Chapter 20 Andre
TWENTY
Andre
Rafael is no longer at the bar when I return to Lush.
He’s lounging in one of the deep chairs watching the BDSM show on stage with the dark, intense man that I saw palming his ass earlier.
Rafael is between the guy’s legs, leaning back against him not unlike the way Elias leaned back against me not long ago.
The guy has a hand on Rafael’s throat. He’s squeezing a little but also massaging.
There’s something both violent and tender in their connection.
Rafael is saying something. The other guy speaks in his ear. Rafael smiles.
He always was shockingly beautiful when he smiled, and he knew it. He used it. It kept the men softer with him. Mostly.
I find that I’ve stopped walking. My body is locked. I can’t move.
Rafael spots me. His smile fades. The other man follows Rafael’s gaze to me.
Rafael draws away from the other man, who very clearly doesn’t like that.
Rafael says something to him, which earns him a narrow-eyed look that most people would not enjoy receiving.
But Rafael looks amused, maybe even pleased.
The man’s dark eyes follow Rafael as he walks over to me. Rafael’s hard cock is very obvious against the front of his white pants. His silver corset vest cinches a slight curve into his waist.
I envy him that he can be so sexual, so comfortable in it. But then, he always was.
That’s not fair, I know. He didn’t have any choice. None of us did.
That’s why I can’t move. This doesn’t exist for me. I don’t allow it to.
Even when I took my revenge on Peter Grange, I did it as a role.
I didn’t allow myself to think, not directly, not most of the time, about why I had to destroy him.
That was made easier by the fact that Grange, fifteen years later, didn’t recognize me and had other, newer crimes that I could use against him.
But with Rafael in front of me, who recognizes me plenty well, all of it exists. I don’t know how to deal with that.
It doesn’t help having the filthy sounds of the club around us. It’s affecting me differently now that I don’t have Elias to focus on and reshape sex around. I don’t have my role. I don’t have any of my roles, not with Rafael. He knows what I am.
Rafael waits for me to say something, but I don’t. I fucking can’t.
He asks, “What’s going on, Andre?”
“I—” The word breaks free of my throat almost painfully. If I could focus, I would speak differently, but right now it’s all I can do to get words out, so I say the simplest, truest thing. “I need your help.”
I can see in Rafael’s eyes that he’s kind of an asshole. He always was, even back then. But for some reason, he wasn’t an asshole to me two years ago when I met Peter Grange upstairs, and he’s not an asshole to me now.
I almost wish that he would be. It would be easier if I could hate him.
But he motions for me to follow him. “We can talk in the office.”
I get my feet moving, but my body feels weird and clumsy as I walk with Rafael past the bar to a discreet door in the far wall. He opens it, letting me into a sophisticated office with good lighting, more erotic photographs, and a desk with several expensive monitors.
Rafael closes the door, but he barely has his hand off the handle before it flies open again and the dark, intense man that Rafael was with storms inside.
He’s dressed in black, contrasting Rafael’s white and silver.
He throws a brief, vicious look at me before pivoting toward Rafael.
He grabs Rafael by the throat and slams him into the wall by the door.
“What kind of game do you think you’re playing, Angel?” he growls.
Angel. All the men used to call Rafael that. But this man is too young to have been one of those men in order to know that. He’s about my age. Mine and Rafael’s.
Rafael’s eyelashes flutter. He grabs the man’s ass and pulls him in tight. “Dominic, you’re taking this all wrong.”
Dominic.
That name is somewhere deep in my mind, locked away with other things.
He growls at Rafael, “You led a man into your office and closed the door. You knew exactly how I would take it. You like him, Angel? You think he’s pretty? What if I think he’s pretty too?”
I should be reacting, getting angry, hostile, aggressive. But I’m stuck inside myself, weirdly removed. It’s not like dissociation. Dissociation feels good. Safe. This doesn’t. I don’t know what the fuck this is.
“Dominic, don’t,” Rafael says. The playfulness is gone from his tone. It’s gone from his body language too. “It’s not like that.”
Dominic stills. He steps back from Rafael, releasing his throat. He looks at me, trying to figure out what’s going on. His eyebrows are drawn low. He doesn’t recognize me. I don’t recognize him either, but his name …
I feel it in the huge, dark, empty space with all the other things that don’t exist.
But they do, of course, along with the version of me that spent those years on the Island with Rafael and the others.
Rafael is still leaning against the wall. He repeats his earlier question. “What’s going on, Andre?”
Hearing my name, Dominic frowns, still trying to figure it out. Maybe a lot of it is a blank for him too. Or maybe I look too different now.
Somehow I manage to function. I still have a weird, disjointed feeling, like I’m somehow here but not here, but whatever part of me is functioning pulls out my phone. I bring up the still from the security feed and turn the screen toward Rafael.
“This man was in here tonight. I need to know who he is.” Fuck, I sound weird. Robotic.
Rafael pushes away from the wall and comes to take my phone. Dominic watches him, and me, but doesn’t interfere.
Rafael frowns at the image. “I can’t tell shit from this.”
I say, “I’ll recognize him if you can find him on your security feed.”
“Andre, you’re gonna have to tell me what this is about.”
“When I was here earlier, I caught this asshole watching the man that I was … with.”
“With,” Rafael echoes.
“It’s complicated.”
Rafael snorts lightly. “It looked complicated. You drugged him. I almost didn’t let you take him out of here.”
“So why did you?”
“Because I could tell it was … complicated. And shit gets that way. For people like us.”
My brain whites out for a second so that I don’t have to react to those words. I need them to go past me.
Rafael disengages and walks to the desk. He sits down and starts working at the keyboard.
“Did you see this guy before or after you fucked the man you were … with?”
Rafael’s eyes flick up to me when I don’t answer. I don’t know what he sees because I don’t know what I’m feeling.
Rafael says less abrasively, “Dominic has fucked me out there plenty of times. It’s probably what would be happening right now if we weren’t in here. It’s what Lush is for. At least in part. Before or after, Andre?”
“Before.”
Rafael is busy at the keyboard for a while. Dominic goes to stand behind him. He plays with the ends of Rafael’s hair. Rafael’s eyelashes flutter occasionally, but he just keeps working. He’s breathing hard though. He’s very aroused. So is Dominic. I interrupted them.
“This is where you came in,” he says, getting up out of the chair. “You’ll have to find the guy.”
My movements still feel jerky and unnatural as I move to take the chair. Rafael and Dominic step back, giving me space.
I feel better as I start working. My hands are busy. My brain has something to do. It glitches a bit at seeing myself and Elias, but I focus on my task. I find the guy I’m looking for. He definitely took a picture of Elias.
As I zoom in, Rafael leans over me to study the screen. When that makes me get out of the chair, he seems to catch himself.
“Sorry,” he says.
I tense. I don’t like that my discomfort is obvious. I don’t like that he’s being so careful with me. He’s acting like he owes me for something.
I freeze as an image flashes through my mind, blazing up from the dark space where nothing is supposed to exist: a hand pulling Rafael back, offering me instead with the words more disposable.
A shudder goes through me. Rafael’s gray eyes flick up, and I can see that he remembers that night, remembers how badly I got hurt.
My mind whites it out.
“I’ll match this to an ID,” Rafael promises, but Dominic lays his hand over Rafael’s on the mouse.
Something darkens in him as he says, “That’s Ernesto Atolli. Mafia.”
That jumpstarts my brain. “Mafia? Why the hell would he be interested in Elias?”
Rafael is frowning. “Why do I feel like I’ve heard that name?”
“Probably because Ernesto’s uncle is Piero Valenci,” Dominic says grimly. It doesn’t mean anything to me, but it obviously does to Rafael.
“Dominic, are you sure?”
“Yeah, Angel.”
“Fuck. Then Ernesto was probably here scouting young men to traffic. Elias is what, early 20s? And he’s very pretty.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I snap.
Rafael looks at me. “You don’t remember Piero?”
My heart is hammering. “No.”
“I do. He liked me.”
I shake my head. I will not deal with this. I can’t. I walk out of the office into the club, straight into the beat of the music and the sounds of sex. My stomach turns. I walk through to the foyer and out of the building.
I suck in a huge breath of cool, fresh air. Another. I want to keep walking, run maybe, start over, wipe all of this out. I’ve done it before.
But …
Elias.
I don’t know how much time passes. I’m standing with my back against the brick wall when Dominic comes out. He puts his back to the wall, stands beside me.
He’s silent for a long time then says, “There’s a lot I don’t remember.”
I don’t reply. He doesn’t expect me to.
After a while, he says, “Rafael cleaned up some audio. You should listen to it.”
He pushes away from the wall and walks to the door. I go with him. The bouncer lets us in.
We walk through the sex club to the office. Dominic shuts the door, cutting off the sounds.