Chapter Nineteen Last Christmas #3
Blackwell raised a hand, tone all placating. “I’d like to apologise—”
“Apologise?” Aaron scoffed. “You want to fucking apologise? There’s no sorry big enough for what you’ve done. What you are.”
“I’m aware I overstepped a mark.”
Aaron barked a bitter laugh. “Overstepped? That’s one hell of a polite little euphemism. What you did was calculated. Manipulative. Predatory. Fucking pathetic.”
“I made a mistake.”
“A mistake.” Venom rode on every syllable. “You made a whole fucking series of mistakes, mate. And the first was thinking you could come anywhere near me. Jesus. You even know who I am and still did it! And fuck, you’ve got a wife and a kid. What about them, eh?”
Blackwell dropped his gaze, shame painting his face. “If it’s any consolation… my wife’s left me.” He motioned limply to the corner of the office. Suitcase, blanket, the fold-out chair he’d clearly been sleeping in.
“Consolation?” Aaron let out a sharp, incredulous laugh. “You seriously think that’s meant to make me feel better? What? Your family falling apart is supposed to balance the karmic books?”
Blackwell held up his hands. “Let’s call it… justification, then. And in my defence, I didn’t know you were involved with someone.”
Aaron stared at him for a long, silent beat.
Then shook his head, disgust twisting his mouth.
“You think that’s why I’m here? You think this is about you copping a feel in the fucking kennels?
That you took one look at me and thought, yeah, he’d be up for a sneaky little boss-boy blowjob between shifts.
Thought I’d be flattered. That I’d blush and stammer and thank you for the attention. Like I’m a warm mouth with a name tag.”
He leaned forward, eyes burning.
“Like I don’t have a man at home who does all that and more?
Cause you saw bratty twink and thought no one could love this.
” Aaron gestured to himself and let the silence hang, thick and choking, until Blackwell squirmed under it.
“You didn’t just misread the room, Blackwell.
You built yourself a nice little fantasy, then jammed me into it without asking. And, fuck, you chose the wrong man.”
Blackwell opened his mouth. “I realise that—”
“But that?” Aaron cut in. “That doesn’t even touch the sides.”
Of course it had. Of course it fucking had.
And they both knew it. Blackwell had watched him spiral.
Enjoyed it, probably. Drank it in as if owed the aftermath.
But Aaron wasn’t here to cry victim. He was done bleeding for men like that.
He was here to point the finger. To burn the rot out at the root.
Because the truth was that if Kenny hadn’t been there, if Aaron hadn’t clawed his way out…He might’ve ended up curled in the snow beneath a nativity scene too. Another silent, still boy lit by Christmas lights and a predator’s twisted sense of mercy.
“You fooled him, y’know.” Aaron shook his head. “Kenny. The fucking Dr Kenneth Lyons. My Kenny. Brilliant criminal psychologist. Can read a killer from one footprint and half a heartbeat, but you slipped right past him.”
Blackwell flinched.
“But I saw you.” Aaron dipped forward. “Knew what you were. And since you’ve already read my HR file and stalked your way to my address, you know I’m not stupid. Got a degree in forensic psych myself. Top marks. So let’s break you down, shall we?”
He cocked his head, voice twisting into analytical and cold.
“Internalised homophobia. Can’t admit you’re bi.
Closet-case meltdown. Repressed self-loathing wrapped in a saviour complex.
Midlife crisis with a splash of messiah kink.
Or maybe…” He leaned in, voice dropping to a breath.
“Maybe you get off on the power. On seeing how far you can push before someone snaps. Kenny got that right, at least. That you get a thrill from it. Narcissistic, self-important, power-drunk prick who thinks the world owes him worship.”
Blackwell said nothing. Didn’t move, either. He sat there, face pale, as if he had no idea someone could be brazen enough to say all this to him.
Well, Aaron could.
“Kenny’ll be here in a minute. He can translate all that into proper academic wank if you want.
Diagnose you nice and clean so you get the right therapy while you rot in prison.
” He locked his gaze on Blackwell’s. “But me? I don’t need a degree to name it.
You’re a coward. A predator. And a walking cliché.
As pathetic as my mother, actually. No, wait. You’re more like my dad.”
Blackwell flinched.
“Frank was a deviant bastard, too. Got off on control, on fear. Thought he was clever. He wasn’t. Let himself get chewed up by the wrong fucking hand and hung himself in a prison cell because of it.”
Aaron sniffed sharply, rage cutting into his throat. Saying it aloud ran him ragged, but he didn’t stop and Blackwell stared at him, wide-eyed, as if he’d forgotten how to breathe.
“And the card? What the fuck was that?” Aaron spat.
“Some sick game? Letting me know you’d figured it out?
That the son of Roisin and Frank Howell couldn’t possibly have the perfect life he’s pretending to live?
” He pointed a finger at him. “Well, fuck you. I do. I have a man who loves me. Worships me, actually. And it’s not you who gets to decide if I’m a good boy or not. It’s him. Only him!”
Blackwell flew his hands up in surrender, glancing to the open door as if someone might save him.
Probably the police. Aaron would’ve laughed if he wasn’t so emotionally strung out, vibrating with a fury he could barely contain.
All he could think, sickening, burning through his gut, was how stupid this man was.
How this pitiful, ridiculous man had lured beautiful, vulnerable young minds to their deaths.
He hated him.
God, he hated him. Hated him with a blistering, bone-deep fury. The same way he hated his parents. That festering rot that never left. Blackwell had it, too. That same stink. Cloaked in charity. Wrapped in softness. Predatory behind a smile.
“And why her, eh?” He sniffed back the encroaching tears.
Not for himself. But for her. Skye. For the life she’d only just started to live.
The one she wanted for herself. Now snuffed away as if it meant nothing.
As if she meant nothing. She hadn’t got the chance to start over.
Not like he had. “Why Skye? Was it simply because you saw me talk to her? Was that it? And how did you get her to come to you? Because she was smart. Clued up. She could sniff a predator a mile away. She wouldn’t have come to you willingly.
What did you offer her? A job? Money? What was it? ”
Blackwell opened his mouth, but whatever he was going to say died on his tongue as a different voice slid through the room.
“I offered her the puppy.”
Aaron turned, only for Chaos to leap from his resting place, snarling. But a blur sliced past Aaron’s ear then thunk. A dart buried itself in Blackwell’s neck. The man jerked, spasmed, then slumped boneless into the chair.
“And a sweet. A nice peppermint sweet to make her sleepy.”
Another dart cut the air, and it struck Chaos square in the flank, his yelp tearing Aaron in two.
“No—no, no, no!” Aaron dropped to his knees, clutching his convulsing dog. But Chaos stumbled, legs folding under him, hitting the floor with a sickening thud.
Then Aaron peered up. Saw him.
Standing in the doorway, holding a handmade dart gun cobbled together from old pipes and malice, was the man in red himself. Not the garish plastic Santa from the charity posters. Not the laughing old man on biscuit tins. No. This Santa was colder. Cruder.
And as cleverly hidden in plain sight.
“Puppies always work.” Jonathon, dressed as Santa cocked his head. “Isn’t that what Frank used to do? And the pastor? Lure in the children with the promise of puppies? Isn’t that how Jessica met her end? Poor Jessica Lyons.”
Aaron drew in a breath.
“But what I gave Skye was redemption.” Jonathon stepped into the light with the same gentle smile he wore when handing out adoption flyers, or coaxing troubled kids to stroke a dog for a moment of love.
Probably the same smile he wore when peppermint clung to his breath and bodies bled out at his feet. “Hi, Cain.”
Aaron let Chaos go and shot to his feet. “What the—what the fuck is this?”
Jonathon stepped inside, eyes bright with a terrible calm. “You weren’t supposed to be here, you know. This part wasn’t for you. But then again… you always were a problem. Just like me.”
Aaron clenched his fists. “I’m nothing like you.”
Jonathon tilted his head. “Oh, but you are. Two little boys with fucked-up mothers and monsters for fathers. You’re better at pretending, though.
” His smile cracked wider. “I tried to be good. I am good. I help. I serve. I cleanse. You? You play at being good for a man who fucks you like a project. That’s not goodness. That’s… disgusting.”
Aaron took a step back.
“You worship him,” Jonathon spat, his voice cracking around the edges, trembling with something that might’ve once been control.
“You let him define you. Touch you. Own you. And you call that love?” He shook his head with a sneer.
“That’s not love. Not a mother’s love. You should have been honouring her.
Like me! Like I have. She’s the one who gave you life.
I bled to become the son my mother demanded.
The pure one. The redeemed one. And you…
you think your pain makes you special? That you’re some tragic fucking prince? ”