Chapter 15 Wesley #2
“Sit,” I told him, nudging him toward the edge of the bed after leading him into the bedroom. I crouched in front of the dresser, pulling drawers open until I found what I wanted—a soft gray pair of sweats and a loose, faded band tee that smelled like him.
I dressed him piece by piece, sliding the sweats up his long legs, tugging the shirt over his damp hair. He let me, fingers barely lifting to help. Something about it broke me a little—that he trusted me enough to let me do this, to handle him like something precious.
Once he was warm and dry, I pulled him into bed with me, settling him against my chest. He curled close without hesitation, his damp hair sticking to my throat, his breath steadying with every minute that passed.
I grabbed my phone, thumbing open a food delivery app. My stomach was a hollow pit, but this wasn’t about me. I scrolled, choosing something easy and comforting—soup, bread, and some tea. Something to fill him up without effort.
While it loaded, I stroked my fingers through his hair, down his back, over the thin cotton stretched across him. I didn’t care that I was still in wet jeans and nothing else. I just wanted him there, in my arms, tethered to me.
And as I listened to his breathing, felt the fragile weight of him against me, something possessive threaded tight through my chest. Whatever this was between us, however fucked up, I couldn’t deny it.
He was mine.
* * *
The knock on the door jolted me out of the haze I’d been sinking into. Ro stirred against me but didn’t lift his head. I pressed a kiss to his damp hair. “Stay here, I’ll be back in just a minute,” I whispered, easing him onto the pillows before sliding off the bed.
The delivery guy barely had time to mumble a greeting before I’d taken the bags and shut the door. I set everything on the counter, unpacking containers onto plates and bowls.
By the time I carried it over, he was watching me with half-lidded eyes, curled small in the nest of blankets. “Here we go. Brought you something,” I said softly, settling beside him. I held the spoon out, steam curling from the soup. “Eat a little for me.”
His lips parted, and he accepted the first spoonful, slow, like he wasn’t sure he remembered how.
I fed him bite after bite, coaxing him with murmurs, brushing stray droplets from his chin with my thumb.
When he managed half the soup, I pressed the mug of tea into his hands and drew him back against my chest.
He sighed then, a sound that was looser, easier than before. His body seemed to melt into me, and for the first time since I’d found him on the shower floor, I felt some of the tension bleed out of him.
For a while, it was enough just to hold him, to feel his warmth seep into me. But eventually, the question that had been sitting heavily in my chest refused to stay swallowed down.
“Ro,” I said, low and steady. He hummed faintly, not opening his eyes. I hesitated, then pressed on. “What happened tonight?”
He stiffened, the muscles beneath my hand tightening. Silence stretched. I thought for a second he might shut me out again.
But then his lashes fluttered, his voice rough when it came. “I was at Elias’s.” A pause. “I looked at his computer.”
My chest clenched. “And?”
His breath hitched. “There was a lot. I took pictures of most of it.” He shook his head, gaze unfocused. “I… Can I just show you? I really don’t want to talk about it.”
I pulled him tighter against me, swallowing down the raw ache that rose in my throat. “Of course. I think I left your phone in the bathroom. Do you mind if I go get it?”
His expression looked pained, but he nodded. “Can… can you look at it in there? Please? The code’s 6703.”
My brow furrowed, confused at his request. “Yeah, sure.” Maybe he didn’t want to be tempted to look at whatever had fucked his head up? That was understandable. Still, something felt off about it.
I pressed a kiss to his temple before slipping out of bed. The apartment was dark and quiet, every step padded with that heavy hush that always comes after a storm.
The bathroom light glared in my eyes when I flipped it on. His phone sat where I’d set it earlier on the counter, screen black. I picked it up, thumb hovering.
6703. I entered it, and the screen opened without hesitation.
Photos. The most recent file was already queued in the gallery.
I tapped it open.
And my stomach plummeted.
It was Ro. But not Ro as I knew him—this was him on a floor I didn’t recognize, his body bruised, used, broken. His eyes—Christ, his eyes—were eerily blank like he wasn’t even inside himself anymore.
Like he wasn’t alive.
With my teeth clenched tight and my chest pounding, I swiped to the next photo.
Then the next, and the next, and the next.
Each one was worse than the last, each one a knife sliding between my ribs. Some were recent. Some were older—too old. My breath stuttered. He’d been just a boy.
“Jesus Christ,” I rasped, barely recognizing my own voice. I braced a hand on the sink, afraid my knees might give out.
That fucking monster had documented everything—every time he’d hurt him, every time he’d used him like he was just a doll that he could patch back together.
The world tilted. My vision blurred, but I couldn’t stop swiping, couldn’t stop myself from witnessing his pain. My chest ached like someone was driving nails into my sternum.
“Fuck. Oh fuck.”
I’d assumed—stupidly—that Ro’s scars were from work, and that he’d been forced into some ugly situations, had to do certain things to survive.
And that wasn’t okay… it was just easier for my mind to rationalize.
But this? This was something far darker than I had imagined. Torture. Rape. Systematic. Years of it.
I clenched my jaw so tight my teeth ached. A helpless, broken sound left me before I even realized it, tears sliding down my face.
“Fuck.”
Finally, the gallery shifted from Ronan to files of victims, rows of strangers reduced to inventory. My pulse thundered in my ears as I scanned them, realizing exactly what Elias was running. But even that—horrific as it was—didn’t hit me half as hard as what I’d already seen.
Because fucking hell.
The phone shook in my hand. I wanted to put it down, to pretend I hadn’t seen, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t unsee it, couldn’t erase the truth now burned into my brain.
Ro had carried this. Alone. For years. And he’d let me touch him like it was nothing—like I wasn’t pressing against wounds that had never healed.
I shut the phone off, chest heaving. My reflection in the mirror looked foreign—eyes bloodshot, jaw locked, a man balancing on the edge.
I couldn’t catch my breath, couldn’t shake the images burned into the back of my skull. Every muscle in my body screamed to break something, to tear through walls until I found Elias and put my hands around his throat.
But when I closed my eyes, it wasn’t Elias I saw. It was Ronan.
Ro, curled small on the shower floor. Ro, gasping for me to hurt him because he couldn’t stand his own thoughts. Ro, clinging to me like I was the only tether he had left.
And I’d touched him. I’d touched him, not knowing the full weight of what had been carved into him. I’d kissed his mouth, his throat, pressed my cock into him. I’d hit him. He’d asked me to, but…
My stomach lurched. I bent over the sink, bracing myself as bile stung the back of my throat. I forced it down, shaking, breath shallow.
I should’ve known. He’d given me enough hints.
Hell, our first time together, he’d told me he didn’t know sex was something that could feel good.
But no. Instead, I’d let him walk right into that fucking house.
I’d told him it was his choice, that he was strong enough to handle it, and that nothing would go wrong, because I was so fucking desperate for more proof against Elias.
I had been so fucking blind. I’d practically pushed him right back into his nightmare.
And now I knew what that monster had already done to him, again and again.
For fucking years.
I straightened, scrubbing both hands over my face. I didn’t know how to go back into that room. What the fuck was I supposed to say?
I’m sorry? That wasn’t fucking enough—not even close.
I’ll fix it? I couldn’t erase years of damage.
The only thing I could give him was a safe space if he wanted it.
I forced myself to draw in a long breath, to lock my jaw, to smooth my expression into something steady and comforting. He didn’t need my rage. He didn’t need my guilt. He needed me—whole, solid, unshakable.
My hand tightened around his phone. I slipped it into my pocket, not because I wanted to keep it, but because I couldn’t bear the thought of him waking up in the middle of the night, opening it again, and drowning in those photos. Not tonight.
I turned off the light and opened the bathroom door.
The apartment was still dim, the air heavy with steam and the faint smell of soap.
From the bedroom doorway, I could see that he hadn’t moved much—still curled in that tangle of blankets, his pale hair sticking damply to his temple.
His eyes were open, but staring at nothing.
When I came closer, they flicked up to me, and something in his expression made my chest clench.
He looked… ashamed, like he expected me to recoil.
I carefully lowered myself onto the edge of the bed. For a second, neither of us spoke. The silence stretched, heavy with everything I’d seen in the bathroom, everything he hadn’t said out loud.
“Ro…” I started, then stopped, because I didn’t know how to put any of it into words. My hands flexed uselessly on my knees. “Baby…”
His throat worked as he swallowed, but he didn’t say anything. His gaze darted away, to the wall, like he couldn’t stand for me to look at him.
I reached out, hesitated, then let my palm rest lightly against the blanket covering his hip—barely touching, just enough to remind him I was there.