Page 103 of Cold Bastard
His words hit like a slap.
What do you care?
As if I hadn’t just spent days surrendering to Nano. As if I hadn’t screamed his name in front of the entire club. As if I hadn’t broken myself open and let him see every ugly, twisted part of me.
What do you care?
“I—” My voice caught in my throat.
But Carver didn’t wait for an answer. He crossed the room in three long strides and grabbed my arm, his grip iron-tight and unforgiving. “Let’s go, thief.”
I tried to pull back, tried to dig my heels into the floor, but he was too strong. He dragged me toward the door, and I stumbled after him, my bare feet sliding across the carpet.
“Wait!” I gasped, trying to twist out of his grip. “Wait, please.”
“No waiting,” Carver said, his voice still flat. Still emotionless. “Morpheus doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
He pulled me into the hallway, and I caught a glimpse of the gathering room below, the brothers drinking, laughing, the same chaos that had been there before. Like nothing had changed. Like the world hadn’t just tilted on its axis. But Carver didn’t lead me toward the stairs that would take us down to the gathering room. He led me in the opposite direction. Toward the back hallway. Toward a door I recognized with sudden, terrible clarity.
The basement.
“No,” I whispered, my voice barely audible. “No, please!”
“Move,” Carver ordered, yanking me forward.
I planted my feet, refusing to take another step. “I’m not going down there.”
Carver’s expression didn’t change. He just tightened his grip on my arm and pulled harder, dragging me toward the door like I weighed nothing.
“No!” I screamed as I twisted in his grip and clawed at his hand. “Nano!”
The name tore out of my throat, raw and desperate.
“NANO!”
But no one came.
Carver yanked the basement door open, and the smell hit me immediately. Damp concrete, rust, and something else. Something metallic and wrong.
Blood.
“Please!” I begged, my voice breaking as I kicked at him, trying to wrench myself free. “Please don’t!”
But he didn’t stop. He dragged me toward the stairs, and I grabbed the doorframe, my fingers digging into the wood as I fought him with everything I had. “NANO!” I screamed again, louder this time. Desperate. “NANO, PLEASE!”
Carver pried my fingers off the doorframe one by one, his expression never changing. And then he shoved me.
I stumbled forward, my feet hitting the top step, and gravity did the rest.
I fell. Down the stairs, my shoulder slamming into the concrete wall, my knees hitting the steps, my hands scrambling for purchase and finding nothing. I landed hard at the bottom, the impact knocking the air from my lungs. Pain exploded through my shoulder, my hip, my ribs. For a moment, I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.
And then I heard footsteps behind me.
Carver descended the stairs slowly, deliberately, his boots heavy against the concrete.
“Get up,” he demanded.
I tried. God, I tried. But my body wouldn’t cooperate. My hands shook as I pushed myself up onto my knees, my vision swimming.
