Chapter 53
“Iknow there’s so much still to work on in our life.” Keo’s voice brushes against my neck. “But I’m glad we have each other to figure it out.”
He holds me in that same possessive way he always does at night—the way that says ‘I’m not going anywhere’. That I belong only to him, and the world would have to crack in half for us to be separated. Even then, I swear he’d dive into the very core of the planet to get me.
“I’m grateful we found our way back to each other.” He kisses the back of my neck and nuzzles his growing beard against my skin.
“For as long as we both—”
“There’s no end to this,” he cuts me off while dragging one hand up to my jaw and turning me to look up at him. “I always thought it was stupid to say, ‘As long as we both shall live’. Pfft. Our souls will find one another even in the life after we live this one together.”
He smiles, the one I can see in the moonlight that leaks through the curtains.
I nod. “I can get behind that.”
“Damn right you can.”
Dragging my hand up to his neck, I pull him closer. “I wouldn’t want to navigate this life, or any, without you.”
He moves, turning me onto my back and hovering over me. “You die. I die.” His hair falls over his shoulders, and I reach up to run my fingers through it. “Remember that, sunshine.”
“You live, I live.” I put my hands up to the back of his neck, and tug him closer. “I like that better.”
His soft hum brushes against my mouth. “I’d rather it be that, but…” He places a kiss against my lips. “I can’t go back to a life without you in it. I’ve found my happiness, my home. You’ve filled the space that has been empty for so long, and I refuse to feel hollow again.”
My smile only grows.
“My place is right here with you, forever.”
“Forever,” I murmur before pulling him down to me, kissing the man that I love unconditionally.
They said I’d never go to Heaven, but I could swear I saw the light before the bitter cold woke me.
Not that I expected to go to a place of Paradise after this life, but I wanted to stay in that glimpse of safety forever. A place where I didn’t have to worry, just be with Keo. To not wake to the shivering I can’t control, and definitely not to the person standing a mere foot in front of me.
“There you are.”
My body shakes, and no matter how badly I beg it to stop, it won’t. Both my arms lie sprawled outward before me. Memories from before being knocked out remind me both were popped out of their joints. They don’t hurt; I can’t feel them, which is equally as scary.
I know I’m lying on the deck that’s covered in a soft layer of snow. I’d recognize this place. Keo and I have sat out here so often, I swear we’ve imprinted our asses into the wood.
Michael moves closer and kneels. “I contemplated feeling my cock in your ass or mouth one last time, but I don’t want to mix myself with your family. It’s tainted, just like your brain.”
I try to swallow, but my throat feels frozen over, just like the rest of my body. I’m certain all I have on is shorts.
“It didn’t have to be this way, Ayden.”
“J-Just…” My teeth chatter. “M-Move on.” Why is that so fucking difficult? Why? I don’t understand!
He sighs. “You don’t get it. I think about you all the time. Think about how you’re fucking your family. I can’t… move on.” His head tilts as he frowns. “Not until you’re gone. Then I think I will. No more wondering if you’ll come back to me.”
I shut my eyes and try to shake my head.
“I did try to take care of him before this… just him.” My heart drops to my stomach, and I heave on nothing.
“I’d done everything right… set up the recording, timed it perfectly.
So many fucking hours of watching him and his squad work.
I had everything fucking RIGHT. He was supposed to die when that explosion went off.
Yet, it’s like God was protecting a brother-fucker. Crazy, huh?”
“Y-You…”
Michael killed Corey… and nearly Keoni…
“I’d say that was the worst thing I’ve done since being with you. But then that would make me a liar…”
His hand moves to my cheek, knuckles dragging down to my bare shoulder.
“Guess it doesn’t hurt to confess this. At least I can get it off my chest. Not that I feel any sort of guilt, but who knows, maybe I’ll feel lighter.”
“Don’t… touch me…” I clench my jaw to stop my chattering teeth.
“It was your own fault.”
He pushes me slightly, and the slosh of snow as he does has me shivering further. It isn’t colder, but it’s like my brain was reminded I’m currently laying in snow.
Is he going to let me die of hypothermia? Cause that’s where this is leading.
“You were going to leave me because, once again, you wanted to come to this fucking place for the holidays. You couldn’t just be happy to be with me, could you?” His hand balls into a fist, and I close my eyes, preparing for him to hit me.
I’m surprised when he doesn’t. Instead, he just continues talking, “The night of your so-called accident”—my skin heats, and my heart frantically begins to beat in my ears—“I nearly killed you.”
Slowly, I refocus on his face, the image of him going in and out of a blur.
“You just… pissed me off.”
An unknown memory of a fight I don’t recall flickers in my mind.
“I’m leaving, Michael. I’m done.”
“You aren’t fucking going anywhere!”
“We had such a great night. We saw the movie you wanted to see. Ate dinner at the place you wanted to eat at. Yet you still weren’t happy.”
“If you touch that door, I swear to God, Ayden.”
Flashes of his bloody apartment and his voice flood my head.
“I’d gone a little too far, I’ll admit. The bat was a bit too much.”
I think I actually stop shaking, or I simply can’t register it anymore. What… is he saying?
“I’m honestly surprised you didn’t die. I’d broken your back, and that hit to your head should’ve done the trick.
All it did was knock you out. I think I realized then that I couldn’t be reckless and commit murder in my own home.
” He drags his fingers along my shoulder and down my arm.
“You just loved to push me to the edge. It was your fault, but what had been done, was done.” A sigh vibrates from his throat.
“I was going to fake a break-in, but that was too convenient. Plus, I know you told your sister I had hit you once before.”
Several times before…
Even if flashes of that night surface, I don’t… remember any of it. I don’t even recall going to dinner. He said we were just heading home…
“She’d have told your dad, and that would’ve been messy. A car accident that you caused because you had been drinking? One I knew my dad would help me clean up to ‘keep you safe’. Now that was… relatively easy. Still a fucking mess, and lots of strings to pull.”
“I don’t… understand. Why?”
He sighs and rolls his eyes, as if irritated by my questions.
“Because you belong to me, Ayden. It’s more than obsession.
I can’t allow you to be with anyone else.
We built a life together and you can’t just move on!
” He scoffs. “You are meant to be mine. No one’s allowed to leave me. Especially not you.”
“P-Psychotic… asshole…”
“Anyway… You had completely forgot about the argument that night, thanks to the hit to your head. That was lucky. At least I didn’t need to threaten you to keep your tantalizing lips shut. I thought we’d only go up from there. I’d become your savior… but no. Because nothing could go my way.
“You were supposed to be hit with a DUI, but my dad did too good of a job and you were slapped on the wrist instead. Suspension. Pfft. Even so, SF General should’ve taken your reckless behavior into account and fired you.
But since that doctor friend of yours pulled his strings, that didn’t happen.
You were supposed to become dependent on me, and I was going to take care of you… as long as you were my good boy.”
I’m so tired… so cold…
“Michael… please… just let it go. Let me go.”
“See? You aren’t listening.” He presses his hand against my face and presses down, using me to help him stand. “I can’t let you go. Not to your fucking stepbrother. To absolutely anyone. It’s why you have to die.”
My chest constricts and I grind my teeth together.
“No.”
“Yes, but don’t worry, you and your stepbrother are going to Hell together. I’m sure you’ll see him there.”
His boot presses hard into my chest, and no matter how much I fight to find a way to stay put, I’m forced backward. The second the planks vanish from beneath me, weightlessness grips me. I attempt to kick my legs to hook around something, only to realize my legs are bound.
“I wish you could’ve seen how good you had it.”
“M-Michael, p-please don’t—” My plea ends in a gasp as I tumble off the dock’s edge. “NO!”
The lake isn’t fully frozen, but slushed over, and I hit it with a muffled thump before the ice gives way. The water swallows me, biting into my skin like a thousand needles. Above me, Michael leans over the edge, his shadow from the moonlit night stretching across the fractured ice.
“Don’t do this!” My scream rips out with the shock of the cold, ragged and desperate.
“Beg me to save you. Beg me to take you home.”
“FUCK YOU!”
I had stayed still, knowing thrashing would drag me down faster, but the instant my lower half sinks below, instinct takes over. I kick, trying to fight the inevitable. The lake doesn’t care. Within seconds, the water climbs past my ribs, then my shoulders, pulling me under.
“Goodbye, Ayden.”
I suck in one last desperate breath before my head plunges beneath the surface.
I’ve never known a cold like this. It’s as if a bullet tore through my brain, every nerve screaming, begging me to claw my way out. Ice crawls through my veins, and I can’t tell if I’m moving or if my body only thinks it is.
My arms drift uselessly above me while my legs kick like a frantic fish. I force my eyes open through the burn, but the surface doesn’t get any closer. The water swallows every effort.
I never understood helplessness until now. When my feet slam against something solid below, realization strikes like a blade—I’m not rising. I’m not escaping.
I squeeze my eyes shut and scream, bubbles ripping free, the last of my breath leaving me. The fight drains away.
No point in resisting the inevitable.
Holy shit. He really killed me.
Keo… If I die, would you?
I love you. I’m sorry.