Page 86 of The Fighter

My face throbbed like an entire exposed nerve, and my vision was wonky. I didn’t even look at my torso. I didn’t want to see the extent of the damage from Devlin’s anger. He’d been livid. Absolutely incensed. I knew my words would provoke him,but that had been my intention. I wanted his anger, not his misguided attempt to seduce me.

I drank some more water and slipped in and out of consciousness. With no windows, I couldn’t be sure how much time had passed when the door opened and footsteps descended the stairs. I tried to sit up higher to maintain some level of dignity, as much as I could while beat to shit and locked in a cage.

Devlin’s image swam into my vision. He crouched down in front of my cage, smoking a cigarette. He was less manic now, but his eyes were cold. “You’re that noble and loyal that you couldn’t pretend to want me?” He cocked his head to the side and seemed genuinely curious at my response.

For a long time, I’d wondered what Devlin truly felt for me. Was it some sort of childhood idolization? An ownership? It wasn’t affection or love. My current pain proved that. “Is that what you wanted?” I asked him. I struggled to form clear words with my swollen lips. “Did you want me to pretend?”

He shrugged. “I was curious what you’d do. I thought you were more selfish than that.”

“And what would you have done if I told you I wanted you?”

His lips curled into a smirk. “I would have rubbed it in Husk’s face before I killed him and his bitch sister.”

“You won’t get to them.”

He blinked almost innocently. “Won’t I?”

A different kind of pain sliced through me, and I just barely held off from surging forward and snatching him through the bars of the cage. “You won’t.” But my voice was shaky, and Devlin scented it like blood in the water.

He laughed and sat down on the ground like he was settling in for a long chat. He braced his forearms on his bent knees and took another drag of his cigarette. “I don’t know who I hate more. You. Husk. His sister? Maybe Nik, that commiemotherfucker.” He blew out a smoke ring. “Ben too, the traitor.” He dropped the cigarette on the floor and ground it with the heel of his boots. “If you’d accepted your place at my side ten years ago, we could have ruled this city.”

“We wouldn’t be running a criminal empire, Devlin,” I said. “I wouldn’t have allowed it.”

“What are you talking about?” he frowned. “This was always what we were meant to be.You’rethe one playing pretend.”

I’d told Tav that I thought Devlin was more obsessed with what we could have been, with an imaginary version of me. And now more than ever, I realized that was the case. I remembered his words when we’d met last.You could have stopped me ten years ago. You could have collared me, and I would have been brought to heel like a dog.No, I couldn’t have. I didn’t have it in me.

He blew out a plume of smoke. “You would have reveled in this life.” His eyes shone bright in the light of the bare bulbs. “We would have fucked and fought and loved so hard, Conrad.” He wrapped his fingers around his neck and squeezed. “You would have collared and leashed me. I can almost feel it now.” His eyes went half-mast, and he swayed as a soft smile played on his lips. “You’d have a collection of things to make me hurt, and you would put me on my knees so good whenever I was bad.”

My gut churned at the thought of wielding a whip across Devlin’s skin—anyone’sskin. I met plenty of people in my life who were into that, and I didn’t kink-shame. ButIwasn’t into that. I never would be. I had a dominant streak and liked to be in control, but I wasn’t a Dominant with a capital D.

This life he had built up in his mind—that would have never been us. We would have crashed and burned. I would have broken both of us, maybe even more than I broke Devlin back then.

I’d been so sure that I could have changed this outcome, that one different conversation could have been the butterfly effect to stop Devlin on this trajectory. No matter when Ben and Nik had said. No matter how Tav had pleaded with me not to let the guilt consume me. But I couldn’t be told. I needed to see it for myself. I needed tofeelit. And now, with Devlin sitting in front of my caged and battered form, I finally saw clarity.

Devlin was always going to have a villain in his life, someone to blame. And that villain was me. For a while it’d been Tav. It would always be someone or something to give Devlin a purpose and reason to be who he was. Maybe he could have been different once, if he had another father or friends or someone who could have controlled him. But he hadn’t, and so he wasthis, and that wasn’t my fault.

I shook my head, although the small action hurt. “No, Devlin. I would never have lived this life with you. Ever. I’m not sure you even know me at all. I’m not into inflicting pain, and I don’t want to collar anyone. I’m just someone you looked up to as a kid, and when I rejected you, blaming me was easier than confronting why you act the way you do.”

Devlin went deathly still. His cigarette burned where it hung loosely between his fingers. I imagined him reaching through the cage bars and putting it out on my skin. I wouldn’t put it past him. Devlin always got violent when he was hurt, and I’d hurt him now. Again. But I couldn’t do this anymore, I couldn’t live my life acting responsible for a grown man who knew better. And Devlin did know better. He might have some ideal of Conrad in his head, but I knew Devlin. He had been so good once, so needy and eager to follow rules. But his childhood had been chaotic, and his boundaries were never firm. He acted out, and I was the only one who gave him any stability.

But I’d been just a kid myself then. I wasn’t sure what Devlin needed, or if there was anyone who could get through to him, but it wasn’t me.

“You wouldn’t have been able to change me like that, Devlin. Just like I would never have been able to change you.” I said the words out loud and they settled into my soul. For the first time in my life, I believed them.

Devlin stared at me for a long time before he slowly dropped the cigarette butt on the floor and ground it beneath his boots. He rose and wiped his hands before staring down at me, a snarl forming on his lips. “You’re right.” He laughed cruelly and speared his fingers through his hair as his body began to vibrate. My words were penetrating now, all of them body blows. “You’re really fucking pathetic, aren’t you? Just a piece of shit who gets off forcing another man to his knees but who can’t go all the way.”

I let the insults roll off my back. I didn’t care what he thought of me. Not anymore. Hell, I could barely concentrate on what he was saying as waves of pain wracked my body.

Until he said Tav’s name.

“Is that why Husk does it for you?” He crouched down on the balls of his feet, twirling a knife in his hands. Where had he gotten a knife? I eyed it cautiously. “Is he a good little bitch for you? I bet he doesn’t even fight, because you wouldn’t like that. You just want some obedient slut, huh?”

I ground my jaw and then regretted it when my teeth ached.

“You want to know where you are? You’re in the same basement where I held Husk five years ago.”

I closed my eyes and let a different kind of pain wash over me. I had suspected this might be the same place, but the confirmation stung.