Chapter 4 Donovan
That little fucker actually broke skin. I was impressed with him, he’d always impressed me, and it was one of my biggest regrets, leaving him, but my life wasn’t the life he needed to live.
He was destined to be out there, building a life and getting a closeted boyfriend in some business—or, better yet, sleeping with the boss and then suing—not like I taught him, but it’s how some people got ahead in business.
I slept a little more after a shower, enjoying the sting of the cuts he’d made on me.
But tomorrow—official tomorrow, when I was ready to start the day, I’d need to have a talk with him.
This place and world wasn’t safe for him, no matter how many cheap tricks he had under his belt—his sass would only get him so far before someone decided to point a gun at him and mean it.
Mercy was in her office, it was obvious when she was because her name plate was online so to speak.
I was in the standard issue Sanctum attire, a pair of sweats and a nice, white t-shirt.
I loved Mercy, she was sometimes my favorite person on this planet.
She was South American by heritage—Colombian was my go to thought but only because of a bust I was on were we intercepted a shipping container of cocaine.
I gave the door a gentle knock.
“Donovan,” she called out. “Come in.”
Kicking at the slip-on shoes, I’d kinda hoped she would’ve been busy so I could mull over my words with a coffee and some breakfast. “I came down first thing,” I said, entering to see a seascape playing out on the screen behind her.
She was tapping away at the keys on her computer, mostly just the nails tapping, her fingers barely made contact.
“As Jinksy so kindly said when he woke me up in the middle of the night.” The door closed behind me.
“Take a seat,” she said. “We have a lot to talk about now that you’re sober.”
“Is it how much I owe you?” I slumped into the leather seat. “Because you know, take it out of my funds, or whatever is in my account.”
She nodded. “Don’t worry about that,” she said. “But your accounts are still very healthy, so I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”
I scoffed. “As they should be, fifteen percent is kept in reserves right?”
“Twenty-five,” she said. “I made the decision unilaterally after the whole—Conrad sitch, I don’t really care for what happened there, and nor should you, what matters is here, now, and going forward. The future.”
“Honestly, that’s fine with me,” I told her. “As long as it’s not in another Swiss bank account, you know, I hate the cold so much. I never wanna go back there.”
She chuckled. “Ok, cards on the table, Donovan. I think you should stick around,” she said. “In Sanctum.”
Leaning forward, my brow knotting together. “Is there a warrant out for me? Someone put a hit out?”
“No, no, no,” she said. “I know you’ve had relations with—with—”
“Artemis.”
“Good, so you’ve already reconnected,” she said, clapping her hands once. “The kid has potential. He’s worked through his anger, his revenge, and, I think he’s ready.”
My knees shook, rocking from the balls of my feet. “That’s why he’s here?” I asked. “I thought you were bringing him in to fuck with me. I—I thought it was some sick way of you dangling him like a carrot. Is he the carrot, Mercy?”
Slowly, she stood and dusted her navy power suit with the backs of her hands. “Believe it or not, you left him, we didn’t tell you to leave him,” she said. “You left him because there was an op for a multi-million dollar hit abroad, six months you spent around Eastern Europe.”
“You all but told me to take the job or get cut from the Sanctum,” I said, my mind spinning. “I’m not imagining this, Mercy, am I?”
She pulled out a packet of Camel cigarettes.
“You know the rules, you’ve got to take one job every six months, and it just so happened that you were perfect for it,” she said, offering my a cigarette.
I took one and as I placed it between my lips, she was already there with the lighter.
“For what it’s worth, you did what was best, I don’t think he could’ve handled being your little lackey, and since then—”
The first drag of the cigarette with the rush of nicotine was heaven. “Since then, you’ve been using him,” I said. “Right?”
She shrugged, take a long drag herself, the smoke came out and was instantly sucked into a vent. “We helped him get the higher ups, we helped him get his revenge, and he was good at it. It was just what I needed to show proof he was ready.”
I saw right through her now after the second drag. “You want me to train him.”
“He’s already signed the contract,” she said. “I could assign him to one of the other guys, but I see the way the two of you were, you had a—a dynamic. Right?”
“We had,” I said. “I don’t think that’s going to fly with him anymore.
He’s a different beast now.” This one cigarette alone was better than any breakfast, especially after the night I’d had.
Cigarettes were somewhat banned in Sanctum because of the smell—so a lot of people addicted were hooked on those little nicotine gums.
“I’m not going to force you into it,” she said. “Like I said, there are plenty of other guys out there who could.”
“You could get Serena or someone.”
She laughed, it was meant to mock. “He needs someone with a firm hand, and someone he can try fuck, or—wait.” She walked around me and spun me in her chair. “You already fucked, didn’t you?”
“What makes you think that?” I asked, blowing smoke at her, but she seemed to eat it.
“Donovan, we go way back, I can read you like a children’s book, only pictures,” she said. “I can at least check off that he’s gotten laid, I was beginning to get worried watching him.”
Perked up. “He didn’t—he didn’t get laid?”
“No, he was practically averse to anything but internet porn and a handful of Jergens,” she said.
“And you sick fucks watched?” I laughed. “Send me a recording.”
“Obviously not,” she said. “But I still haven’t heard an answer from you.”
“If I say yes, what happens?”
“He becomes yours during his training.”
“Mine?”
She nodded, as if discovering my tongue on the verge of saying yes. “All the good, all the bad, he’s yours. For the training period, and then I can decide where he’s placed.”
“Does he know your training stops him from being a free agent and becomes one of yours?”
“Exclusivity was—” she shrugged. “I think it was mentioned somewhere. I can’t be too sure, but he signed it. So, he must’ve read it on—say, page fifty-one.”
“Fuck it,” I said, I knew he’d hate it, and I knew I had a lot of making up. “I’ll do it, but one condition.”
“Good, name your condition. And remember, bend him, don’t break him.”
I stood up in front of her, short while she was in those stilettos.
I sucked on the end of the cigarette once more before stubbing it out on her glass table.
“I’ll train him for you, but after it’s all done, he gets a set of assignments he’s got to do for you to work off the training debt I’m assuming you’ve bundled in with the exclusivity. ”
Mercy smirked. “Details, details,” she said. “Consider it done.”
We shook on it.
* * *
Three heavy bangs to Artemis’s door, and the biggest smirk on my face. His sleepy head answered, rubbing his eyes and yawning. He perked up seeing me, only to roll his eyes.
“What do you want?” he asked, stretching his arms up and lifting his t-shirt.
I hooked a finger under his t-shirt, pushing it higher to see more of his torso. “I just wanted to say, you’re mine.”
“Yours?”
“Mine,” I said slower and nodding.
“You’re finally asking me to marry you then, huh?” he clicked his tongue, looking me up and down. Leaving him had made him bitter, and that look in his eye, those daggers—if weapons were allowed, he’d have cut through me into chunks.
“No, because you’ve decided to come in here, destroy your life, give it over to this place, and for what?” I asked, raising my arms. “You wanted closure? You wanted to see me again? I’m here, Art. You got closure. Go back to business school, go do normal shit with your life.”
He turned his back and pushed the door with his foot. I placed mind in the doorjamb, keeping it open. “No,” he let out, the echo of his voice softly bounced around his dark room. And on the bed, a teddy.
“Not like Mercy would even let you,” I whispered. “You basically signed your life away. But, that’s fine, because I’m here. And—” My tongue swelled in my mouth as it released I’d been doing a whole lot of yapping.
Artemis looked at me with a slight turn of his head. “And you’re going to protect me?” he asked. “Like you promised? Like you told me, all those nights when you got in from a job too dangerous for me, and I was just glad you made it back—and with fried chicken to sweeten the deal.”
“Yeah, well, you made a deal here, I made a deal there,” I said. “Anyway, I’m training you, so if I can’t protect you, at least you’ll be able to protect yourself.” Looking him up and down. “You’ve put on more muscle.”
“I also learned how to throw a proper punch,” he said. “I got a gym membership, and even put myself in a boxing ring a couple times there. I promised myself I’d hurt you when I saw you again.”
He actually hadn’t changed at all. Artemis was the same as ever, once he’d decided on something, he put his mind to it.
It was a little salt in the wound that he’d put his focus on me, to hurt me—but I deserved it.
“You did,” I said, turning to show him the light pink-red stains on the back of my shirt.
“I want a new trainer then,” he said, standing straight on at me, his shoulders broad, positioned himself in front of the teddy, as if it was a secret he’d shared with me—and now I wasn’t allowed to know.
“No, you’ll get eaten alive by half these guys, even the women would have you snapped,” I told him. “I think it has to be me. And, you’ve still got to pass a psych eval, so maybe if you act a little insane, Mercy will let you go out and forget this ever happened.”
“Did that all of that yesterday,” he said. “I passed. I’m sane, and I know what I’m doing, and I know what I want.”
I stared, expecting the answer to what he wanted. My stare lingered, I was used to Art being combative and pushing my buttons, but he was more than that now. He was angry, more-so than I’d ever seen him.
“I want to stop bad people from doing bad things,” he said.
“I don’t want anyone else to go through what I’ve seen people go through.
The governments aren’t doing anything, the billionaires aren’t doing anything, I have a real chance and opportunity to change all of that.
” There were tears in his eyes. I stepped closer.
“And obviously, you wouldn’t understand that, because you just took any job that came your way, you didn’t even care where it came from. ” He sucked back a sob.
“That’s not completely true, Art,” I said.
“I’ve tried to do what’s best, I’ve tried to put bad guys in the ground.
And sure, I’ve helped a couple of them get away with shit, but I don’t want to see people trafficked and forced into slavery.
” I pulled him into an embrace. He fought it weakly before giving in, his sobs caught on my t-shirt as his arms wrapped around my back and softly patted at where he’d been scratching last night.
* * *
Training was going to be brutal. One of the reasons I enjoyed Sanctum was for the training services. Mercy’s team put together comprehensive training regimes as rehabilitation for her agents who were injured during jobs.
It was going to be different for Artemis, she’d seen something in him, and I’d seen it in him as well, it was the good—and I didn’t want it tainted like I knew it could be.
He’d already taken a life—or several, my mind was still processing the change that happened from the guy I knew who would whimper when we fucked, to a guy who was jumping my body and telling me I wasn’t man enough to fuck him.
A buzzer sounded, pulling me back to the training room where Artemis was harnessed into a climbing wall—he’d reached the top of it and knocked the buzzer. The people around training stopped to give him his deserved applause. I clapped for him, as it seemed mine was the only one he was waiting on.
“Good job up there,” I said.
“You weren’t even watching,” he said, repelling down the wall.
“Let me see your hands.” I took them regardless, inspecting his fingertips and palms. “Ok, some callouses there. They’re gonna become rough with all the climbing.”
“Then they can be calloused, what’s it to you?”
Biting my lip, it really wasn’t anything to me—other than a memory of how soft his hands were. “I’m just saying, you’ve got to expect that to happen.”
He shrugged. “I could do this again and again, and again.”
“If you’re feeling cocky about, take the harness off,” I told him.
“It’s my first week of training, shouldn’t I keep it on?”
“I think you’re ready, but you climb up, you’ve got to climb your ass back down. No repelling, and nobody coming up to save you,” I said. It was a bad call, but I couldn’t stop. “And no powder. If we were out in the world, you wouldn’t have all that.”
Mercy’s heels clopped on the floor, silencing everyone in the training facility. She wore red today, deep red. She walked by the punching bags and the agents practicing with long wooden swords. Everyone watched. “I told you to train him, Donovan, not kill him,” she said.
“I’m pushing him,” I said. “Isn’t that what we all want here? For Art to be ready to work of his debt.”
Artemis’s eye twitched, he didn’t seem phased by the conditions—except that eye twitch. “I wanna try,” he said. “I could probably get halfway up there.”
“No, no,” Mercy said. “Donovan, I think you should have a go.”
“In my sleep,” I told her. “I’ve done this climb before, and you know that.”
“Of course, I know that,” she said. “But your trainee doesn’t. Show him. Show everyone. Or has all that drink gone to your abilities now?” She leaned in close. “You’ve got to admit, you weren’t on form those weeks before we pulled you in.”
I didn’t’ need to hear more. I clapped my hands and rubbed them together. “Move,” I snapped at Artemis. “I’ll show you how it’s done.”