King of the Cage: A Dark Irish Mafia Romance (Devil’s Own)

I tore through my apartment and switched my computers on. Multiple screens blinked to life at once. Throwing myself into my chair, I poised my hands over my keyboard.

I could do this. I could find where my brother had taken Bran. This was my realm of expertise. I had this.

I took a few deep breaths and got started.

I opted for the CCTV I could find around The Tartarus Hotel. There wasn’t much, unsurprisingly. I was sure The Enclave didn’t want an easy record of people coming and going from their secret little headquarters. There seemed no doubt at this point that the hotel was a front for the secret society. It was where they held their meetings, did their ceremonies, and conducted their horrifying and highly illegal human drug testing. I’d looked up the hotel before. On every website I’d found, all the rooms were sold out. Their next availability was sometime next year. I had a feeling that when that date rolled around, they’d be sold out again.

However, there was a small electronics shop on the street corner, far from the hotel entrance. Luckily, it captured the top of the road and all the traffic that came and went. The shop had only opened a few weeks ago and had set up a camera to watch their storefront. I had to hack into their system to see the feed. In the very corner of the image, I could just make out the back wheel of the medical transport car, but not much else. Damn it.

Next, I went to social media. I could only locate people who’d had their location on when they’d posted, but it turned out to be enough.

Twenty minutes ago, some user had tagged a photo of themselves holding an expensive smoothie, and in the background was The Tartarus Hotel.

#smoothiesatsuicidehotel #spooky #youcouldntpaymetostayhere

The medical car was there, and right behind it, a black SUV. It was armored, easy to tell from the way it sat low to the ground. I zoomed in on the license plate and moved over to my traffic cam feed.

I knew all the haunts of the De Sanctis family. I just needed a general direction.

It took me precious minutes to locate the car in traffic. I followed it over the river into New Jersey, switching between systems as I went.

Finally, I saw it turn off on a road along the river.

There was only one place that Elio liked to use along there. An old slaughterhouse.

As I reached for my jacket, I noticed the feeling.

A certain looseness on my finger. The ring. All the movement of the last few days had finally loosened the superglued ring. I slid it off my finger and held it up to the light.

This was it.

My chance to be free.

I slid the ring back onto my finger, slipped my jacket on and rushed out the door.

It took nearly an hour longer than it should have to get there. There was an accident on the bridge, and my taxi had to reroute. I could barely think the entire way, and of course, Elio wasn’t answering his goddamn phone. I’d left him at least five voicemails, cussing him out angrily in Italian and drawing more than a few looks from the cab driver. Elio would be furious. I’d known he would be, but would he really kill an O’Connor and risk a war? Sure, he hated Bran, the two were polar opposites, but Elio was known for his control.

There was a much more dangerous possibility that Elio wouldn’t realize how badly Bran was already injured, and he’d bleed out.

The taxi finally pulled up at the old slaughterhouse. The cabbie peered out of the windows distrustfully.

“I don’t think this is where you want to go,” he said.

I tossed a few hundred-dollar bills at him, not even checking how much I was over, and jumped out of the cab.

I took off at a run toward the building. When I got closer, I saw the black SUV. Just one of them. That was good. It meant my brother only had a few other men with him. He didn’t want to start a war, if he could avoid it.

I banged through the metal doors at the front and ran down the corridor. I’d only been here once before, and it was as awful as I remembered it. It was still connected to power and owned by the De Sanctis family, despite not being used for its actual purpose for nearly a decade. Despite the length of time it had sat unused, the old stench of blood and bones still permeated the air.

I reached the doors of the main killing floor and rushed through. If I knew Elio, and I did, they’d be in the fridge.

My suspicions were confirmed when I reached the hallway outside the walk-in cooler. A huge meat locker that used to house hundreds of carcasses.

I slowed to a walk, my heart pounding. I recognized the men outside the room.

“You can’t go in, Giada,” Vinnie said quickly, seeming nervous.

I cocked my head at him. “Says who? You?”

Not a single one of Elio’s men would dare touch me. I strolled past him. He went to reach for me and reared back.

I tutted. “Go ahead and put your hands on me… I dare you.”

“Fuck. He won’t like this.” Vinnie threw his hands up in defeat.

“I don’t care,” I murmured and pulled open the door.

Cold hit me immediately. Elio rose as soon as I was through the door. He was wearing some kind of arctic coat, and even then, his face was very pale.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“What do you think?” I tried to push past my brother, but he blocked me.

“I don’t know. Someone took you, forced you to marry him, and I’m fixing it. I’m sorry I’m late, but I’m here now. I’ll take care of it.”

“I don’t want you to take care of it.” I shoved Elio in the side so I could pass. “I never asked you to.”

“You don’t have to. I know what you want from life, and Bran O’Connor isn’t it. Don’t worry, I’ll make it look like an accident. There’ll be no war.”

I shook my head, suddenly panicking. Was he already dead?

“Where is he?” I demanded.

“I told you, he’s taken care of,” Elio started.

“Where is he, Elio! Where is my husband?” My shout echoed around the walls of the locker, repeating again and again.

Elio stepped back, like my words had been a slap.

“Your husband? He’s not your husband just because he made you sign something, or filed some paperwork behind your back. This can all be fixed.”

Then I saw him. It was so cold in the locker, mist shrouded the deeper recesses. There were old bags hanging from hooks in the ceiling, swaying in the breeze from the open door.

I caught a glimpse of something red and black.

Bran’s tattered, tattooed body.

A cry left me, a plaintive, desperate sound I’d never made before. It tore through my chest. Elio watched me curiously as I pushed the bags away and reached Bran’s side. His chest was bare, his T-shirt ripped down the front. He was strung up, his thick arms bulging with the effort. His head was pitched forward, and I couldn’t see his face.

“Get him down,” I commanded Elio. “Now!”

“Giada—” Elio began.

“Get him down this second, or I swear, you’re dead to me.” I fixed him with a serious expression.

He stared at me for a few long, precious seconds and then swore. He disappeared, and shortly after, the metal hook Bran was suspended from descended.

He hit the floor hard despite my best efforts to cushion his fall, and I guided him the rest of the way down. He didn’t move once. His back was a bloody mess, and there was so much blood on the floor, it looked like a red skating rink beneath us. Frozen red ground, with a bloodless white body sprawled across it.

“Call an ambulance.”

I cradled Bran’s head and felt for a pulse. My own heartbeat felt very distant right now.

“It’s too late,” Elio said.

“Call an ambulance now!” I snapped at him.

Elio was still moving too slow. The frustration of the past boiled over and spilled out.

“You feel bad about what happened to me when you fucked off to the Army and left me alone? Then fucking fix this now. I don’t need another apology, I don’t need overprotecting, I need you to help me right now. Put aside your own feelings and help me. That’s what I need from you. Can you do that?”

My blunt demand hit my brother hard. A million emotions chased across his face. Guilt that he’d always felt for leaving me like he had, even though he’d hardly had a choice. Followed by disbelief that this was the reason I’d finally bring it up. The emotions cleared after a second and were replaced by resolve.

He shrugged off his thermal jacket and spread it over Bran, then made the call.

I stroked Bran’s cold skin. His lips were nearly blue. His pulse was there, only just present in his thick neck. A sign of life, but a weak one.

I loosened his hair from the knot at his neck and spread the length around his shoulders and neck. Then I leaned in and tucked my face into the crook of his shoulder and breathed my warm breath against his frozen skin.

“Stay with me, O’Connor,” I murmured in his ear, resting my face on his cheek, trying to impart any kind of warmth I could.

Bran’s breath hitched, and I pressed closer.

“Come on, Lost Boy, it’s not time to go to neverland yet, and you can’t go without me.”

Bran twitched. His face turned toward me an inch or two, but it was enough to give me hope that he could hear me. I pressed my cheek to his, my hands moving anywhere I could reach, desperately trying to warm him.

Before I could question it, I hummed.

“You know this one, right? ‘The Selkie and the Spring Tide.’ And in the magic of the Spring Tide, the moon brought my selkie to me…” I sang and held on.