Chapter Fifteen
Aftershocks
Seth
Reaching the top of the staircase, Seth paused to catch his breath, but whatever he did—however much oxygen he sucked into his lungs—he couldn’t erase the horror show playing out in his mind.
His mum was having sex down the hallway with the man who owned the gigantic house he was standing in—the same man who’d apparently cuffed her to his bed—and try as he might, Seth could not wrap his head around it. If truth be told, he wasn’t supposed to be able to. Grown children were not meant to catch their parents in flagrante delicto for good reason, but even as he gripped the banister and started down the stairs, he couldn’t bring himself to regret what he’d done.
He might not like what he’d seen—might never get over the sickening trauma of the images burned into his brain—but he’d acted with his mum’s best interests at heart. She might currently be reeling in the throngs of passion with Kyle—a consensual act he’d had the misfortune to witness—but he still didn’t like that she was cuffed, and he couldn’t shake the sense that perhaps the binds hadn’t been her choice.
Bondage was one thing if everyone involved was on board, but the way she’d pleaded with Kyle to remove the cuffs suggested anything but consent. That thought jarred, pushing the revulsion of what he’d witnessed from his mind as he slowly reached the bottom of the stairs. If Kyle had cuffed her without her assent, what did that mean? Jonah had inferred the two were engaged in a loving relationship, but what was caring about coercing someone into cuffs?
Standing at the bottom of the staircase, he glanced back in the direction he’d come from, although the weight of shadows made the landing all but impossible to see. What if the things he’d seen hadn’t been entirely harmonious? What if his mother had ceded but not really consented?
His heart raced at the disturbing possibility. If there was any truth to his theory, then he’d just left her in the bedroom at the whim of a powerful and possibly deranged man. Anxiety bubbled at the idea. She’d seemed to be enjoying herself, but how did he know she was?
“Jeez…” He blew out a breath. A guy could go nuts trying to reconcile the matter. “I hope she’s okay.”
Slipping the knife into his back pocket, he realized he had to believe she was. He’d find somewhere to wait while the two of them got their crazy desire out of their system, then he’d return to check on her. Seth suspected he wouldn’t be happy until he’d spoken with her himself—preferably without the input of her beau.
Pulling out his phone, he directed the flashlight around the empty entranceway, lighting the enormous space in fleeting pockets. He opted to turn left at the bottom step, knowing already where the corridor to the right led, and followed the beam of light to a wooden door. Yanking it open, he slipped past the threshold, closing it behind him to find yet another passage, but the latest one was narrower and densely wood-paneled.
Strange . He shook his head. The house—just like its owner—just gets more and more curious.
Determined to continue and not dwell on what might be transpiring upstairs, he stalked along the small hallway. He couldn’t decide why any corridor would be bookended by two doors, but he had to admit, the odd feature had piqued his interest. By the time he reached the second doorway, he was eager to know which room was waiting beyond it. Seth was willing to wager it was somewhere significant to Kyle.
Somewhere he’d rather keep away from prying eyes.
Turning the handle, he half expected to find the place locked, but to Seth’s surprise, the door opened without resistance. Directing his light around the new room, he found what he suspected was a huge study. An enormous desk sat in the middle of the space, and a large monitor waited on top of it, conveying it was the place where Kyle worked, although what the mystery man actually did for a living was unclear.
Seth flicked off his flashlight. He was conscious of wanting to save power on the device, and assuming the only other people in the mansion were the couple entwined in the upstairs bedroom, he realized he might as well just use the main lights. Feeling for a light switch, he commanded warm yellow light to spread around the space.
The room was, as he’d guessed, Kyle’s office, home to an array of bookshelves and filing cabinets that housed what he supposed was his life’s work. Seth pulled open the nearest drawer and perused the papers, finding nothing of any particular interest. Whatever it was Kyle did, it certainly wasn’t obvious.
He started a circuit of the room, attempting to steer his mind from the shock of what he’d witnessed. His gaze landed on the selection of photographs Kyle had around the place, his focus drilling into one picture in particular.
Picking up the black frame, he peered more closely at the man smiling in the image. It was, he supposed, Kyle himself, although the shadowy figure of the man he’d seen in the hallway had revealed few features to properly identify him. The man in the photograph, though, exhibited a number of those features. Swaths of dark hair covered his head, his blue eyes shining as he stood in front of the picturesque background of a mountain range.
Seth drew the image closer, aware of a niggling feeling in the pit of his chest. There was something peculiarly recognizable about the guy in the picture, something about his face that stirred a distant memory, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.
A memory?
If he recognized Kyle, they had to have met previously, or at least Seth must have seen him before.
“Do I know you?”
He spoke to the image directly, almost laughing at his lunacy. Coming to Brock Hall hadn’t gone the way he’d expected, and after stumbling across his mum in bed, he was talking to bloody photographs in a stranger’s office.
“What the fuck is wrong with me?” Seth placed the frame down, cursing himself as he wandered to the desk.
He had no idea what he was looking for as his gaze cast over the papers strewn on the polished wood. All he knew was that there had to be an answer to the irritating riddle of who Kyle was and how, if at all, Seth knew him, and since he had nowhere better to be, he might as well search for it in the man’s study.
“Who are you?” Sliding the blade from his back pocket, Seth slumped into the guy’s executive recliner. He glanced around at the so-called art on the wall, throwing the blade onto the desk as his attention returned to Kyle’s endless rounds of paperwork. Reaching for the nearest pile, he flicked through the papers. “How do I know you?”
The selection of paperwork appeared to be contracts—tenancy agreements between Kyle and a number of other people—but there was nothing especially interesting about them. All the wad revealed was one of what Seth supposed was a number of Kyle’s income streams—the reason he owned a home like Brock Hall while Seth’s dad had worked his entire life and never owned any property. It wasn’t until Seth skimmed the details that one significant variable leaped off the page at him.
Aspen Way.
His heart sped up as his gaze lingered on the address. Aspen Way was the name of the street he’d grown up on. Flicking through the agreements, he noticed every one of them pertained to the same small cul-de-sac his childhood home had been part of.
“What the fuck?”
The air around him seemed to grow colder as, finally, he found the contract his father had signed with Kyle. Pulse racing, Seth devoured the particulars, his gaze lingering on Graham Kendal’s signature at the bottom of the page.
“Dad.” His fingers grazed over the dried ink, an image of Graham popping into his mind.
His dad hadn’t really understood his eldest son, and he and Seth had often butted heads, but in the end, the man had been his father, and even during his teen delinquency, Seth was aware of how hard he’d worked to support them all.
Dropping the contracts back to the desk, the last piece of the puzzle slotted into place for Seth. Kyle had been their landlord—the man who’d owned their house on Aspen Way and unceremoniously evicted them after Graham had died—but unless his mother had kept in touch with her ex-landlord, which, based on how upset she’d been to leave their home, seemed unlikely, the connection didn’t explain how she and Kyle had become romantically involved.
Seth’s focus flitted back to the photo he’d looked at earlier, his concentration boring into Kyle’s face as though the image would provide clarity, and at that moment, as though the grinning shot had actually heard his demand, the penny finally dropped.
He remembered how he knew Kyle. Their landlord had come to their house and Seth had greeted him.
He couldn’t have been more than sixteen—right in the middle of the rebellion that ultimately saw him sent to prison—when the then younger version of Kyle had arrived at the Kendal’s Aspen Way home unannounced.
“Who are you?” Seth remembered his skepticism of the sneering suited man who greeted him when he opened the door.
“I own your house.” Kyle’s smirk had riled him.
Seth didn’t understand much about home ownership in those days—hell, he still barely knew anything—but he’d always been able to sniff out a fraud, and standing on the doorstep that day, Kyle had reeked of trickery.
Seth hadn’t known much, but he knew he didn’t trust him.
“What?” No doubt Seth’s cynicism had shown on his youthful face.
“This house.” Kyle had gestured to the houses’ brickwork. “ I’m the landlord. I need to speak to your parents.”
Sitting in Kyle’s office, Seth chuckled, recalling the way he’d rolled his eyes at the older man. If he remembered correctly, he’d had the impression Kyle hadn’t liked him.
“Dad!” The sixteen-year-old Seth had turned, yelling for his father at the top of his lungs before glancing back at the stranger. “There’s someone here for you.”
“Who is it, Seth?”
Seth swore he could still hear his father’s voice in his head.
“I’m busy.”
“I don’t know!” Seth had shrugged when his father finally came into view. “He says he owns the place.”
Recalling the exchange, Seth recollected the way his dad’s face blanched as he saw Kyle standing there. He hadn’t thought about it at the time, but it was clear the two men already knew each other.
“Graham.” Kyle had shoved past Seth to enter the house. “We need to talk.”
“We don’t have an appointment, Mr. Kyle,” his father had replied.
“Come now.” The same inane grin from the picture had lit Kyle’s expression. “We both know it would be better if we talked informally.”
Seth remembered the intensity of that moment, the strained silence, and the sinking feeling in his stomach, even though he’d known nothing about the details. That had been why he’d reached for his jacket and made for the exit. Seth barely had his own shit together back then and hadn’t been ready to deal with his father’s problems.
“Whatever this is about, I don’t want to be involved. I’ll be back later.” His final words rang in his ears as the memory faded from his mind and he lifted his head to find himself stretched out in Kyle’s study.
“So, you used to be our landlord, and now, you’re fucking my mum.” Collecting the blade, Seth rose from the chair and strode back toward the picture that had stirred the initial recognition.
Skimming his fingers over the image of Kyle’s face, his voice was little more than a snarl.
“I don’t care how big your house is, Kyle, I still don’t trust you.”