Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ALEX
As muted, morning light streamed through the open curtains, I gazed down at Kit, asleep next to me in bed.
The night before he’d led me upstairs, where we’d stripped off and crawled under the duvet.
I’d wrapped my arms around him and, speaking only with gentle kisses, I’d stroked his back until he’d relaxed and fallen sleep.
I’d lain awake, and watched darkness give way to a murky winter’s day.
Kit’s story haunted me. When he’d said he’d gone to a weekend party, in a house just outside London, I’d almost had a heart attack, but it had nothing to do with me or Kelvin, thank god. And the cage in the bedroom. Christ, no wonder Kit had freaked out that night in Euphoria.
Whatever had gone on there, and I had a pretty good idea, Kelvin and I went to lengths to make sure nothing got out of hand.
Because I insisted on it. My stomach turned over.
Coerced boys, and those Kit had been sure were underage.
Trafficked boys. The hardline I wouldn’t cross for any price.
The hardline Kelvin, with his cosying up to Aksoy, was pushing for me to redraw.
Kit shifted and his hair flopped over his face.
Gently, so as not to wake him, I pushed it aside and stared down at him.
I didn’t underestimate how difficult it had been for him to tell me what he’d done to survive.
Would I have the courage to do the same?
To explain what I’d done to survive? To explain how I’d become the man I was? The truth was, I didn’t know.
I slipped out of bed, avoiding answering my own questions, and headed to the shower in the hope the hot water would wash away the dread that covered me like dried on sweat.
Kit was still asleep when I emerged, so I made my way downstairs and out into his postage stamp sized garden that was so him.
Bird boxes were nailed to the fence and on the tiny shed at the rear of the garden, along with bug and bee hotels set up in corners.
He’d made his own little wildlife sanctuary and I wondered what it’d all look like in the height of the summer.
A hard rev of a car engine on the other side of the garden fence, followed by a burst of drum ’n' bass, shoved me out of my musings and I forgot all about the birds and the bees as the hard reality of my situation weighed down on me.
I lit up a cigarette, all thoughts that I should give up temporarily pushed aside as the nicotine rush made me close my eyes.
Kit and Kelvin. Kelvin and Kit. How the fuck was I going to reconcile the two?
Kelvin and I, we were… What, exactly? More than friends, way more.
Not lovers, never lovers. We were bound closer than any lovers could be.
I owed him everything. Without him I’d have nothing because you couldn’t have anything if you were dead in some filthy back street.
There had to be a way through this, or around it, or over it, but as I stared out over Kit’s dormant garden, I had no idea how I was going to do it.
“Morning.”
I swung around. Kit, his hair damp from the shower, stood at the open door. In baggy, worn jeans and an over sized hoodie, he looked much younger than his years, and so damned vulnerable.
“Are you okay?” After last night. The question sounded stupid, but I didn’t know what else to say.
“Think so. It was kind of a relief to talk about it.”
“You never told anybody?” Not even the police? He shook his head. If he read my unasked question in my face, he never gave me a clue.
“All I knew was that I had to get away, as fast as I could. I’d have fallen off the edge, otherwise.” He looked away before his gaze flitted back to me. “When I woke up and saw you weren’t there, I thought you’d left. That maybe you’d had second thoughts—”
I pressed a finger to his lips. No way was I going to listen to that shit. “I’m not going anywhere. Believe me when I say that.”
He nodded, and the tension that roped around him tight loosened a little. “Come in and have breakfast with me. I’ve got some eggs that need eating, and the bread is only good for toast.”
I smiled. “What an incredible offer. I think. Besides, breakfast is for wimps.”
“I think you mean lunch. Three square meals a day is my mantra. And elevenses, and afternoon tea. Plus snacks, lots of snacks.”
“Black coffee is all—” My phone buzzed and I pulled it from my jeans, my heart dropping when I saw Kelvin’s name. Not even eight o’clock on a Saturday morning, all it could mean was trouble. And that’s exactly what it was, as I read through the message.
“You have to go.”
“I’m sorry.” I was, more sorry than Kit could know.
“Is there a problem? With your business?”
I almost barked out a laugh. Yeah, you could say that. “There are always problems, it’s the nature of the beast.”
“Can I help in any way? Obviously, I don’t know your sector, but if you’ve got employee issues—”
“No, nothing we can’t handle. Honestly. But thank you.
” I pulled him towards me and kissed the top of his head, closing my eyes as I inhaled the sweet vanilla from the shampoo he’d used.
He sighed as he slipped his arms around my waist, and Jesus, but didn’t I just want to shut the world out and take him back to bed and hold on to him as tight and hard as I could, the rest of the shitty world kept as far from us as possible.
But it wasn’t possible because the world I knew—the only world I knew—was dragging me back as my mobile buzzed again.
“I’ve got to go, but I’ll call you later. I promise.” Kit nodded against my chest before he stepped out of my embrace, leaving me feeling as though he’d taken a part of me with him. He eased me towards the door, back to a life I didn’t know for how long I could carry on living.
“Any update on his condition?” They were the first words out of my mouth as Kelvin opened his door to me.
I’d rung him as soon as I’d left Kit’s, and he’d put plenty of flesh on the bare bones of the message he’d sent.
A young escort, so popular there was a waiting list for him at The Blue Angel.
Twenty-two, twenty-three, no more than that, now lying in a bed in a small, private hospital, with one of our most trusted men in attendance.
I felt sick, because that could have been Kit lying in a hospital, on any one of the nights he’d been with a client. Kelvin shrugged.
“He’ll live, even though some of the cuts were deep.
Most of them were to his torso, thighs, and arse.
The doc said the scarring will fade. In time.
The other boys are spooked, but I’ve authorised ‘loyalty bonuses’,” he said, air quoting the words with his fingers.
“Funny how a few extra quid can smooth over doubts and worries.”
I said nothing, Kit’s story about his last big earner still fresh in my mind.
The private hotels rarely gave us serious trouble but that had changed the night before. We’d get the odd report come through about the occasional difficult client, and we were quick to bar them from returning. The hotels had always run like clockwork and we wanted to keep it that way.
“As for the client, he received a visitor. Not so sure his scars will fade.”
I met Kelvin’s eye, and he held my gaze.
He, the punter, who from what we could make out from the scared witless manager, had without any warning or provocation, turned on the lad who was currently hooked up to monitors and tubes.
Kelvin had sorted it. The image of the Stanley knife he’d always carried flashed through my head.
“Scum bags like him deserve everything they get, babe. You know that.”
All I could do was nod. Kelvin was right. Most people, or civilians as he called them, would never see it like that, but in the world we were enmeshed in there were no shades of grey, only crude black and white. You got hit, you hit back harder.
“Hey, the boy will be fine.” Always quick, always agile, Kelvin was at my back, his hands manipulating the stiff muscles of my shoulders. “We’ll make sure the lad’s looked after. Medical expenses, rent paid, food on the table. For as long as it takes. I promise.”
“What about his family? They’ll want to know how it happened. They’ll want to go to the police.”
“There is no family. Parents divorced, he doesn’t know where they are.
The story’s been sorted. Mugging that went wrong.
No need to involve the law. He just has to stick to the line, and he will.
” I twisted my neck and looked up at Kelvin, looming over me, and he frowned.
“The law wouldn’t protect him, or give him justice. We both know it.”
I turned away, no longer able to hold Kelvin’s gaze. He was right We both know it. I knew it, to my cost.
He carried on kneading the stiffness out of my muscles, and as always his expert touch made my eyelids drop to a close as I let him work on me.
I knew he’d finished when he rested his hands on my shoulders, all movement ceasing yet this time, instead of the hard kiss on the top of the head, his arms snaked around my chest as he pressed his cheek to mine.
“Everything’ll be okay but only if we stick together, like we’ve always done. Just you and me, babe, just you and me. Remember that, and we’ll be fine.”
I pulled out of his arms, which felt like chains holding me down. Had Kelvin said those words just a few weeks before, I’d have agreed with them. But I couldn’t any longer. It wasn’t just me and him anymore, and it would never be again. Kit had come into my life and knocked my world from its axis.
Everything for me had changed, and it could never, ever be the same again.