Chapter 9 Declan
“Good, looks like everyone is here now.” She takes a sip of her wine.
“Sorry, Mom, traffic was a bitch.” Liam says as he grabs a tumbler from the bar cart and pours himself a Scotch. It’s another part of the Sunday dinner ritual. Cocktails before dinner.
“How did last night go, Ronan?” Kieran asks. So that was why Ronan didn’t show up last night. He had a target. Fuck that would have been better than a fight. Then I remembered that I had asked to be taken off the roll until I had the Xavier situation handled. I need to fix that.
“Fine. The asshole will not be able to hit anyone again. He will be lucky if he can ever hold his dick to take a piss.” Ronan smiles. Aunt Alessia grimaces.
“Do you have to use such vulgar descriptions? Especially right before we eat?” she chastises.
“Sorry, Mom, I’ll try to remember to refrain from doing so until after we eat,” Ronan says, knowing damn well he wouldn’t.
Alessia knows what we were and how we are, and accepts it.
That doesn’t keep her from calling out our bullshit.
It is meant to help us recognize social cues. For the most part, it works.
Dinner is served in the large formal dining room.
They have a cook and staff who prepare nice dinners for us, but dessert is always made by Alessia personally.
For some reason, she loves baking and making desserts.
Tonight it’s crème br?lée, my favorite. I think the fact that you have to destroy the perfect shell to get to the good stuff calls to me.
“Declan, have you thought any more about how you are going to handle your new fella?” Alessia asks me about midway through dinner.
“New fella? What are you mom eighty?” Finn snickers. He was right, it’s kinda funny the way she said it. Aunt Alessia had been raised mainly by her grandparents just outside Savannah, Georgia. They were steeped in the good-ole Southern tradition and charm.
“What new fella, and why do you have to handle him?” My father asks. Oh yeah, that’s right, I forgot to notify him about my new development and that I hired him. Not that I think my father will have a problem with my sexuality.
“Xavier Bonner, and I plan on keeping him. He’s starting tomorrow as my assistant.” My father blinks at me.
“Who is Xavier Bonner?”
“I met him Friday night at Perfection.” My father rolls his eyes.
“So you meet a boy out clubbing on Friday, and by Sunday you have already decided to hire him?”
“No, that was decided yesterday when I spoke to Aunt Alessia and Uncle Kieran.” I correct.
“Is he even the least bit qualified for the job?” My father continues with the questions. I don’t understand the issue with this part because he told me to find and hire my own PA. But before I can answer, Ronan chimes in.
“He could be considered qualified. He graduated at the top of his class in project management, with a minor in business. He worked for Albright Construction until he was fired on Friday.” Ronan looks over to me.
“I found out more about that part. It kept bugging me, so I dug a little deeper. Apparently, his boss is a homophobic piece of shit and took it out on Xavier throughout most of his employment there.” We all long since stopped asking how he came by all his information—but speaking of information.
“By the way, your information was incomplete. You forgot to include his clothing and shoe sizes in the dossier.”
“Why the fuck would you need that information? It was a background, not a fucking dating profile.” Ronan snaps back at me. If there is one thing that will truly set him off, it’s being questioned about his information. It’s one of the only times that his robotic demeanor shows any cracks.
“How else am I supposed to order his clothes? Now I have to wait until Monday.” My father holds up his hand and cuts off my little tirade.
“Why would you be buying your new assistant clothes?”
“I told you he’s mine, and he needs to dress well, especially at the office.” My Aunt lays her hand on my father’s forearm.
“What Declan is trying to say is that he wants to be in a relationship with this boy. I suggested that he hire him so Xavier can get to know Declan. It should make it easier and keep Declan from doing something that he shouldn’t.” She explains.
“Since when are you gay?”
“I’m not, I don’t think. All I know is that as soon as I saw him, I knew that he was mine.
I don’t know why I keep having to explain this.
” My uncle, who hasn’t stopped eating, tells my dad the same thing he said yesterday: that Xavier is my Alessia.
And to my surprise, my dad just nods. Maybe that’s how I should explain things to Xavier, since it’s what everyone seems to understand.
Once we are done with dinner, we all go into Alessia’s office. It’s more like a conference room than an office, really. There is a desk for her, but a large oak table takes up most of the room.
Aunt Alessia loses all her southern charm the moment she enters this room, and the doors are shut. She may not be like the rest of us, but she has no trouble playing judge, jury, and executioner.
“There have been at least four homeless teenagers and young men who have gone missing; two are confirmed dead.” Alessia starts the meeting.
“The police have no leads. I honestly don’t think they looked into it very hard.
The case files are thin, and they still have not linked the four together.
We have someone preying on the homeless teens of our city.
I want them stopped. Ronan, screen please. ”
“These are the four boys: Chase White, Bobby Carter, Devon Smith, and Travis Carver.” The pictures of four boys fill the screen.
They were all similar in appearance—small, delicate features with a mop of curly brown hair and brown eyes.
“The red dots on the map show the last known location of when they were seen alive. The two blue ones are where the bodies were found. The dump sites are both in relatively vacant areas: one an abandoned building, the other a store. Both boys were physically and sexually assaulted before they were strangled to death.”
“I have sent the information that we do have to all of you via the secured email,” Ronan adds when Alessia stops talking.
“I haven’t heard anything about this on the news,” Dad says. He watches the news religiously.
“The media has had very little coverage. The mayor wants to keep it quiet as long as he can. Apparently, the fact that the kids are homeless and poor makes for bad PR for the city.” The disdain drips from Alessia’s words.
She and the mayor have butted heads several times.
The man must have a death wish. “The murders have been spread out over the last ten months. The first two were within forty-five days of each other, and the bodies were found soon after they were taken. The last two, no bodies, but there is a longer period between the last known sighting.”
Liam studies the pictures intently. “You know, Declan, they all look like your boy. He’s a bit older, but he fits the victim type.
” I look closer at the pictures and can see it.
“One of the bodies was found close to the shithole he lives in.” That gets my attention.
I study the pictures of the four victims. I see the resemblance, and a tidal wave of fury hits me.
He’s too close to the dump sites, too close to the victim type.
“I plan on moving him into my building tomorrow. I have his temporary apartment ready so that he won’t be in the shit hole.”
“Are you sure he will move? He ran out of the club like his ass was on fire Friday night.”
“He will,” I state with no hesitation.
“You may need a backup plan if your caveman demands aren’t enough.” Finn crosses his arms and leans back in his chair with a smirk on his face.
“Could we get back to the case? While I’m sure that Declan’s love life is going to be fascinating to watch, like a train wreck, I have other things to do.
” Ronan says as he changes the screens to the information on each of the boys.
Aunt Alessia divides up the tasks that she wants each of us to handle.
I’ll be the one to get any information from any persons of interest. We all have our skill sets when it comes to our targets.
Mine happens to be getting information. The ability to inflict pain and still hold back enough was a hard learned lesson for me.
“I want anyone that you find to be involved brought to the compound. We will extract and dispose of them there.” We have our marching orders. This is her dismissing us.
“Declan, you do realize the risk you are taking by bringing Xavier into our world, yeah? You will be putting him in danger. Right now, he is a liability, and he is your responsibility.”
“I understand. I will keep him safe.”
“Make sure he can handle it.”