Chapter 16 #2
“What’s wrong?” Wayne steps closer, and I can smell him, cigarettes and unwashed clothes and something else, something that takes me right back to a six-by-eight cell where the air never moved and safety was a luxury I couldn’t afford. “Not happy to see your old friend?”
Friend. The word makes bile rise in my throat.
“I…I have to go,” I manage, my voice barely above a whisper. “Someone’s waiting for me.”
“Someone’s waiting,” Wayne repeats mockingly. “How sweet. Got yourself a little girlfriend, have you? Someone who doesn’t know what you really are?”
He reaches out as if to ruffle my hair, the same casual gesture Nicky made just this morning that felt like love and protection. But when Wayne does it, it feels like ownership. Like a reminder of all the times I couldn’t stop him from touching me when I didn’t want to be touched.
“Don’t,” I whisper, but my voice has no strength behind it.
Wayne laughs, a sound like breaking glass. “Still the same scared little rabbit, aren’t you? Still trying to pretend you’re better than what you are.”
Before I can react, he’s grabbing my arm and steering me toward a fire exit.
The door opens with a crash, setting off an alarm that wails through the stairwell, but Wayne doesn’t seem to care.
He pushes me through into an alleyway behind the building, and suddenly we’re alone with nothing but brick walls and the distant sound of traffic.
“There we go,” he says, backing me against the wall. “Much more private. Just like old times.”
I’m shaking now, my whole body trembling with a fear so profound it’s made me stupid. I should run. Should scream. Should do something other than stand here like a deer in headlights while my worst nightmare comes to life in broad daylight.
“You know,” Wayne continues conversationally, “I used to wonder how you’d cope on the outside. But looking at you now...” His eyes travel over me in a way that makes my skin crawl. “Seems you are doing alright. Still getting by with that boy pussy of yours?”
“Please,” I whisper, though I’m not sure what I’m begging for.
“Please what?” He leans closer, and I can feel his breath on my face. “Please leave you alone? Please pretend we don’t have history? Please forget all those nights when you were so grateful for my protection?”
The word ‘protection’ hits me like acid. Protection. That’s what he called it when he hurt me, when he used me, when he made it clear that the choice was between him and the even worse things that could happen to an eighteen-year-old in a place like Brixton.
I’m shutting down. I can feel it happening, that familiar disconnection from my body, my mind retreating to someplace safe while whatever’s about to happen happens to someone else. It’s a survival mechanism I learned early in my sentence, and it’s served me well.
But I don’t want to disappear. Not now, not when I’ve finally found something worth staying present for.
“You remember, don’t you?” Wayne whispers. “How good you were at taking care of me? How much you liked it when I was gentle with you?”
I close my eyes, trying to block out his voice, his presence, the memories he’s dragging up from the darkest corners of my mind.
Then I hear something that doesn’t fit. The soft sound of footsteps on concrete.
“Step away from him.”
The voice is cold, controlled, and absolutely lethal. I open my eyes to see Nicky standing at the mouth of the alley, and for a moment I don’t recognize him.
This isn’t the gentle man who made me coffee this morning or kissed me like I was something precious. This is someone else entirely, someone whose presence fills the narrow space with the kind of danger that makes smart people cross to the other side of the street.
Wayne turns, his hand still gripping my arm, and his grin falters slightly when he sees Nicky.
“Well, well,” he says, but there’s less confidence in his voice now. “This must be the sugar daddy. Can’t say I’m surprised, I always knew Pretty Boy liked cock. Nice to meet you, mate. We were just catching up, weren’t we, Liam?”
Nicky doesn’t respond. Doesn’t even acknowledge Wayne directly. Instead, he looks at me, and I see something flicker in his expression when he takes in my face. Whatever he sees there makes his jaw tighten.
“Liam,” he says quietly. “Come here.”
But I can’t move. Wayne’s hand is still on my arm, and even if it wasn’t, my legs feel like water.
“Actually,” Wayne says, his grip tightening, “we’re not quite finished here. See, Liam and I have some unfinished business from our time inside. Don’t we, Pretty Boy?” He turns back to me, ignoring Nicky.
His beady eyes gleam. “You still owe me, and I’ve missed that pretty mouth of yours.”
That’s when Nicky moves.
I’ve never seen anyone move that fast. One moment he’s standing at the mouth of the alley, the next he’s behind Wayne with something dark and heavy in his hand. There’s a wet thud, like a hammer hitting meat, and Wayne crumples to the ground without another word.
The sudden silence is deafening.
I stare down at Wayne’s unconscious form, at the blood trickling from his scalp, at the way his body lies twisted on the dirty concrete. Part of me wants to kick him while he’s down, to take back some small measure of what he stole from me. But mostly I just feel numb.
“Liam.” Nicky’s voice is gentle now, all that cold danger tucked away as quickly as it appeared. Tucked away like the gun he returns to his hostler. “Are you hurt?”
I shake my head, though I’m not sure it’s true. I don’t think Wayne actually touched me, not in any way that would leave marks. But I feel hurt anyway, dirty, in ways that don’t show on the surface.
“Can you speak?”
I nod, then realize that’s not actually speaking. “I’m okay,” I whisper, and the lie tastes bitter on my tongue.
Nicky pulls out his phone and starts speaking rapidly in Italian. I catch maybe every third word, something about cleanup, something about location, something that sounds like orders being given to people who don’t question them.
It strikes me suddenly that Nicky is giving orders.
Not asking for help or calling in favors, but commanding people to do things for him.
I knew he’d climbed the ranks, knew he had money and influence, but seeing it in action is different.
This is power, real power, the kind that makes grown men jump when you tell them to.
Within minutes, a car pulls up at the mouth of the alley.
A man I don’t recognize gets out. Middle-aged, unremarkable, the kind of person you’d forget five minutes after meeting.
But he moves with the same quiet efficiency as Nicky, and when he sees Wayne’s unconscious form, he doesn’t ask questions.
“Boss,” he says simply.
“Boot,” Nicky replies, and together they hoist Wayne’s limp body and carry it to the car.
I watch this happen like it’s a movie, like it’s happening to someone else. The man opens the boot, which I notice is unusually large, and they fold Wayne inside like he’s nothing more than an inconvenient piece of luggage.
When they’re done, Nicky hands the man his car keys. “Take my car home.”
The man nods and disappears, leaving us alone with Wayne safely contained in the boot of a car that I’m suddenly very aware I’m about to get into.
“Come on,” Nicky says gently, opening the passenger door for me. “Let’s go.”
I climb in because I don’t know what else to do. The seat is leather, expensive, and there’s a faint smell of pine air freshener that doesn’t quite mask something else, something metallic and unpleasant that makes my stomach turn.
“Where are we going?” I ask as Nicky starts the engine.
“To Dante’s.”
The name sends a chill through me. Dante, the man who looked at me like I was something he might enjoy breaking. Dante, who Nicky told to stay away from me with such finality that even I could feel the threat underneath.
We drive through London in silence, and I watch familiar streets blur past the window. Normal people going about their normal lives, completely unaware that there’s an unconscious man in the boot of the car next to them at traffic lights.
The industrial estate is exactly what I expected. Rundown, isolated, the kind of place where screams would go unnoticed and unquestioned. Nicky drives around to the back, and metal shutters rise to admit us into a cavernous space that smells of motor oil and something else I don’t want to identify.
The shutters close behind us with a finality that makes my chest tight.
Dante emerges from a side door, and I catch a glimpse of the space beyond, a sofa, a television, the mundane details of someone’s living space. He lives here, in this place that’s clearly designed for things other than comfort.
“Nicolo,” Dante says, his voice carrying that same silky danger I remember from our first meeting. “What do we have here?”
Nicky explains quickly, efficiently, in a tone that suggests this isn’t the first time he’s had to deal with inconvenient people from the past. I listen numbly as he describes my worst nightmare in matter-of-fact tones. Referring to Wayne as, ‘an asshole who gave Liam trouble in prison.’
When he’s finished, Dante looks at me with something that might be sympathy. “I’m sorry this happened to you,” he says, and his voice is unexpectedly gentle. “No one should have to see their abuser again.”
The word ‘abuser’ hangs in the air between us, stark and clinical and absolutely accurate. He saw right through Nicky’s careful and vague wording, and I don’t think I mind.
“Do you want to help?” Dante asks me directly.
The question hits me like a physical blow. Help with what? With whatever they’re planning to do to Wayne? With revenge, with justice, with whatever passes for both in this world that Nicky inhabits?
I shake my head frantically, horrified at the very idea. I’m no angel. I’m not about to beg for Wayne’s life. I’m not going to ask for him to be set free. I am deeply moved that Nicky is willing to do all of this for me. But I don’t want to take part.
I guess that makes me a hypocrite. But I am who I am.
“Do you want to watch?”
Another shake of the head, more violent this time. I can’t. I won’t. This isn’t my world. I’m not cut out for this level of darkness, this casual approach to violence and consequences.
Watching them load Wayne into the boot was bad enough. Whatever comes next, I don’t want any part of it.
But even as I refuse, even as I make it clear that I want nothing to do with their world of shadows and retribution, I can’t help but think one thing. Nicky is going to be disappointed in me.
He’s just saved me from my worst nightmare, and I can’t even stomach watching him deal with the consequences. He’s shown me a glimpse of the power he wields, the lengths he’ll go to protect me, and all I can do is shrink away like the scared little rabbit Wayne said I was.
I was stupid to think things could ever work out between us. Stupid to believe that love could bridge the gap between what I am and what his world demands.
Stupid to think I could ever be strong enough for someone like him.