Page 50 of The Fighter

And here I thought Con had been a simple businessman. I’d been so very wrong. I rubbed at my thigh. “Casey wouldn’t have told you anything. He’s loyal.” I glanced up, and Con was watching me. “Him and Lary.”

“Ah, Lary,” Con smiled. “You need to call him. He’s messaged and called me so much that I almost blocked him.”

“Well, gee, Con, I’d love to call him and let him know I’m not dead, but I don’t have my phone.” I glared at him, and Con just smiled. He pulled open a drawer in his nightstand and there my phone sat, the cracked screen dark. He handed it to me, and I waited for it to power up. “I have to check in with Chen. I have to get back to my apartment. They can’t find out I moved my stuff?—”

“I already said you’re not going back.”

What wasn’t he getting about this? “And I already told you that Devlin will kill my sister and my nephew if I don’t come to heel.”

Con shifted toward me, and his hand shot out like a cobra strike. He gripped my jaw and tugged my face close. “You will never,evercome to heel for Devlin again.”

“Con—”

“Soto,” he hissed. “I’m speaking as Soto now.” His blue eyes were frozen shards of ice, hooking me so I didn’t dare look away. “I have men watching your sister and nephew as we speak, and as soon as I get the go ahead from you, we will be placing them in a secure location until we can handle Devlin. He no longer gets Husk. Husk isdead. You aremyTav, and my Tavonly. You told me you wanted this, and that’s what I’ll make happen.”

I could barely breathe. “Con?—”

He wasn’t done. His voice dropped to a glacial whisper. “You belong to me, and I will burn this city to the ground for you.”

EIGHTEEN

Conrad

I sat in the bedroom while Tav called Lary. He was short but assuring, letting his friend know that he was safe and healing, and that he’d see him soon.

After that, even though it was against my instincts, I gave him some privacy. I worked at my kitchen island on my laptop instead of my office, because from there, I could hear where Tav moved about in the apartment. For a while, he stayed in the bedroom, and then his footsteps traveled down the hallway into the spare bedroom, where I heard him shuffling boxes around. If he came out of that bedroom with the boxes repacked, I wouldn’t be held responsible for my actions.

But eventually, he emerged from the bedroom and padded into the kitchen with untied sneakers on his feet, wearing nothing but a pair of compression shorts and a T-shirt with large arm holes cut out, exposing his bruised ribs. His knuckles were taped. He spotted me and stopped, chewing on his lip. “Is there a gym in this building that I can use?”

I shook my head.

“No?” He raised an eyebrow. “No gym in this fancy-ass place? You’re getting robbed.”

I snorted. “There’s a gym, but you’re not going.”

He stiffened. “You can’t just keep me here under lock and key.”

I gave him a look. “You’re not a prisoner, but you aren’t allowed to exercise a day after your brain got sloshed in your skull.”

He didn’t like that. His arms twitched at his sides, and he rolled his neck, visibly uncomfortable like a Golden Retriever needing a walk. Or more like a Rottweiler. “Ineedto do something.”

“You can walk on the treadmill.” He rolled his eyes, and I held up my hand. “Sorry, but I’m not budging. I like your brain and would prefer it heals.”

He clenched and unclenched his fists before agreeing with a sigh. “Fine.”

I made to stand to show him the gym, but he took another step forward, his palm out.

“So, it’s not that I don’t believe you. I do. But can you tell me where my sister and nephew are? Are they okay? I just… I need to know.”

I immediately snatched my phone off the counter beside me and pulled up the reports from my men with constant streams of encrypted messages letting me know every movement his sister and his nephew had made since I’d assigned the jobs last night.

He held my phone like it was made of crystal, cradling it in his calloused palms as he read about Amara’s personal day today that she’d taken from her job in order to attend Holden’s preschool assembly on dinosaurs. One of my men had even pulled up the livestream hosted by the school. In the grainy video, Holden sat in the front row wearing a stegosaurus costume, his short legs swinging below his chair. When hegrinned, the green and black painted stripes on his face shifted. His classmate was currently at the mic, telling the crowd a fact about pterodactyls, which she pronounced liketerkadils. “Terkadils had wings.”

When Holden took his place at the mic, Tav let out a strangled sound. His thumb pressed the volume button repeatedly, until Holden’s voice filled my kitchen. “Stegolasauruses—” the boy paused and frowned, and I had to cover my mouth not to react, because he got the same furrow between his brow that Tav did. He started again. “Stegosauruseses ated plants.” He beamed a smile full of self-pride, gave a little hop in his light-up sneakers, and plopped back down in his seat.

Oh fuck me, he was cute.

Tav handed the phone to me, his head bowed. He didn’t speak for a long moment, and I held my breath waiting for his reaction. His body trembled so much so that I could hear his uneven breathing, but everything told me to wait this out. To give him time.