6. North
Chapter 6
North
H e’s pretty when he sleeps. It probably isn’t exactly polite, standing in his doorway and watching him the way I am, but I never said I was polite.
I never said I was anything, and Ranen didn’t tell me to leave when I pretty much reverse-kidnapped myself into his home.
I’m taking it as a sign that he wants me here.
Which means I can also take it as a sign that he wants me to take care of him in all the ways I know how.
It’s actually a struggle not to step into the room and run my fingers along the bruises on his body—I feel a shudder rock across my shoulders and trail down into my hands. He bruises like he’s made of spun sugar, like the lightest touch might send him shattering.
I think for a moment about my fingers pressing into his skin, my teeth leaving marks for the world to see… then I force myself to step away from the bedroom before I do something he’s not ready for.
He needs sleep, and curled beneath his blankets he looks more comfortable than he did at the hospital. He looks like he’s actually resting.
He doesn’t look afraid, and a part of me hopes it’s because he knows I’m here to make sure nothing and no one ever hurts him again.
Which means… I need to take care of the vile pieces of shit who thought they could after he was attacked. I can’t kill the man who hurt him—yet—but I can make sure anyone who thought what happened was a good thing gets what they deserve.
It would make me feel better.
Ranen said he blocked them from his site, but I know my way around technology. Once I’m sure he’s not going to wake up, I sit at his desk in his streaming room. There’s a moment where I can’t stop my eyes from roaming; I’ve seen this room so many times, but never from this angle. I’d imagined being in here, taking one of Ranen’s toys and gagging him on it while I fuck him into the mattress and leave him cum-soaked and gaping so his viewers would know who he belonged to…
I force myself to stop that line of thinking with a small grunt as I adjust myself in my pants and turn back to the screen. Thinking like that will just get me distracted, and I’m on a mission to make sure every person who has ever hurt Ranen pays. It’s easy to start with the ones he pointed out—I can work my way back from there later.
Ranen isn’t very cautious. I don’t have to hack his site because he’s already logged in, with his password saved on his browser. It’s all easier than I thought it would be. What’s not as easy is figuring out who they are and where they’re located. There are only a few men, and some of them are foolish enough to use the same username on Ranen’s site as they do on their other social media. Those I can track down in a few minutes, but my disappointment when I find their information is almost enough to make me growl.
States away. They’re states away, and I can’t do a damn thing about it. I can see the things they said to him, and it makes me want to flay them alive.
The last one is a stroke of luck. I have to go back through the chat log to figure out where he lives, and I notice the asshole actually gave it away by saying where he worked. He signed up with his first name. It’s a local name—a car dealership run by a local family. I’ve seen the advertisements on television before. I’ve seen the asshole and his smiling face, with pictures of his wife and kids behind him.
And I can see the vile shit he’s said to Ranen, all the requests and money he’s poured into watching him while his wife was probably sleeping a room away.
He’s in the city.
And honestly, it just makes sense for me to make sure I pay him a visit once Ranen is more settled in, doesn’t it? I note his name and address for later and stare at the list of three names I have left.
If I didn’t need to be here, I could hunt them down; I could make a vacation of it.
But I’m here, and I’d be lying to myself if I said I was going to leave anytime soon. Which means…
I don’t want to call Wylder—my brother is an asshole. He left the house when he was eighteen because his skills are better used for hire than play or some shit like that. Where I handle my urges whenever I please, and occasionally take a stray job if it’s handed to me, Wylder has made a name for himself in certain rings as someone dangerous, someone deadly.
Someone who can always get the job done exactly the way you want it—no fuss, all mess.
He’s an asshole, and he’s charming, and he looks like he could be a model instead of someone working construction. I half wonder if he’d left because he didn’t want to get his hands dirty with anything other than blood, but… he’s really my only option. And honestly, I have to admit he’s probably the only person I know who is just as dangerous as I am. He’s one of the only people I can trust with this.
I check the doors to make sure Ranen’s apartment is all locked up, and step out on the little ledge where the fire escape is so I don’t wake him while I speak. The phone rings three times before my brother picks up.
“Did you kill someone?” Fuck, why is that always the first question my family asks me?
“No, but you can. I have a job for you… Well… three jobs.” I sound cranky about it. If it were up to me, I’d be the one killing them. At least I know Wylder will do a good job.
“What?” All concern fades from his voice, and he laughs. “You have a job for me?”
“Look, I’d take care of it if I could, but I’m…” I don’t want to explain to him what I’m doing or why I’m doing it, so I shrug instead like he can see me and frown. “I’m otherwise preoccupied. Can you do it or not?”
He doesn’t even hesitate. “Oh, I’ll do it, baby brother.” I fucking hate it when he calls me that. He’s only four years older than me. “You don’t even have to pay.”
Suspicion rises in my chest. “I’ll pay.”
“Oh, no. If you want me to do this, you owe me a favor .” Ah, shit . This is why I didn’t want to call Wylder. Him and his favors and games.
But my eyes drift back into the apartment, to Ranen’s door slightly cracked open. Behind my lids, I can see his battered, bruised body. I know my answer before I give it.
“Fine. But I have a condition too.”
Wylder doesn’t even hesitate, and I can almost see his whiskey-colored eyes sparkling when I speak.
“Make it hurt.”
Wylder laughs. “That’s the only way I know how to do it, North.”
By the time Ranen wakes up, I’ve gone through his apartment and straightened up everything. My bags are neatly tucked away in the corner, and there’s no trace of what happened to him to be found. I didn’t want him to look around and see something knocked over and suddenly spiral back into the memories of his attack. It doesn’t take someone with real empathy to know that’s not a good idea, and I saw how easy it is for him to trigger a panic attack. I can’t stop it from happening, but I can do my best to make it easier on him.
I’m in his kitchen, going through his cabinets to see if there’s anything that remotely resembles coffee for me to drink, when I hear the sound of soft footsteps behind me after his bedroom door opens.
He looks sweet, all bleary-eyed and just a little confused. When I turn, he’s standing beside the counter with his bottom lip pulled between his teeth and an almost startled expression on his face. Fuck, he’s like a little rabbit, caught in the eyes of a wolf. I just need to find a way to make sure he knows I’ll only bite if he asks.
“Do you have coffee?” I say, and he shakes his head, little twists of his red hair falling across his brow when he does it.
“I need to go shopping, I—” He cuts himself off and frowns. “You’re actually here, aren’t you? When I woke up, I thought maybe I’d dreamed that a man randomly moved into my apartment without asking first.”
“Yeah, I’m really here.” I can understand why he’s confused. Everything over the last few days has probably been overwhelming for him. Hell, I’m still a little confused about what I’m doing, and I’m the one who packed my bags.
“You’re… actually staying here?” He takes a step closer and glances around at the cleaned apartment, at my bags in the corner, and finally back to me.
“Yeah, I’m staying.”
“In my apartment?”
A smile curves across my face when I answer this time. “Yes.”
“With me?”
“Unless there’s someone else here I don’t know about?”
There better not be, but…
“Why?” He asked me the same question last night, but he seems more aware this morning—more himself. Maybe it’s because he got to sleep in his own bed and really got to rest. Maybe he’s just feeling a little better.
I give him the most honest answer I can without completely showing my hand. “I guess it does something to a person when you find someone hurt…”
His eyes seem far away for a moment, as though he’s picturing what it must have looked like when I found him. “I’m sorry you—”
“Don’t apologize. Not for what that man did to you, and not for anything about yourself, Ranen. You never have to apologize to me.” It takes every bit of restraint I have not to step forward and wrap him up in my arms… but I’m trying to play pretend at being at least somewhat normal, and that means I have to control myself. I need him to trust me first. “I’m glad I found you.” I lift my shoulder in a shrug. “I can’t help it if it makes me want to take care of you. I just want to keep you safe.”
And I wonder with him living here alone, with the fact that no family came to the hospital to see him when he was hurt… Has Ranen ever had anyone who really wanted to take care of him before? For a moment, my mind flicks to the man who came to the hospital… his friend… but no, if he’d really cared that much, he would have insisted Ranen stay with him, he would have fought me tooth and nail. He wouldn’t have left his friend alone with a stranger.
I don’t want him to think too hard about any of this, because there’s every chance he’ll realize a stranger in his house isn’t normal—a man he doesn’t know moving in without his permission is probably just as dangerous as someone breaking in. The difference is, I know I’m not going to hurt him, and I know I’ll kill anyone who tries.
“I… okay.” I watch the expression flood across his face—his own curiosity, his fear and apprehension, all collating to settle on acceptance. There’s an explanation for why he’s going along with this—trauma. I know it’s trauma. Bonding with the person who saved you, coping with something so horrific in an unhealthy way. I might be a bit of a monster for taking advantage of it, but I intend to prove I’m worth it in the end.
“Okay. How about this? Why don’t we order some groceries, and you can ask me whatever you want?” Maybe I won’t be completely truthful with my answers, but I’ll be as honest as I can. “That way, by the time we’re done you’ll know me better.”
Ranen looks at me then, really looks at me, but I don’t miss the soft curve of a smile that makes his pretty lips lift. “Somehow, I don’t know if I will.” Before I can try to lie my way out of his astute observation, he keeps talking. “But… I’ll bite. Let me get dressed and we can go grab breakfast.”
“Are you sure you’re up to that?”
He stops and crosses his arms, looking at me over his shoulder. “I think I can manage going to a drive-thru.”
I watch him walk away with something warm unfurling in my chest—possessiveness. It’s dangerous, but it’s sweeter than anything I’ve felt before. Proof that this is what I’ve been looking for in the ribs and guts of everyone I’ve killed lately. He’s so pretty, sweet and bold all at once.
I just want to know him. Beneath the bruises and battered layers, behind the mask of charming sexuality that he puts on for the camera, there’s something so much more… something so compelling that it made me pack my bags and move into his apartment without thinking twice.
It’s something I have to have.