8. Chapter 8
“Were you arrested?” Dalton asked.
“No. But the crime family found out. Don’t ask me how because they never told me and I never asked. They were clearly watching over us. Anyway, I woke up at some point, tied to a chair in a cold, dark, damp room, still in my underwear. The only light was over my head, casting the rest of the area into darkness. Several people were with me. I could sense them. It was like out of a goddamn movie. Clichéd as hell, but effective… at least on an eighteen-year-old young man who’d only known fear and anger for most of his life.”
“God, Sid… I have no words. Everything that I knew about you from our youth has completely changed. It all makes so much sense now.”
“I took back my life, Boy Scout. Don’t fucking pity me. Besides, you have a good idea of how I ended up.”
“They trained you to be a killer.”
“Bingo.”
“Then what happened?”
I can’t move as I come to. Someone has tied me to the chair. My body shivers, and I’m covered in goosebumps since I’m still wearing my fucking underwear. Uncle Duane’s blood is dry and cracking, pulling tight on my skin. It makes me itch, desperate to wash it off.
“Do you know why you’re here, Sid?”
My struggling body freezes. I don’t recognize the voice, but I know who’s captured me. The voice is deep, and it’s coming from in front of me, but I can’t see him. It’s hard for my eyes to adjust to the darkness with light shining down on me.
“Yes,” I say honestly.
“And why is that?”
“I killed my uncle. He warned me I could die if I fought him or ran.”
The man is silent for a moment before he responds. “Why would you need to fight him or run?”
I don’t want to tell him. It’s one thing being honest because my instincts tell me it will keep me alive longer, but it’s quite another to explain my humiliation of being raped for years. Deep down, I know it’ s not my fault, but I also blame myself for not fighting harder and for believing I had no power. It also leaves me covered in shame.
“Answer me!” the man yells, his voice echoing loudly against the walls and in my ears. My body flinches, and my stomach recoils from the fear.
“He’s been raping me since I was ten, and he started drugging me after I turned fifteen so he could rape me without me resisting. I… had enough. He… raped me for the last time. I’m glad he’s fucking dead!” I sound braver than I feel, at least to my ears.
A light flickers on, and I blink as the floating lights dance in my vision. When it clears, a man in his forties is sitting in front of me. He has black hair with some gray. His eyes are startlingly light, almost matching the gray hairs on his head.
My head drops, and I sag in the chair as much as I can. Is this when I die? I don’t want to die, but a sense of calmness washes over me. At least I got to see my uncle dead before I was killed. I had expected it.
“We’ve been watching you because of your parents’ murder, but apparently not close enough.”
“Did he… kill them?”
“We never found their killers.”
“Are you going to kill me now?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
I say nothing because I’m not sure he wants me to, and I wouldn’t know what to say, anyway. All his words do is confirm what my uncle had told me all along. If something happened to him, I would die.
“Look at me, Sid.”
I raise my head and peer into his pale and haunting eyes.
“Are you afraid?”
“Yes… and no.”
He nods thoughtfully. “Explain.”
“I’ve been afraid my entire life. That doesn’t just go away, but now that he’s dead, I can die with my head held high. I don’t want to die, but death doesn’t scare me.”
His hands fold on his lap, and long fingers curl around each other. He wears a simple gold wedding band, which seems strange to me, considering how powerful he is. My eyes are so focused on it, for some reason.
He follows my line of vision down to his ring and twirls it around his finger. “Do you know why I wear such a simple thing, Sid?”
I shake my head.
“It’s to remind me of my roots—where I came from. I wasn’t always rich and powerful. I had to claw my way to the top after suffering, much like you. Though I wasn’t raped, I was frequently hurt and beaten down into submission. I, too, took back my control. But that control can easily be snuffed out in a second. Look at what you did to your uncle. Everything in life is temporary. This ring, and my marriage to my wife, is a reminder of simpler times, yet a place I never want to go back to.”
Why is he telling me all this?
I don’t get a chance to respond when the man in front of me nods, but it’s not directed at me. Suddenly, my head is yanked back by my hair with a knife pressed to my throat. My heart races, and I struggle to breathe as my pathetic life flashes before my eyes. I only have one good memory, as short as it is .
With a deep breath, I close my eyes as calmness washes over me, ready for the knife to do its job. I think back on my first, last, and only real kiss. I refuse to beg for my life, knowing what I got myself into by killing my uncle.
“Let him go,” he orders after a minute that feels like an eternity.
Just as quickly, the knife is removed, and the man behind me lets go of my hair.
“Trauma can either make you or break you. Sometimes, life throws you into chaos, and how we adapt can change the very fiber of our being, mentally and emotionally. You’ve chosen not to shatter, Sid. You’ve chosen to be defiant in the face of death. Now, I offer you another choice.”
I don’t say a word out of curiosity and a strange sense of respect.
“You can choose to stay with me. I will train you and offer you a life of money and power. But in doing so, you sacrifice your freedom. You will forever be bound to me. I will treat you like the son I never had if that is your desire. In return, not only will you be strong, powerful, and rich, but this family will protect you with their lives. I expect absolute obedience.”
I know what my other choice is. He doesn’t have to tell me, but he does, anyway.
“If you choose not to come into the fold, now that you know me and have seen me, you will die. Choose, Sid.”
I don’t even hesitate. “I choose you.”
“That’s why I’ve chosen to help you and Owen. I’m a completely different man, thanks to one night and a violent kiss. But it wasn’t so much a kiss as your reaction to me afterward. ”
Dalton paced around the living room, running a hand through his dark hair, wrecking it in his stress, and scoffed. “Oh, well, I’m pleased I encouraged you so much that you ended up in some cartel. That’s… uplifting. ” His tone was frustrated and oozing with sarcasm. Then he sighed and sat down on the couch. “But hell, at least you weren’t being abused anymore… I hope.”
He quickly stood and paced again, the agitation dripping off him. The Boy Scout who cared about everyone, even me, when I’d been at my lowest, and today, when I was at my highest. I was a criminal and a killer, and he still cared. It was strangely touching and why I’d always been drawn to Dalton.
“Fuck, if I’d only known or… or… reached out to you more. I knew something was wrong with you, but instead of digging deeper, I dug in my heels.”
I sat with my arm draped over the back of the couch, sipping my bourbon, watching him get so frustrated over something completely out of his control.
“And what would you have done?”
He stopped, looked at me, and tossed his hands in the air. “I don’t know! Called the police? Got you out of there.”
“My uncle was part of a crime syndicate. They would’ve killed you. I’m glad you didn’t get involved.”
Dalton huffed an irritated sigh. “Still… So, back to your story. I’m assuming you still work for them?”
“I do not. I worked for them for fourteen years. But… one thing you can’t be, at least in that particular family, is gay.”
“They let you go, let you live after they found out?”
I barked a laugh and pulled up my T-shirt to show the scar in my gut. “Well, yes, they let me live. I grew very close with the leader… and, no, not like that, so you can get your mind off that. He wasn’t my uncle. But he trained me personally. For some reason, he was taken with me, maybe because we shared similar pasts or maybe because he felt guilty for placing me with my uncle in the first place. Who knows? I never asked. But like he promised, he became a father figure to me.”
“What happened, then?” Dalton asked, squatting in front of me to touch the large scar with gentle fingertips, sending a chill across my body that I controlled so he wouldn’t see it.
“I’d kept my queerness hidden very well for nearly fourteen years… until I did something fucking stupid. I didn’t do relationships for obvious reasons. I couldn’t get away with anything other than quickies, but I got lucky one night with one of our guards. I grew careless from successfully hiding myself for so long. After some quick frotting in the dark, someone caught us and dragged us in front of the leader. He instantly put a bullet into my partner’s head as a lesson. Hell, he wasn’t even a partner, just someone I had fun with. He lost his life, but I was beaten, stabbed, and dumped.”
“Jesus, fuck…”
“They could’ve killed me if they wanted to. He loved me like a son, so I got to live. But love is conditional with these people. Going against one of his many rules, I’d betrayed his trust.”
He stood and sighed. “As if you can control who you are… So, who do you work for now?”
I got up from the couch, grabbed Dalton’s empty glass, and put it on the table before I pressed my hand to his chest and walked him backward until he hit the wall. His dark eyes grew large and confused .
“I’m done talking about myself. What I’d like is to see if we still have some of those same sparks after twenty-seven years.”
I rested my arm on the wall above his head, leaned in, and pressed my lips to his, inhaling faint hints of fresh woods from the remnants of his cologne along with the amber of the bourbon. His lips were smooth, soft, and plump.
Dalton gave in for a second before shoving me off.
“What the hell, Sid?!”
I licked my lips and smirked as I stood straight. “Yep, there are definitely some sparks still.”
He shouldered my chest, shoving right by me. “Asshole. You do realize we have bigger issues than whatever the hell that was. Don’t fucking kiss me again.”
Oh, I would most certainly be kissing him again. He just didn’t know it yet. We definitely still had electricity between us, and he’d liked it for a second, despite his protests. His morals tried to fight me, but his body wanted me.
My Boy Scout paced around again. “You’re a criminal , Sid. There’s nothing between us, and there never will be.”
Strangely, now that he was in my presence and I was realizing Dalton hadn’t changed one bit, it made my interest in him skyrocket. Maybe we were too different. Perhaps we wouldn’t work out. But I really liked that Dalton was still a good, honest man. I didn’t know why I liked it so much. Probably because his kindness and empathy were what turned around my life in the first place. I found it attractive, and it was arousingly dangerous.
I nodded at him. “We’ll see,” I said and walked off to go to bed .
“No, we won’t see. We will never see… Not one bit!” he yelled after me.
“Night, Boy Scout.”
“Infuriating asshole…” he mumbled, making me chuckle as I headed up to bed.