Bought (Unchained Vice Book 3)

by Nicolette Hugo

  Years of Medicine screamed at him that he was going to break his hand. For the first time in his life, he didn’t give a shit.

  Nothing mattered because it was all over, wasn’t it?

  Thirty

  Scarlet woke with a start. The bed next to her was empty. A dream. It had just been a dream. Hot tears welled as reality washed over her. None of it had been real—the shower, making love in bed, falling asleep together.

  Her heart wrenched at the loss, as if the absence of Killian from her bed was something new. A squeezing pressure made the ache swell and push against her ribcage, making it hard to breathe. She resisted the urge to gulp down the panic and blew out short, sharp breaths, her focus on the time display of the bedside clock—1:30 a.m.

  Her heartbreak sat heavy in the dark quiet.

  A muffled, broken noise sounded.

  Except it didn’t come from her.

  Her awareness grew out across the room. There. A sliver of light under the bathroom door. She slipped from the covers and padded naked toward the en suite.

  She pushed open the door. Her body, or maybe it was the world, swayed as reality changed on her again.

  Killian.

  Sitting naked on the shower floor. A low mourning sound poured from him as he hugged his knees to his chest. Sorrow seeped from his pores, contaminating the room—maybe her dreams.

  “Killian?”

  He didn’t seem to hear.

  Angry red welts ran up his arms, disappeared down across the glimpse of his chest. On his thigh, a long raw scratch glistened with beads of blood.

  She closed her eyes, just for a second, just to block out the sight, just to try and reset the night with the sheer force of will.

  Not a dream.

  Real.

  He still sat there huddled on the floor. She still stood on the threshold of the door. Right now, there was more than a room between them.

  A room that looked ransacked, cabinets stood open and toiletries lay scattered. What had he been looking for?

  She looked back at the wounds, blunt nails and determination.

  Blades. He’d been looking for blades. The same as when his father had died. They’d been here before.

  But this felt worse.

  “Killian.” Croaked. Dammit, fear was stealing her voice. “Killian.”

  He stirred.

  Thank God.

  She waited for him to look up at her, self-preservation keeping her rooted to the spot. He’d never hurt her, but she’d never seen him this wild and wounded …

  Killian butted his head against the wall, the loud crack of bone against tile sickening.

  He did it again.

  And again.

  Ramming his skull against the unforgiving wall as if he deserved the hurt.

  Each thud reverberated in her bones, shaking loose her composure. Self-preservation be damned. She fell to her knees and scrambled to him.

  “Killian.” She tugged his arm.

  But he wasn’t listening; she wasn’t reaching him. None of this was working.

  There was no air in the room; panic held her chest in a vice as it squeezed and bruised her thumping heart.

  It hurt.

  His pain hurt.

  She grabbed his hand, fighting to uncurl the tight grip of his fingers. Her fingernails raked like claws, but he didn’t react.

  There, the fleshy mound below his thumb.

  She sank her teeth into his skin and bit down with all her might, not caring if he hurt her as he struggled to get free.

  Pain.

  He wanted pain.

  He was in that dark place where the only way out was through the pain.

  She bit harder, teeth aching as she fought to bring him back, to ground him.

  The force as Killian shoved her sent her skidding back across the tiles.

  He’d ripped his hand free.

  She sat there, chest heaving, as he looked at her. No, he looked through her, his eyes too full of emotion, too busy bleeding his sorrow.

  “Killian.” She could hear the tinge of hysteria. “You’re scaring me.”

  ***

  Pain. So bright, it brought clarity. Killian blinked as Scar’s face swam into focus.

  For a moment, he couldn’t remember where he was, what he was doing.

  Cold. He was cold, the night air prickling sensitive skin as his head hurt and his palm throbbed, but none of it mattered because, for the moment, everything was still.

  His head. His soul. Quiet.

  And there was Scar, sitting in front of him like some kind of fucking beacon for a lost man.

  Oh, Jesus, it was all coming back.

  He grabbed her and yanked her against him.

  The feel of her … the warm living feel of her. She soothed his raw skin, warmed his bones. She filled him up. Ten months he’d been running on empty and she filled him up.

  “I fucked up, Scar.” He pulled her closer, as if the confession would chase her away. “I’m so sorry I fucked up.”

  “What happened? Talk to me.”

  What the fuck had he been doing?

  What had he been chasing?

  It was right here. Redemption was right here.

  Not in the farmhouse with Romeo. Not in his fist taking revenge.

  Here.

  Her.

  After he’d fucked away the lust, after he’d watched her fall asleep, after he’d opened up and let her back in, awareness had flooded him.

  “I was late.” The words ripped him up, salt from unshed tears burned his eyes. “You almost died because I was late.” Thirty-two fucking minutes—a lifetime.

  He’d left the hospital after they’d taken the bullet out of his chest and had gone straight back to work, back to the gym, back to normal. He’d never spoken about those minutes. Couldn’t speak about those minutes.

  He’d almost lost her.

  Scar shook her head. “No. You rescued me. You always do. The rest is just semantics.”

  Her fingers combed through his hair as she soothed him and, for a moment, his courage faltered. He didn’t want to tell her the worst. Didn’t want to admit being a coward.

  Because it wasn’t just about vengeance.

  It wasn’t just about making up for how he’d failed. He’d fed off convenient truths instead of facing his fear.

  He’d almost lost her … then he’d almost pushed her away.

  He’d locked her out for ten months and just about handed her gift wrapped to another man.

  “You shouldn’t love me. I don’t deserve you to love me.”

  “No. No. Don’t you ever say that.” She caught his face in her hands and made him look at her. “Through thick and thin. That’s what you promised me.” Fresh tears started to fall. “I keep my promises too; you’re not the only one.”

  “I shut you out. You almost died and it killed me. I couldn’t live through that again. Don’t you see? I punished you because I hated how I felt.”

  Her face crumbled.

  “I didn’t want to feel you, Scar. It was easier to be numb.”

  She broke down, shuddered against him in heaving sobs.

  “Sorry.” He kissed the top of her head. “God, I’m so sorry.” He kissed her again, small gentling kisses because words would never be enough.

  They sat there crumpled together while he slowly rocked them, crooning his apologies for the unforgivable.

  It hurt.

  But not like almost losing Scar. Not like dying.

  Eventually, she settled, their labored breathing the only sound filling the room.

  “Killian.” She sounded small and wounded.

  He had done that. He cradled her to his chest as if he couldn’t bear to apply any sense of force that could hurt her more.

  “I want to move on.”

  His heart stalled, stumbling just before it started racing. What if she left him for Black? Why would she stay now that she knew the truth?

  “I want a clean slate. Leave this all behind.�
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  His lungs couldn’t fill; there was only the beating of his heart, only the pain of it racing to burst. Could he let her go?

  “You have to do what you need to do with Romeo, but I can’t take another ten months of this. Every day you do this, you keep something between us. I don’t want anything between us anymore.” She twisted in his arms to look at him. “Please, you’re not a monster. You have to let go.”

  Relief flooded through his body and unlocked his limbs. He wanted to correct her, wanted to tell her the man who’d punished her was a monster and she was wrong.

  “You have to promise me, Killian.”

  She was worth any price; he’d just been paying the wrong one. Choked up, he nodded.

  “No.” She held his gaze. “I need you to say it.”

  He cleared his throat “I promise.”

  Maybe it was that easy to get out of hell.

  Thirty-One

  Jerricho lay on the cold, hard gymnasium floor watching the sun come up. There was no empty promise in the bleached colors of the early morning light. Washed out just like him. He’d hit the punching bag until his punches wore out and he stood in a puddle of his own sweat.

  And still he was full of rage.

  Taking only his shoes off, he’d dived into the lap pool and swam. The heavy weight of his wet clothes felt good, felt right, a physical manifestation of the weight he felt.

  At some point, he’d pulled himself out and back onto land, limbs heavy and aching.

  He’d lain there on his back in a pool of water, lungs hurting as he tried to breathe, trying to tell himself it was just the exertion.

  He tried to tell himself he’d never been foolish enough to hope it wouldn’t end.

  The hours of the night passed as his clothes slowly dried and hardened along with his resolve.

  He’d keep moving; he was good at that.

  If he accepted the status quo, he’d only end up hating her, right after he started hating himself.

  He was walking a very fine line of moral demarcation. As a doctor, he couldn’t stand by and watch a man be tortured. But as a sadist, as a man in love, he’d be lying if he didn’t say he wanted the man to suffer.

  The conflict would consume him. He was back to saving himself—he had to go.

  He would leave tonight when nobody would notice.

  He would leave after he’d done what needed to be done.

  He pulled himself up and curled his fingers into a fist. Nothing broken, just swelling. He wriggled his fingers; his knuckles hurt, but the nerves and tendons seemed fine.

  Punching the bag had been stupid.

  Thinking he’d found home had been stupid.

  He was all out of being stupid.

  He dragged his tired body toward the house. The bleak sky threatened rain. His still-damp clothes chafed against raw nerves.

  He didn’t want to see anybody right now.

  Later he would find a way to say his goodbyes—closure for him and hopefully for Scarlet—but right now, all he wanted was to get out of these clothes, find a bed, and wait until nightfall. Then he wanted to enact his plan and leave.

  He opened the back kitchen door just as Scarlet shuffled into the room yawning.

  He felt a twinge of pain knowing what had kept her up.

  Still stupid.

  Seeing her threatened to weaken his resolve, it didn’t matter that it was right; leaving was going to be hard.

  “Morning.” She smiled at him, and there was the fucking sun, promising a man what he couldn’t have.

  He grunted his reply.

  Scarlet stopped what she was doing to look at him. “You’re up early. Coffee?” She gestured at the can in her hand.

  He shook his head.

  “Yeah. The instant stuff will kill you.” A tired smile curled her lips.

  On closer inspection, she didn’t look like a woman content from being fucked; her features looked emotionally drawn. He reached for the freezer and opened the door, blocking her from his view. He wasn’t going to get tangled in what happened. He’d grab ice and a dishcloth for his hand and find a room … on the other side of the house.

  Except when he closed the door, she was still watching him.

  “What’s the ice for? Your hand bothering you?”

  “It’s nothing.” He looked around for the dishcloth.

  “No, don’t say that,” she snapped, but then seemed to catch herself. “If you’re hurting, I want to know. Don’t block me out. I can’t take being blocked out by another man I love.” Her eyes seemed to plead.

  A man I love.

  Deep down, he’d hoped it. Maybe even known it, but there was always Killian, always the fact that the words had never been said between them, as if they were both scared of making that demand.

  He stood there frozen as she came up to take his hand and look at it. The electricity in her touch sparked him back to life. He made to pull away.

  “It didn’t look like this before …” She winced as she lifted his hand and looked at the raw knuckles. “What happened last night, Jerricho? Does Killian have something to do with this?” She looked up into his eyes.

  Tell her. Remind himself he had to go.

  “The gym…I stitched up Romeo last night.”

  “Romeo?” Her brow furrowed. “Killian asked you to work on Romeo? Fuck, he does make it easy to hate him.” She shook her head. “I promise you it won’t happen again.”

  A man I love. It was stuck in his mind.

  “Do you mean it?” He shouldn’t ask. He should make a clean break.

  “Yes. He promised me—”

  “No. Do you love me?”

  “Of course, I love you.” She stared into his eyes as if willing him to believe it. “I love Killian too,” she added softly.

  Part of him had been willing a different response. Part of him …

  He shook his head and pulled his hand from the warmth of her grip.

  She looked at him as if she could feel him retreating. “You’re going to leave.”

  “I have to go—”

  “No.” She shook her head, refusing to hear him. “No.”

  “Scarlet.”

  “Is it Killian?”

  “Not like you think. I can’t stay.”

  “Yes, you can. The blackmailer, it’s all fixed—”

  “I can’t stay.”

  “You can.” Her eyes bore into him. “You just have to choose. You have these walls around you, like you need to stand on your won, but you don’t. I love you. Stay with me.” Her eyes were no longer red from lack of sleep but from tears that swelled, brimming to fall.

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “It is, if that’s what you choose.”

  The rain had come. Lines of water running down the window as tears spilled onto her cheek.

  ***

  The rain was heavy, but Jerricho wasn’t worried about the wet; he was worried about stones. He ducked too late as a small piece of rock pelted his chest. His mother pulled him against her, shielding him as they hurried quickly down the street, away from the shouts of ‘whore’ as grocery bags bobbed and slammed against them.

  It had happened before, and just like last time, the men around them had looked the other way. She was only a woman, only a Westerner.

  At eight, he was his mother’s chaperone, but she pulled him away when he would confront the men who hurt her. She’d heard stories of boys being plucked off the street to fight in the war and she didn’t want to antagonize anyone any further. She’d explained to him more than once that honor was nothing if you were dead.

  It was dangerous times, at war with Iraq and political unrest from the ’78-’79 Revolution still bubbling. He had grown up understanding politics, listening to the men debate with his father as they sat around their kitchen table. His father had been gone for three days.

  He heard a sickening as his mother bit back a whimper. A larger stone must have hit her. He felt a wet drop on his ear and bit his own lip,
not wanting to cry, wanting to give her strength even as she shed her tears. He reached up to dab the trickling wet and pulled his fingers away only to discover the sticky of red.

  Alarmed, he looked up; blood flowed freely from just above his mother’s eye, the cut already swelling. “Mama.”

  “Shh … almost home.”

  The minute he pushed open the door, he knew they were safe. A fire was lit and the small home was warm. He ran into the strong outstretched arms.

  “Papa, you’re home.”

  His father hugged him tightly. “I told you,” he whispered in his ear, “as long as you’re here waiting for me, I’ll always come home.” His father ruffled his hair then stood. “What’s wrong, my boy, why are you crying?”

  “Mama.” He pointed past the discarded bags to the other room.

  His father stood up and walked out toward the bathroom. “Claire?”

  “Stones.” Her voice was near hysterical as she turned on the tap. “Stones, Iman. Do you know what they do to women they stone? They bury them with their arms pinned to their waist so they can’t defend themselves … can’t get free.”

  Jerricho stood by the fire but couldn’t stop shivering.

  “They won’t stone you, Claire. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “As if that matters.” She pushed past his father back into the room, her face washed but the wound still weeping. Grabbing him by the arms, she turned him around, inspecting him for any cuts.

  “I’ll arrange for you to stay with someone when I go on assignment. That will keep you both safer.”

  “No.” She stood up and faced his father. “Listen to you. Listen to the life you’re asking me to lead,” she pleaded. “Iman, we came here because you said you had to cover the Revolution. It’s five years later. When are we going to go home?”

  “This is my home.”

  “It’s not mine.”

  “You’re my wife. My home is your home.”

  “Tehran is too dangerous. Everything has changed since the Shah.” Her voice escalated with every word.

  “It’s war, Claire. Chemical weapons.” His father took a step toward his mother, hand out as if to calm her. “I can’t turn my back on what is happening. This is the home of my father, and my father’s father.”