relaxed. “This is because of the woman.”
“Nay,” Hugh said automatically. Not directly. “Not in the way you think.”
“That’s the only way there is to think,” Maynard spat. “It’s because yar tupping the sister of the bastard’s daughter-in-law. Yar only worried about making a scandal for ’er and ’er fancy family.”
Hugh refused to take their bait.
“When ya left, ya left without looking back,” the other man finally said with his usual quiet restraint. “Everyone knew what ya did. We woke up, ya were gone, and from that moment on, the Fight Society became a gladiatorial ring.”
“For you, don’t you mean? Finish the question, Savage . . . What is in it for you? . . . Always be in it for yourself.”
Every muscle in his stomach seized at the remembrance of Dooley and that day . . . “I will forever regret walking away.” For so many reasons: all the men he’d killed in battle. Peterloo. “I’m grateful to you and Maynard for giving me a start.” For saving me.
“Oi don’t want yar gratitude.” Bragger spoke quietly. “But Oi did expect ya to do roight for the group.” For once. That barb may as well have been spoken for the mark it found in Hugh. And yet, too, as Bragger said, “do right by the group” would also be doing that which was wrong . . . again. When that was the only path he’d followed before this one. “Yar the only one of us who’s going to get close enough to Prendergast . . . and the evidence we need.”
How desperately they clung to the hope that the marquess had kept that incriminating evidence that could be used against him. “It’s a chimera. Nothing but a dream.” And a dark one at that.
Bragger’s eyes darkened, and Hugh knew the very moment the other man had ceased seeing him. “It’s as real as Prendergast’s crimes. ’e’s arrogant. ’e’d never let go of that trophy.”
They . . . they’d been the trophy for those lords.
“I’ve never seen anyone fight like you. You don’t sound like a street rat. But you fight like one. You are unique, and that deserves to be protected.”
That. He’d not even been a boy or man to Dooley, or if Prendergast was in fact guilty, to him, or any other damned lord.
That all-too-familiar rage sparked to life and fanned the flames of his hatred.
“That is it.” A glacial smile iced Bragger’s lips. “Yar loike us. Ya ’ate as we ’ate because ya should.”
“You take down the Assassin . . . kill him . . . and I’ll see you with a significant prize.”
Hugh balled his hands into tight fists, his nails scraping his callused palms, muting any pain.
“They took ya from this . . . from a family . . . they turned ya into a beast like the rest of us.”
“But what if the cage is sprung . . . And what if you’ve the chance to . . . escape . . .”
Hugh’s stomach roiled as the past wove in and out with the present as the other man spoke.
“Learning to ’ate our enemies was the only good to come out of wot ’appened to us. Just as making them pay is the only thing that matters.”
Hugh closed his eyes and let himself feel every last wave of hatred as it lapped at him, with each lash reminding him of every pain he’d been made to suffer. Every cruelty he’d been forced to carry out. And God forgive him, he did want Dooley and Prendergast and every last one of that blood lot to pay the price . . . just as they had.
“Come, this is the roight decision,” Maynard pressed in cajoling tones. “Do ya think they’d ’ave any compunction about ruining us?”
Hugh opened his eyes, and his gaze locked on Steele’s file. “No.” They’d have happily destroyed Hugh and anyone else who so much as stood in the way of their pleasures. For those pleasures had mattered more than even human life.
Lila’s recounting cut across the burning hatred.
“Then, they called . . . the soldiers. It was this odd . . . suspension of time . . . It was this wave of bodies. I could see the cavalry’s confusion . . . How could man and horse break through that mass of human beings? They raised their sabres high . . .”
He never again wanted to lift a sabre . . . to anyone.
Let go of that thirst for revenge.
For if they didn’t