sitting again. My fingers began to ache and the sliced parts of my body were throbbing, as though every limb wanted to remind me of the torture I'd been through and how I didn't want to go back to that. I couldn't.

The sound of the front door closing had me gnashing my teeth together before Dr. Higgins appeared at the doorway of the living room. He cleared his throat. "Shall I do me examination now?"

"Yes," Oisín said, staring at me, still smiling even though the warning was clear. If I kept my attitude up, he'd follow through with giving me back to Mr. Killough's torture squad.

I breathed deeply through my nose and returned the stare Oisín was giving me but didn't acknowledge Dr. Higgins, not that it seemed to matter. Oisín had said I was his, and he was right. I was fucked.

"I'll need ye to undress," Dr. Higgins said as he approached and dropped a bag that I hadn't realized he was holding. He must've gone back out to his car to retrieve his equipment because I didn't think he'd had it before. He eyed my piss-soaked underwear, which was the only clothing I had on. Why the fuck did he need me to get rid of them anyway?

"I'll need you to fuck right off," I growled out, but Oisín yanked his phone from his pocket and waved it at me with his mouth curved to one side. Cursing him, I slowly rose and took off my boxer briefs. It wasn't easy because the material was nearly shredded anyway and getting them off my legs wasn't a simple task. Dr. Higgins leaned forward as though he was going to help, but I narrowed my eyes at him, daring him to touch me.

He huffed and pursed his lips.

When I was finally unashamedly naked, I sat on the edge of the couch where the blanket was, grunting but clamping my teeth down on my lip to stop from making any louder sounds.

Dr. Higgins sighed and began his exam. He started at my knee, and every time he pressed on it with a featherlight touch, I whimpered or hissed until I had tears in my eyes that I had to wipe away as inconspicuously as I could. Then he went to the cuts on my chest and belly, touching the skin around them as if seeing how deep they were. He hummed as he worked, and when he got to my fingers, he winced.

"They did a number on ye," he said, but it was so quiet that I didn't think he was directing the comment at me. He scrutinized the nubs, then shook his head. "They'll start to heal on their own. Not much can be done with them. Keep them bandaged for about two weeks until the skin starts to cover the tips. If the bandages stick, soak the whole thing in peroxide, then peel it off. That'll need some physical therapy, too."

I let him inspect me for nearly fifteen minutes, staring at Oisín the entire time. It was as though we were caught in a battle, with the first one to look away the loser, and the longer we stared, the bigger Oisín's smirk became. He was enjoying this challenge, and I had no doubt he'd love hurting me later. I didn't know what kind of torture he enjoyed, but anything was better than death.

By the time Dr. Higgins was done, he'd made notes on his phone. He rose and faced Oisín.

"The cuts aren't deep. The boys went easy on him. Although, it appears someone might have used him for a dartboard a few times, mostly on his right shoulder."

I cringed, remembering the scream I'd let out when Aspen's knife had pierced my shoulder as he'd grown annoyed at my nonanswers.

"As ye can see, he has two missing fingers, sliced at the distal interphalangeal joint, though they've cauterized the wounds to stop the bleeding. They must've wanted him to live for a while." Dr. Higgins glanced at me with pity, but I didn't want it. Fuck him. His attention didn't last on me long before he turned back to Oisín. "And it appears his knee might be torn. Quite possibly a damaged meniscus to go along with some awful bruising, but we'd need an MRI to confirm and see how bad it is. My guess is he'll need surgery. It's swollen and he can't fully extend or bend the knee joint. There's some locking in the joint as well. He'll need recovery time after the surgery if it's required. I'm not sure how this will work being that he's not willingly here."

Oisín hummed and stroked his chin. "He'll do it."

"What?" I snapped.

"I said, you'll do it." His mouth turned up into a smile. "Because I texted Daire Reardon, our second-in-command if you've never met him, and had a little convo with him in the car while you were checked out of life, and he told me some things. Like you have two younger brothers. Not eighteen yet and still in school. We wouldn't want anything to happen to them, would we?" The pure smugness on his face had me stiffening, the nausea twisting in my gut again. "I'm not sure it'll be easy, though, Rory. They'll ask questions."

Dr. Higgins nodded and crossed his arms, inspecting me like I was a bug. "I know a hospital that won't ask many questions, the Lombardozzi Medical Center. As long as they get paid handsomely and on time, they'll choose to ignore certain situations."

"Great." Oisín clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "That's my kind of place. Can you get in contact with them?"

"Immediately. I know someone there." He glanced at me. "Do ye want pain meds?"

I nodded, eager to take some of the agony away, even if it was only temporary. There was some good shit out there and I'd take the best he had.

Oisín laughed. "He only gets them if he's a good beast."

I shot him a glare. "Fuck you."

He shrugged and winked at the doc. "You can give them to me. I'll decide when he's allowed to have them."

Dr. Higgins hummed in agreement, then nodded at the cuts on my chest. "I'll need to clean those wounds or ye'll have to." He raised his ginger eyebrows at Oisín.

"Leave the stuff. I'll do it."

Dr. Higgins did as Oisín asked and left a tube of ointment, some bandages, and painkillers on a coffee table in front of the couch before he placed the few pieces of equipment he'd brought out to examine me back into the bag and zipped it closed. He picked the bag up and turned to Oisín. "I'll be in contact with ye." He didn't even say goodbye, just left. I supposed these sorts of situations were common for him since he worked for mobsters.

Once the front door slammed shut, Oisín turned to me, delight on his face as he strode forward and stopped as the tips of his shoes touched my toes. "This is how it's going to work, Reed. You're going to do everything I tell you, and you're going to go to the hospital and get that surgery. You'll recover, and I'll even be nice-ish to you while you do. Then, you're going to have what I call obedience lessons."

He left the room, and I waited, because I was a fool, apparently, and when he came back, he was carrying a small dish of water, which he placed down beside the bandages. He then grabbed the bandages from the coffee table and laid them on the couch beside me.

I watched, breath trapped in my lungs, as he reached into the dish for the fresh cloth inside before he brought it down to wash my cuts more gently than I'd thought he would. I'd imagined him tearing my skin to gain cries from me or digging his fingers into my flesh, but none of that came. He took care to sanitize each injury with the cloth and warm water before he placed the large bandages over the cuts. This treatment was strange and had me on high alert.

"These obedience lessons will include a shock collar." He grinned, and unease wormed its way through me. "And cages. Not the fun kind like cock cages. No, but cages you will live in."

I stayed quiet, though the temptation to tell him to fuck off was on the tip of my tongue. My brothers' faces appeared in my mind—their laughter and smiles—and I couldn't risk their lives. They meant the world to me.

After he'd attached the last bandage, he swiped the painkillers from the coffee table and tucked them in his pocket. With a smirk, he crooked his finger. "Come with me."

I forced myself to stand, and it took longer than I would have wanted, but Oisín was waiting at the threshold. He led me through the foyer to a set of wide stairs in the center of the room. The moment I saw he was going up them, I cursed inwardly and braced for the pain that exploded in my knee as I took each step slowly and carefully while holding on to the rail. There wasn't anything rushed about Oisín, though, and he watched me when he reached the top, as though he was taking enjoyment out of seeing me in pain.

When I finally got to the landing, he led me along a hallway to the third door on the right, opening it. Inside was a beautiful room that was all white, from the walls to the hanging lights to the nightstands. The bed was a light gray, as was the fireplace built into the wall across from it. Two matching gray couches sat on either side of the fireplace and there was a set of doors that led out to a balcony that I assumed looked out to the backyard, but I couldn't see because it was dark outside.

It must've taken a lot longer than I'd thought for Oisín to clean my wounds.

After a moment, I noted the problem with the room. In the far corner, near the balcony doors, was a cage. An animal cage, maybe, I wasn't sure. But it was thick plexiglass with holes drilled around the top that looked impossible to break. Inside was a red square mattress—a dog bed—with a pillow, a bowl, and a little space left over for minimal stretching.

"That's your cage," Oisín announced with a chuckle. "A cage for a beast." He thought for a moment. "A pampered beast who gets treats when he's a good boy." He tugged the pill bottle out of his pocket and rattled it at me like an asshole.

I shook my head and stepped back. "Fuck off."

I spun on my heel, even though my knee screamed in agony, and I nearly fell over, but before I could get far, Oisín cleared his throat.

"Think of your brothers." He'd spoken so calmly my breath caught.

When I glanced at him over my shoulder, he hadn't moved from where he stood smiling happily.

"Do you love your brothers, Reed? I bet they love you. What would happen if they were kidnapped? If their mother overdosed the way their father did?"

"You wouldn't," I growled out.

His grin widened and turned feral. "Oh, but I would."

I bared my teeth at him and struggled to hold on to the wall so I didn't fall over. My knee pulsed and nausea sat in the pit of my gut. I was fucked and he knew it.

"Soon, you'll have surgery, and then when you're healed, we start your training. Yes?" The delight in his voice made me sicker, and I trembled with a mixture of anger and regret.

I glared at him until it got hard to breathe. "Yes."

He clapped his hands. "Great. I am so excited. This is going to be fun."