Chapter 23 #2
He turned around slowly. “Buy you out? Buy you out? You don’t get it, do you?
And you know what, Alex? That makes me so fucking angry, but also disappointed.
” He stepped towards me, the scent of his signature cologne drenching me.
There had been times, so many over the years, when that dark forest aroma had meant strength and safety but now all it was doing was suffocating me.
“Why not?” But I knew why not as he stared at me as though he didn’t know me. And why should he, because in recent weeks sometimes I’d hardly known myself.
“Because ours is not a normal, straight down the line business, Alex. We’re bent.
We’re crooks. We. Are. Criminals.” He counted off on his fingers, like items on a list. “We have crooked officials of His Majesty’s government in our pockets.
We push drugs in our clubs. We operate whorehouses, where we send boys off to hotel bedrooms to get well and truly fucked over. ”
“I know what we are, Kel,” I snapped, my voice almost a shout. He might as well have not heard me as he pushed on.
“Did I fail to mention the shit holes we rent out for top dollar?” He slapped his palm to his forehead.
“Oh, no, how could I have forgotten them, and how we ‘encourage’ those who are late with their rent to leave? We’re small fry in that game, compared to others, but it’s another string to our shiny little bow, isn’t it?
Which kind of makes us parasites as well as pimps.
And you say you know what we are? Because I’m not so sure you do.
Or, maybe you just choose to ignore it. Well, that’s okay, babe, that’s fine with me, but one of us has to keep a foot in the shit and I’ve no problem with it being me. ”
His voice dropped, became low and deep, almost caressing. Without me wanting it to, it took me back through the years to the dark time when I didn’t think I’d ever see the light.
“You know why there can never be any buy out, babe. Why are you doing this to me? To us? The business isn’t just assets and money in off shore accounts and cash in security vaults.
You’d admit that if you could be honest with yourself.
Everything we’ve done, from the day we took ownership of Euphoria, has been to protect ourselves.
Every single thing, every brick—legal or not, but mostly not—has built the wall higher and higher, putting a barrier between us and what happened before. And you want to buy out of it?”
“You say I don’t get it, but you’re wrong. Sure, we’ve put that barrier up between us and the streets and made it strong. We did that by taking a business that was dead on its feet and making it a success.”
Kelvin scoffed. “Sure, we made it a success. By selling sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll. Or maybe dance music. It was the first brick, Alex. The first brick in that wall you want to bulldoze.”
“But it’s not just a wall, though, is it? There’s razor wire and heavy locks. When does safety become a prison?”
Kelvin didn’t answer. The silence in the room buzzed in my head, and the gold ornamental clock I’d always hated chimed the hour.
“He’s done this to you,” he said quietly. “What have you told him, Alex? What have you whispered into his ear, when the two of you have been tangled up in sweaty, jiz crusted sheets?”
Clenching my fists, I counted in my head, one, two, three, four, as I battled to control not only my rising anger, but my fear too.
I’d told Kit the truth, but it’d hardly scratched the surface, because what had made me the man I was had been counted off on Kelvin’s fingers and for the first time ever, I was truly ashamed.
“I told him about the foster house, and Travis. About how we ran away. The squats. Ending up at Euphoria.”
Kelvin smirked. “Is that it? Lots of blanks there, babe. In fact, I’d say you’ve told him fuck all.
Do you really think he isn’t going to wonder if there’s more to it all than you’ve said?
Don’t you think that maybe he’s already put two and two together?
That perhaps slipping into the role of a criminal’s best boy is a secret turn on—”
“Don’t talk about him like that.” I lunged forward and shoved hard at Kelvin. I’d taken him by surprise, his eyes widening as he staggered back a couple of steps. Steadying himself, he put his hands up, palms out, as he slipped out of range.
“Not like you to get your hands dirty with physical violence. You always left all that to me.”
Before I had time to blink, he was on me, pinning my arms behind my back, jerking them upwards and rendering me speechless as a white hot burn burst in my shoulders. He shoved me across the room and rammed me hard against the wall.
“Years since you were in this position, babe, ground up against a wall. Do you remember those early days, when we were making our mark in the world, hmm? I do. I remember every one of them. It was the start of everything we worked so hard for. It was the first step to get us to where we are today.”
“Get the fuck off of me.” I tried to push him off, but he was stronger than me, always had been.
His lips were so close they brushed against my cheek, and his solid, muscular body, hot against my own, had me trapped as my senses filled with his earthy, musky scent that was so much more than his cologne.
“You always said you hated it, all those slobbering, sleazy men in stinking back streets. But you know, babe, I think there was a little bit of you that secretly liked what you were doing and that’s fine, because it’s important for a man to enjoy his work.”
I couldn’t believe what he was saying. “You think I enjoyed it? That I wanted to do it? You’re fucking insane.” Insane. Yeah, it wasn’t the first time Kelvin had given me reason to doubt his sanity.
“You need to think, really think, about this madness that’s taken hold of you and about what you’re putting at risk. And for what? What is it about your cute little Kitten that pushes all your buttons? Why is he more than just another easy screw?”
Fury gave me strength. I pushed back, the pain in my shoulders forgotten as I sent Kelvin flying backwards. I swung around and we eyed each other, two rabid dogs, each ready at the first chance to go in for the kill.
“Why him, Alex? What’s so different about him that’s making you want to turn your back on everything?”
On me. The unsaid words rang out in the stuffy, overheated room. His eyes, trained on mine, were dark and watchful as ever but there was something I swore I’d never seen before.
Pain.
The adrenaline drained from me. I was completely, thoroughly exhausted, and I lurched over to the sofa and collapsed into it. The fight in me had been extinguished and all I wanted was for this fraught exchange to be done with. Yet, Kelvin had asked me a question he deserved an answer to.
“I feel different when I’m with him. He gives me hope that I can be more than who and what I am. When we’re together, I don’t feel so… so dirty, I suppose. For a while, I can forget how tainted I am by everything we’re involved in.”
“Dirty?”
I looked up at him, standing over me, the word as hard as his eyes. I hadn’t thought, the word had tripped off my tongue, but it felt like the truest thing I’d said in years.
“Dirty and tainted,” he said slowly, like he was tasting every letter and syllable. “Did you feel dirty and tainted when you bought your flat, or your Spanish villa, or your Porsche? Or what about when you got measured for another Saville Row suit?”
He was calling me out on the hypocrisy of my words; he was right to, because I’d enjoyed the cash we so easily made. But I was learning that wealth wasn’t only about money.
“Kel.” I felt like I was dragging his name up from the depths. “This life we lead, I don’t want it anymore. I haven’t wanted it for a long time but I refused to admit it to myself. Not until now.”
“Keep telling yourself that and maybe you’ll believe it, because I don’t,” he sneered. “He comes along and now you’re seeing rainbows and fluffy white clouds. For fuck’s sake, you’ll be finding god next.”
I shook my head hard. There was no god, as Kelvin and I had learnt the hard way.
“I never believed somebody like Kit would ever walk into my life. He’s made me think and be honest with myself. Even though he doesn’t know it, he’s been the catalyst. I’m going to change my life, Kel, I’m going to walk away from the business and whatever you say or do, it won’t stop me.”
The air in the room was thick and heavy, hot and suffocating, and I tugged at the collar of my shirt. I held Kelvin’s gaze. He was a man who was so much more than a friend or a business partner, a man I loved in ways which were indefinable. A man I’d die for, even as I was trying to pull away.
“Oh, Alex. Babe.” He sighed. “Little Kitten’s got his claws well and truly dug in deep, hasn’t he?
” He lurched forward, sharp and sudden. “What’s all this talk of walking away, of giving up, of turning your back on everything we’ve built?
Eh? All this sudden nobility, it’s really not you.
But tell you what, why don’t you put your Kitten, the one who gives you hope, the one who makes you feel all fuzzy and cuddly, to the test?
Tell him about yourself. Really tell him, and not that pile of half baked shite you fobbed him off with.
Do you really think your sweet little cutie, your nice, decent, wholesome suburban boy will want your dirty, tainted self then? ”
I opened my mouth, ready to say yes, but the word didn’t come. Would Kit want me? Knowing what had happened to him, would he want somebody like me in his life? No, the word wouldn’t come, because I didn’t know.
Kelvin smiled as I said nothing.