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“What do you want?” My voice is rough, sounding like I’ve swallowed a fist full of glass and washed it down with acid. “How long have I been here?”

Where isn’t even a question. I’d recognize the storage room of my uncle’s shop anywhere. The parts shelves line the cinderblock walls. A drain sits in the floor. The smell of used oil and gasoline permeates the space. We’ve all spent time in this room, though usually not cuffed and dangling from the ceiling.

“The file. I need the fucking file, Tig. I know you’ve got it. Know she took it with her when you carried her out of Alain’s basement⁠—”

“What file? That’s what you’re on about?”

Desmond catches himself as he bends, trying to get into my space once again, and straightens to look down on me. He exaggerates his enunciation, “The fuckin’ file. I don’t know how she got it, or what ye’ve done with it, but I fuckin’ need it, right fuckin’ now.” He’s red-faced and nearly screaming by the time he finishes his demand.

“I. Don’t. Have. It,” I shout right back. My snark is not appreciated.

There’s a faint whistle in the air behind me before pain explodes through my hands. The strike was hard enough to break the zip ties, but what should be a relief is nothing but an explosion of pain.

“Where th’ fuck is it?”

His question barely filters through my scream. My vision goes hazy when I try to lift my mangled hands to inspect the damage. A tire iron lands in the center of my chest, sliding up under my chin until I have no choice but to meet Desmond’s gaze.

“Why?” I cut the question short when the curved socket end raps sharply against my chin, my teeth taking the brunt of the force. I spit out a bloody white shard, hitting Desmond’s boot with a chunk of my tooth and a good dose of DNA.

“Because with Alain out of th’ picture, whoever holds th’ file, holds th’ power. He thought that L’Ourson bitch had it, that th’ little swine gave it up to her. That was half th’ reason Alain stole Henri’s daughter.”

“Other half was because he was depraved,” I spit out.

“Taught me everything I know, cousin. Gave me and the boys free rein down in his basement. We could do anything we wanted down there. Hit the bitches, hurt them, fuck them, carve them up, kill them…anything. Those cunts were at our mercy.” His teeth are bared, lips pulled back in a snarl.

It takes everything I have to focus. “And why would this file be down there in the house of horrors, huh? Which one of you miscreants took it with you to go have a little fun? Who’s the fucking eejit who lost track of it while sticking his dick in a hole?”

The way his face flames red is a good indicator that the eejit is, in fact, my lovely cousin—the newly minted police detective and a wee cunt. Sadly, I don’t see the fistful of brake lines come at me from the side. I do feel the slice. I feel my skin pull apart and the warmth of my blood as it seeps from the four gapping wounds across my cheek.

Chapter 19

Comfort

TRUIE

The first couple of hours were nice. I sat by the fire, coffee in hand and watched the flames dance to silent music. I thought about all the ways my body was sore and the very tall, very strong, very delicious reason they were that way. I thought about the landscape of ridges and valleys mapped by his freckles and all the ways I wanted to explore and taste him.

That’s a lie.

That’s what I wanted to be doing and thinking. Instead, I sat by the fire and missed Teague.

I thought about how long he might be gone, and when he’d be back. About what he was doing, how he was keeping me safe.

And what all of that meant.

I thought about the SIM card. I’d never looked at what was on there. I hadn’t dared, but I knew it was important. Figured it was a lot of damning information. Why else would the man have been bragging to his friend that he had it? That he’d swiped it right out from under the Parrain’s nose. That he could rule the world with it? All while he dragged a knife through my skin.

Teague hadn’t balked at the sight of the crisscrossed lines; he’d traced them the way I traced designs in his freckles. He kissed my scars with such tenderness and care.

“Look at you, little hummingbird,” he’d said. “Look at the way your body tells the story of everything you’ve lived through. Every mark your skin bears is another moment you survived. I would lay down my life for the chance to worship every single one of your marks.”

I’d squirmed as he trailed his finger over the lattice work of scars. I hate them. I hate all of them. Most of the time, I keep them covered, hide them away. I don’t even look at them anymore. I haven’t since they’d healed when I was in the hospital.

“Each and every one of them is a reminder of them. The things they did to me, the things they took.” Tears rolled down my cheeks as the recounting tumbled from my lips. In all the time I was in therapy, all the hours spent in that psychologist’s chair, I never bared my soul the way I did with Teague last night. I inhaled and held that breath while I admitted, “I want to rip them off, cut them out of my skin, burn them away. But those marks are on my soul too. I don’t know how to do this. How to keep going with that constant reminder written all over me.”

I tried to push him away, to cover the reminders of just how broken I was, but he was right there. His face hovering above the lines, his breath skating across my skin, touching me. Caressing me. Treating each mark with a reverence I just didn’t fully understand.

His lips brushed against my skin as he said, “Let me show you. Let me paint your scars and show you just what a masterpiece you are.” And then he traced those scars, those marks of Hell, with the tip of his tongue until I was squirming for an entirely different reason.