Page 99 of Played
“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 makesure 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.
