Inflict

by Bethany-Kris

  “That’s a lie if I ever heard one.”

  “Better you don’t know,” Connor replied simply, hoping his friend would take the hint and drop it. “Leave it at that.”

  “Sometimes, it’s good to know what I’m dealing with. I’ve got enough feckin’ problems with your arse of a father, all right? Don’t go adding to it, gobshite.”

  “What is it they say? Do as I say, not as I do?”

  “Just tell me if this might get me whacked.”

  “Not if you keep quiet about her being here.”

  Killian snorted, then sobered as he passed a quiet Evelyn another look. “Well, she better be worth whatever you’re doing. And she is quiet. Is binn béal ina thost, Connor.”

  Yes, quiet mouths certainly were sweet.

  “Touch her,” Connor said lowly as he passed Killian to leave, “and I’ll feckin’ kill you.”

  His friend didn’t reply.

  He really didn’t need to.

  The warning—promise—was clear.

  “Could I at least get her name?” Killian asked over his shoulder.

  Connor laughed darkly. “No.”

  • • •

  Instead of the usual meeting place every Tuesday—The Morning Glory Pub—this week was different. Sean still wanted Connor to meet up at the same time in the morning, but at his childhood home, and not the pub.

  Connor expected to find just his father at the house, and maybe Sean’s right-hand, Lachlan. That wasn’t the case. Three other men, not including Sean and Lachlan, crowded around the kitchen table, some sipping from cups of black coffee, while others nursed glasses of whiskey.

  None gave Connor a second glance as he stepped into the kitchen, except his father, who sat in one of the two captain chairs at the head of the table.

  “Lad,” Sean greeted, “there’s a spread, if you’re hungry.”

  Connor wasn’t interested. “No, thanks.”

  “Harry needed the week off for something or other, and his lass can only run the pub at night,” Sean explained. “Here we are.”

  “Bit loud.”

  Sean nodded, his eagle-eye keeping a close watch on his men and his son at the same time. It was just as unnerving as it always was, except more so, because Connor actually had something to hide this time around.

  “You can head up to the office,” Sean said with a flick of his wrist in Connor’s direction, “and I’ll be up in a minute or two.”

  Connor didn’t need to be told again. While he didn’t mind occasionally joining in on conversations with his father’s men to gain information to pass along to Sean, he certainly didn’t enjoy breaking bread or drinking with the men. It was too casual—too friendly.

  He was neither.

  Not with them.

  Sitting on a bench in the upstairs hallway, staring blankly out the window, was his father’s slave. Connor had decided to stop calling her a maid, when she so clearly wasn’t there to clean or care for the house. He wasn’t going to live in that delusion, because it did feck all for him to do so, except to ease his guilty conscience.

  He knew better than to converse with the girl when his father could come up at any moment, as it would get her in far more trouble than him, but Connor couldn’t help himself. Maybe it was her thin frame—not quite as thin as Evelyn’s—or her reddish-blonde hair hanging in curls down her back that made him pause. Had she been wearing white, the girl could have passed for Evelyn from behind.

  It took him a second, and a few flashbacks of memories, to realize nearly every girl that had come into their home over the years all had similar traits where their appearances were concerned. All blonde, some a strawberry-blonde, and a bit on the petite side. Green eyes, though he remembered one or two with blue eyes, but especially pretty and daintily featured.

  And that was … disturbing.

  Connor took the risk, stepping up behind the girl and saying a quiet, “Hello.”

  She stiffened all over, her gaze catching his reflection in the window. She didn’t talk, though.

  “I know you can speak,” he said. “I’ve heard you do it with Sean.”

  “You’re not him.”

  Connor nodded. “Good thing, lass.”

  The girl looked like she wanted to agree, but instead, her lips tightened shut even more.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Terri.”

  “How’d you find yourself here?”

  She just stared at his reflection, suddenly silent again.

  Connor knew, just by Terri’s lack of conversation and her blank stare, that he wasn’t going to get anything from her. Nothing more than she had already given to him, anyway. Maybe on another day, he could try again. That was, if the girl survived that long. Connor had never quite figured out just what it was that set his father off to dispose of one of his slaves before acquiring a new one.

  “Someone might see you sitting by the window,” Connor said as he turned to go back towards his father’s office. “Be careful about that, lass.”

  Terri smiled, though it faded fast. “Maybe that’s the point.”

  Inside his father’s office, Connor opted to stand and wait for Sean, instead of taking one of the two high-back chairs resting in front of the looming desk. He never felt comfortable in this room, and for many good reasons. He’d seen more than enough things happen in this office over the years that turned him away from the space, and he tried to spend as little time inside of it as was possible.

  It didn’t help that it was also his father’s favorite room, for whatever reason.

  Whatever Sean liked, Connor didn’t.

  Simple.

  He looked over the familiar paintings and photographs on the office walls, noting the lot of them were of the old country, rolling hills and jutting cliffs leading into crashing waves. Sean often proclaimed to despise Ireland, though he never gave a proper reason why, and yet he held images of his motherland close.

  The one thing that had always been missing from their home—from the walls, his father’s discussions, and even Connor’s memories—were things belonging to his mother. Not a single item in the house had been hers, apparently. There were no pictures. Sean never spoke of her, except to tell his son she had been perfect.

  Connor didn’t even know her name. He’d learned over time to stop asking. The men around them, those that might have answers, were just as tight-lipped about his mamaí and what had come of her after he was born.

  “Cad é seo, Connor?”

  He spun fast on his heel, only to find his father standing in the office doorway, staring at him with curiosity.

  “Is it a new thing for you to stare at walls?” Sean asked.

  “The picture,” Connor replied, jerking a thumb over his shoulder, “I wondered who took it.”

  Sean didn’t give an answer, instead waving at the chair closest to his son. “Sit.”

  “I’ll stand.”

  Thankfully, his father didn’t argue.

  “Something on your mind?” Sean asked as he took a seat in the plush chair behind his desk. “You look … knackered, but in your head, not the rest.”

  “Long week.”

  Sean didn’t question him on it, instead moving on. “I take it, you don’t have anything new to tell me, seeing as how everyone says you’ve been shut away or working at that shop of yours this past week.”

  Connor let the insult brush off his shoulder. “Nothing was happening.”

  “For you. I’ve seem to come into more problems with those Russians over the past week.”

  He tried not to let his interest show. “Oh?”

  “They have something of mine. I need to find out which one of them has it.”

  Connor had the distinct feeling his father was talking about Evelyn, but he wasn’t about to open his foolish mouth and offer information as to her whereabouts. If Sean wanted to go on a goddamn rampage where the Russians were concerned, he could go to it.

  “Might do you some good to attend
some of their events,” Sean added after a moment. “They’ve got another coming up. Don’t get yourself inside a feckin’ cage again, sharing blows with somebody, just talk.”

  Connor bit his inner cheek to keep from refusing. “Sounds grand.”

  And stupid.

  It sounded incredibly stupid.

  “Don’t you want to know what it is they have?”

  “I figure they’ll make a brag out of the whole thing, won’t they? It’ll be obvious, if they did it on purpose.”

  Sean scowled. “Likely.”

  Connor mentally patted himself on the back for avoiding being caught in his lie. Now, to distract his father and then get the feck out of there. “I did wonder something, though.”

  “About the Russians?”

  “No, my mother.”

  Sean’s head snapped up, his gaze cutting into Connor with zero remorse or emotion. “Aye, what about her? You’re twenty-six, damn near twenty-seven, lad. What do you want or need to know about your mother that you haven’t had before? She’s been gone your whole life. You’re not missing something you haven’t had, Connor. There isn’t much to tell—she’s dead.”

  Yes, that he knew.

  But there was still a lot of unknowns.

  “Curiosity, I suppose,” Connor said quietly.

  Sean let out a heavy sigh laced with irritation. Then, before Connor could even ask something else, his father pulled a chain from around his neck, exposing a key at the very end of it. He unlocked a drawer in the desk, and spent a good five minutes flipping through what sounded like papers or even a heavier paper, like photographs.

  “Ah, here it is,” Sean muttered.

  A Polaroid photograph landed picture up on the desk in front of Connor, and it took all he had not to reach out and snatch it up. Instead, he contended himself with letting his gaze commit the image of a young, beautiful strawberry-blonde with green eyes, staring into the camera. In her arms, she held a swaddled form wrapped in blue, but something was wrong.

  Her body was stiff, and there was no smile on her face. Her gaze, as colorful as her eyes were, seemed dead, as though she wasn’t really there at all. She wore nothing that would signify she was a woman of status in her house, just a loose dress that looked worn.

  The physical similarities were impossible to ignore.

  Reddish-blonde hair.

  Green eyes.

  Petite.

  Pale skin.

  Connor cleared his throat, managing to say, “Huh.”

  “Well, there she is, lad. You took more after me, I’d say.”

  Clearly.

  Connor knew better than to ask if his mother had been one of Sean’s many girls, but he figured the answer was staring him right in the face, anyway.

  “You can keep that,” Sean said, “as I have others.”

  Connor picked the photo up, flipping it over in his hand.

  And there … there he found his mother’s name.

  Hannah.

  “She was perfect,” Sean said, “and then she birthed you.”

  “So, you could do this one?”

  Connor closed the front door of the brownstone quietly, unsure of what he was hearing just down the hall. A conversation, obviously. Evelyn’s voice, though louder than what he’d heard her speak before.

  Then, the reply came from Killian, ratcheting up the irritation Connor felt at hearing the two converse so easily. “It’s a lot of shading, and it’ll take me a while to copy it over to be able to transfer it, but I don’t see why not.”

  It was entirely ridiculous of him to feel jealous over something so foolish, but he couldn’t help it. He wanted Evelyn to talk to him; he wanted her to feel safe with him.

  Even if he wasn’t the safest person to be around.

  That didn’t matter, anyway.

  It wasn’t the damn point.

  Connor dropped the bags he held, right there at the front door, and quickened his steps, heading towards the voices.

  “And you could do it here, right?” Evelyn asked.

  “Upper thigh is a great spot for something like this, lass.”

  Oh, feck no.

  The sudden bloom of rage spreading within Connor’s chest came out of practically nowhere. But the very moment it was there, he knew it wasn’t going to go away until he knew exactly what was happening, and stopped it. He’d assumed Evelyn would keep to herself for the day while Killian watched her, because that seemed to be her nature.

  Apparently not.

  Apparently, she had made a friend.

  Connor didn’t like that at all.

  He didn’t exactly know why, but he did know that he didn’t like the conversation he was hearing. It sounded like someone planned to tattoo someone else, and that meant things, like someone would need to put their hands on someone else.

  Bare skin.

  Bare thighs.

  Hands—though gloved—touching …

  Hell no.

  Connor rounded the entryway to the living room just in time to see Killian set a piece of paper down to the glass coffee table. Evelyn sat beside him, albeit with a good cushion of space between them. He was ready to break their party up, but his friend’s next comment stopped him.

  Just in time, too.

  “Honestly, Connor has a better eye for this sort of thing,” Killian said with a shrug, still looking over whatever was on the paper. “And unlike me, he could do this freehand, if he were in the mood, no transfer needed. Three hours, four max.”

  “Really?”

  Killian nodded. “Also, it wouldn’t be smart of me to be saying yes to something like this, lass. It’s a delicate spot—I’d bet my arse he wouldn’t be okay with it. Maybe somewhere else, but I don’t even think he’d stand for that.”

  His old friend was entirely right about his assumptions. Just the thought of Killian—though Connor knew the man probably wouldn’t do anything that might risk his life—tattooing Evelyn, made Connor’s rage boil.

  No one needed to be touching her.

  Feckin’ no one.

  Evelyn’s lips turned down into a frown. “He wouldn’t care.”

  A dark, dry laugh escaped from Killian. “Yes, yes he would.”

  “But—”

  “He would care very much,” Connor said before he could stop himself.

  Evelyn and Killian turned in the direction of Connor’s voice, but only one of them seemed surprised to see him standing there. Evelyn, that was. Killian simply shot Connor with an arrogant smirk, like he knew exactly how irritated the other Irishman was in that moment, and stood from the couch. Had he drunk a bit of liquor before going home, Connor might have considered throwing a fist into Killian’s stupid face, just for the man’s haughtiness alone. Killian grabbed the bag he’d brought along, slinging it over his shoulder before looking at Evelyn.

  “Another day,” he told Evelyn.

  She nodded once. “Sure.”

  Connor waited in his spot as his friend crossed the living room, to pass him by in the entryway. Killian stopped, that annoying grin still a permanent mark on his features.

  “No touching. That’s what you said. I followed the rules,” he said.

  Connor’s hand twitched with the urge to reach for the pocket knife in his trousers, while his knuckles practically sang with the need to make the man bleed. “You’re pushing your luck today, boyo.”

  “I was cleaning my kit. She was curious. I can’t help where it went after that.”

  Their conversation was too low for Evelyn to hear, but Connor still found her staring at him when he looked in her direction.

  “Did you tell her no because you knew I was there, or because you knew you wouldn’t make it out of the house alive otherwise?”

  Killian’s smile finally melted away. “Because I meant what I said, you feckin’ wagon.”

  “And?”

  His friend chuckled.

  “And because you’re a crazy bastard.”

  Connor nodded, agreeing silently. “All
right. She doesn’t exist outside of here, yeah? Remember that, and keep your mouth shut.”

  “Funny.”

  “What?”

  Killian shrugged. “She didn’t even tell me her name. A girl with no name, who isn’t supposed to be here. Seems easy enough to say she probably doesn’t exist.”

  Connor clapped his friend on the shoulder, squeezing a bit harder than he normally would. “Exactly, mate. Scram.”

  The second he heard the front door close, Connor went back to retrieve the bags he’d dropped, leaving Evelyn sitting alone on the couch. He didn’t miss how she had dropped his gaze, and started picking at her fingernails before he left, though.

  Back in the living room, he found Evelyn standing, the paper from earlier back in her grasp. She looked to him, turning the paper around to show him what was on it—a bushel of gardenias, drawn in charcoal, black and white, with the most intricate shading around each petal, giving the flowers a very life-like appearance.

  “Your talent has greatly improved,” he admitted as he sat the bags down.

  Evelyn eyed a particular piece of a city skyline above the television. “I imagine so has yours.”

  Connor surveyed his own work. “Sure, but there’s a difference. Yours was something you just had, it was there, and it needed a bit of honing. Mine was learned. It’s a process of perfectly-done lines and different pressures with all sorts of mediums. I learned how to do this, and it took a long time. I’m not sure you ever had to learn, only get better.”

  She pointed the paper his way again. “Will you do this?”

  “Tattoo it on you, is that what you mean?”

  “Yes, here.”

  Evelyn tugged down the waistband on the gym shorts she wore, showcasing her bare thigh and the cream color of her skin dotted with freckles. She really did have those things everywhere. Connor was wondering if he might be able to play connect-the-dots someday, just to see where else he could find them on her body.

  Aye, stop that, you arse.

  He swore he could hear his own thoughts laughing at him as he shook his head. “It’s a nice spot, but so would your stomach and hip be, for the size. If you go for something that big on your thigh, it’s going to take up a large portion, whereas it’ll give more of a canvas on other spots.”