Played: Manhattan Ruthless - 50

Chapter

Forty-Nine

T o all of our surprise, the gates are open when we arrive. Conor peers through the windshield like he’s expecting something to happen as the car crawls along the gravel drive. Nothing comes.

“I would have expected them to have more security,” he says to Shane, who hums his agreement. As we get closer to the house, I notice King’s bike, and I’m filled with both panic and relief.

We climb out of the SUV, and Conor grabs a black gym bag from the trunk. I don’t want to know what’s in there, so I don’t ask. My heart is already racing hard enough to explode. It goes on racing as we climb the few stone steps. So we’re just going to ring the doorbell? Like regular visitors?

Conor does exactly that, and the three of us glance between each other while we wait for an answer. “Looks like they’re not coming,” Shane says after what feels like forever.

Conor shrugs. “I guess we let ourselves in?” He pulls a huge steel mallet-style hammer from the bag and starts smashing his way through the door, looking like a cross between Thor and Don Corleone—if the latter were Irish.

Shane draws a gun from inside his coat, and my hammering heart comes to an abrupt stop. But this is why I asked for their help. My gut assures me that this is exactly what King needs. A minute later, Conor has destroyed the lock enough to get us access.

All three of us step cautiously inside the house and are met by the twin barrels of a shotgun being held by Kyngston Worthington III. “Get the fuck out of my house,” he snarls.

“Get King out here and we’ll go,” I say.

“He’s not here.”

Lying piece of shit. “His bike is outside.”

“Don’t give a fuck. I just told you he’s not here. Now get the fuck out of my house before I shoot you all.”

Conor snorts a laugh and pulls a gun of his own. Both Ryan brothers point their guns at Kyngston’s head. “You could try, old man.”

There’s a movement from the other end of the hallway, and a woman calls out Kyngston’s name.

“Stay the hell away, Emmeline,” he shouts.

She wanders into the fray wearing a silk housecoat, seemingly unaware of her husband’s command. One hand stuffed in her pocket and a glass of wine in the other, she stumbles into the no man’s land between us all.

“Get out of the way, Emmeline,” Kyngston orders. “Now.”

Shane says, “Knee.”

Deafening gunshots crack through the air. For a few seconds, I have no idea who fired and who was shot.

Kyngston wails in agony and crashes to the marble tile, clutching his knee.

Conor sprints to him and stands on said knee, and the sickening crunch of bone and cartilage fills the reception hall. “Where is he?” Conor growls.

Tears run down Kyngston’s colorless face. “The b-basement.”

Shane and I make our way to Conor.

“Where all dirty little boys go,” Emmeline says, slurring her words.

As casually as he would pluck a piece of lint from his pants, Shane smacks her on the temple with the handle of his gun, and she slumps to the floor.

I step over her, my eyes locked on her piece-of-shit husband. “Where is the basement?”

He snivels, and Conor presses harder on his knee, causing him to shriek. Gasping, he jerks his head toward the sweeping staircase. “Behind there.”

“Watch him, Con,” Shane says. “We’ll go find King.”

We locate the door to the basement and find it padlocked. Shane shoots through it, and I wrench the door open. Cold, damp air rushes over us. I peer inside the dark and feel for a light switch on the wall, but I’m too impatient. Using the flashlight on my cell phone, I jog down the steps and shout King’s name.

There’s a metal jangling sound, and I shine my light in the direction it came from. Fuck, it’s him. He scrabbles backward, his hand over his eyes as the arc of light from my phone reaches him. There’s that distinctive metal sound again. Jesus fucking Christ. Are they … chains? That motherfucker has him chained in the basement.

“King! King, it’s me. I’m here.” I run to him and crouch at his feet.

“Mase?” His voice trembles, his breathing labored. I place my phone on the ground and scramble around in the near darkness to figure out the quickest way to free him. Fucking chained, like some kind of rabid animal. What kind of person does that to another human being—least of all his own son?

Shane calls for me from the top of the basement stairs.

“He’s here,” I call back. “Can you see if you can find a light?”

Shane’s heavy footfalls are the next thing I hear as he jogs down the basement steps.

My hands roam over King. His clothes are soaked and freezing cold, but when my fingers trace his skin, they meet something warm and sticky on his neck. “Shit. Are you bleeding? Where are you hurt?” Before I can pick up my phone again, the whole room erupts in stark white light.

“Found it,” Shane announces.

I almost wish he hadn’t. Nothing could have prepared me for the sight of my boyfriend lying on the concrete floor with blood pouring from a deep gash across his temple, his foot chained to a bolt in the ground.

But it’s the way he’s hugging his knees to his chest and shivering violently that tells me something is seriously wrong. Shane jogs over and drops to a crouch beside me. He immediately checks King’s pulse. “Pulse is strong.” Then he runs his hands down King’s body, gently checking him over.

Thank fuck he seems to know what he’s doing, because I’m so far out of my depth. All I know is I want to chain his father in this basement before we leave. Turn off the lights and leave him to rot. I’d do the same to his mom, too, if I thought she was sober enough to know what the hell was going on. “You bleeding anywhere that needs a hospital, buddy?” Shane asks.

“N-no. C-cold.”

“Yeah, I know.” Shane looks around for something. “You got yourself a nasty case of hypothermia.”

Hypothermia? That sounds bad. The basement is cold and the floor is damp concrete, but that doesn’t account for why King is shivering the way he is. Or why his clothes are soaking wet.

Shane grunts with frustration. “We need to get him out of here and bring his body temperature up before he goes into organ failure.”

“Organ failure? What the fuck, Shane?” I can’t lose him. I won’t.

“While he’s still shivering, he’s okay. Let’s get him up,” Shane says, snapping me into action. I can get answers and panic myself into a cardiac event later. Right now, the priority is getting King out of here. And I hold onto what Shane said—if he’s shivering, he’s okay.

Together, we hoist King up, and he winces when we touch his ribs. But he’s so damn cold. His whole body quakes with the force of his shivering. “How can we warm him up fast?”

“He needs to lose the wet clothes. Body heat is the safest bet,” Shane replies confidently. “Then get him somewhere warm. There must be a fireplace somewhere in an old house like this.”

“N-no,” King objects. “M-monsters. We n-need to l-leave.”

I throw Shane a concerned look over the top of King’s head. “It’s the hypothermia, making him confused,” he assures me.

“N-need to g-get out,” King babbles.

Shane gives me a reassuring nod but speaks to King. “It’s okay. We’ll get you out of here.”

When we get to the top of the stairs, Kyngston Worthington III is kneeling at Conor’s feet with his hands behind his head and a grenade shoved in his mouth—yes, a fucking grenade. Only the pin protrudes from between his lips, and rivulets of blood run down his chin. He’s whimpering and trembling all over, tears and snot dripping from his face.

Emmeline Worthington is still slumped in the corner.

“Hypothermia?” Conor asks, his eyes narrowed on King.

“Looks like,” Shane answers. “We need to get him warm, but he wants out of here, so …”

Conor nods, his eyes flicking to me for a beat. “We have blankets in the car, and I can turn up the heaters. We’ll make it work.” He redirects his attention to the piece of shit kneeling on the floor. “And what about this sick fuck? The grenade is to make sure he behaves. We can go a less messy way.” His eyes glint as they meet mine. “I can make it look like a suicide. Heart attack? Home invasion? Professional hit?”

“Heart attack or suicide will be tricky to pull off now that you’ve smashed his kneecap to pieces and broken a few of his teeth, Con,” Shane says, deadpan.

“How do you know he’s broken some of his teeth?” I whisper.

“No other way to make the grenade fit,” he replies coolly, and it’s a stark reminder of the caliber of men I’m dealing with. I’m just relieved they’re on my side. “Besides, you’ll have to deal with the mother too,” he adds.

Conor tips his head to one side, eyeing the sack of garbage at his feet with curiosity. “Home invasion, then?”

Kyngston wails around the weapon in his mouth, his face screwed up. I imagine if he could speak, he would be begging for mercy.

“N-no,” King says. “L-leave them.”

“We’re here at your request, Mason. What’s it to be?” Conor asks.

I glance at King and then back at his pathetic excuse for a father. Sniveling and crying like the coward he truly is. I hate him, but I’m not sure I’m prepared to have two lives on my conscience for him, especially as King doesn’t want them dead. And my biggest priority is getting him out of here and into the Ryans’ car so we can get him warm.

I shake my head. “Leave him to rot.”

Conor shrugs, but then he grabs Kyngston by the jaw and squeezes hard. I wince, worried the pin on the grenade is about to pop out and blow us all to pieces. “Listen to me, fuckface. You ever go anywhere near any of my friends again, I’ll be back. And next time I won’t play so nicely. You understand me?” He taps the side of Kyngston’s face, and the older man nods furiously.

King shivers.

“Let’s get him out of here,” I say, worry for him overshadowing everything else now that the adrenaline of the rescue is wearing off.

We get him out of the house and bundle him into the SUV. Shane nods to the back seat. “You need to get him out of those wet clothes.”

Conor has been rustling around in the cargo space, and he shoves a couple of fleece picnic blankets into my hands. “He needs body heat. But if you warm him up too fast, he could go into shock. Take off your shirt and jeans, and then wrap both of you up in these. Okay?”

I nod my understanding and scramble into the back seat alongside King. Then I undress my boyfriend while the two most dangerous men in New York drive us home. King’s teeth are chattering by the time I get him naked, which I remind myself is good. Shivering means he’s okay.

I quickly pull off my T-shirt along with my sneakers and sweats and pull him into my arms so his cold back is pressed tightly against my chest and my legs are draped around his. I force the images of the bruises on his chest and back from my mind and concentrate on raising his body temperature. Like Conor suggested, I wrap one blanket around his front and the other around both of us.

His skin remains ice-cold, and I scrub my hands up and down his arms, warming him the best I can.

“Th-thanks, baby,” he murmurs.

“You’re sure we don’t need to get him to a hospital?” I direct my question to Shane and Conor, but it’s King who insists that we don’t.

Shane studies him. “We’ll have our doctor come check him over at your place.”

“Can’t someone go into cardiac arrest with hypothermia though?” I ask.

“I’m f-fine,” King insists.

“Technically, yeah, but I think we got to him in time,” Shane says. “He’s still shivering, and he’s warming up. But the doc will check on him and tell us if we need to take him in.”

“What if I heat him up too fast or⁠—”

King grabs for my hand. “I’ve d-done this p-plenty. You’re doing g-great, b-baby.”

He’s done this plenty? As in recovered from hypothermia? When the fuck? Now’s not the time to ask him about that though, so I hold him tighter and send up a prayer that he will be okay.

By the time we get to my building, King has stopped shivering and his lips are no longer blue. Apparently another good sign. He’s still a little out of it, probably from a combination of the blow to his head and the hypothermia. Who knows what other injuries he might be suffering from. The sooner I can have a doctor look at him, the better I’ll feel.

Dr. Lisa, which is the name the Ryan brothers affectionately call her, pulls off her latex gloves and wads them into a ball. She’s already checked all of King’s vitals and confirmed he seems stable and is unlikely to suffer any lasting effects from the hypothermia. And he doesn’t appear to have any broken bones or evidence of trauma that would indicate internal injuries. She did recommend an x-ray, but King refused.

“He probably has a concussion, and I’d recommend bed rest for at least the next forty-eight hours,” she tells me. “Plenty of fluids. Make sure he eats. I’ve given him something for the pain, and I’ll leave some with you. Instructions on the bottle. And I’ll call and check on him tomorrow. If he deteriorates at all, take him to the ER, but I expect he’ll be feeling a hell of a lot better after a good night’s sleep.”

I shake her hand. “Thanks so much, Doctor. I really appreciate you making a house call so late.”

She smiles. “It’s no problem at all. Really.”

Shane walks into the room with his cell pressed to his ear. “Of course I will, sweetheart. We’ll be home soon.” He ends the call and looks at his brother. “Jessie wants …” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “No, she said she needs Cheetos and Sour Patch Kids. So we need to swing by somewhere that’s open on the way home.”

Conor squeezes his eyes closed and shakes his head. “Wife has the diet of a teenage boy.”

Lisa chuckles. “How is my favorite patient?”

“She’s fucking adorable,” Conor says proudly. “But she’s addicted to carbs and sugar, and she claims the baby needs them, so …”

Shane smirks. “And even if they didn’t, we’d get them for her anyway.”

Conor smiles back. “True.”

King’s eyes are shuttering closed, and I usher everyone from the room. After offering another round of gratitude to Dr. Lisa and the Ryan brothers, I show them out. As soon as they’re gone, the full events of the evening crash into me like a tsunami, and I double over, my hands on my knees as I struggle to catch my breath.

King in that dark, cold basement. Chained like a dog. His chattering teeth. His bloody face. The fear I would lose him. How close I came to ending his father’s life.

Once the vise around my heart and lungs eases, I stand tall and suck in a deep, calming breath.

He’s okay. We’re okay. Nothing can touch us here.