Chapter Twenty-one #2
Premorbid indeed. And all those crushing recollections may have rushed in on top of the last, awful one. I’m just an actor…
When he’d heard Squeezy’s story of the quad bike accident, Nikolas had immediately assumed Ben had been furious that the legacy of Fergus Atwell’s work was still being felt.
His poisonous little army of bitter men, carrying out their personal vendettas under the guise of a righteous anger against a world that had castigated them for being different.
Nikolas had imagined Ben was going to find Atwell and end his recruiting campaign for good.
Now he wondered. I am leaving darkness behind me.
Was Ben going to leave his darkness behind him? Was he going to join them?
Did Ben see this as his only way out from such destructive memories?
Because, of course, hadn’t each of Atwell’s twisted little group taken their own lives after their acts of revenge?
Squeezy’s own nephew, Jono, killed the Islamic students, but then turned the gun on himself.
Did Atwell somehow seek out people with a premorbid tendency—those who took the world too seriously, who tried to right wrongs that would always exist, who would always find those wrongs overpowering them—and use their own demons against them?
He thought about the Ben he’d been privileged to meet again this week—he was Ben relieved of the shadow that had crept across him over the ten years he couldn’t remember.
Despite his confusion and anger at his memory loss, Ben had smiled more this week than Nikolas had seen for months.
He’d had a vitality and rawness to him like a wild creature before taming.
And then the worst thought of all came to Nikolas.
It didn’t rush in with a fanfare, because it had been lurking at the back of his mind, its insidious whispering intruding until he could suppress it no longer.
Hadn’t the wellspring of Ben’s darkness over these ten years been…
him? If Ben hadn’t met him, he would still be in the army doing the job he’d loved.
If Ben hadn’t met him, he wouldn’t have tried to kill himself.
Even the tragic events with Ben’s family would never have happened if Ben hadn’t met him.
He was the cause of it all.
He was Ben’s premorbid tendency.
* * *
Nikolas didn’t attempt to express any of this until they were in London around the familiar table in his kitchen. Squeezy, Tim, Jackson and…Kate. She was there. She was outwardly unflustered. But she didn’t catch his eye.
He’d called them, intending for them to find Ben before Ben did something he’d regret—something else he’d regret. Before he punished Atwell for what he’d caused to happen in the water mill.
Now he didn’t know what to say.
For the first time in many years, Nikolas didn’t know what to say about a situation.
Reticent and reserved by nature, except with those he trusted implicitly, he wasn’t about to venture into his private musings about his life with Ben—put words to the thought that he was the darkness Ben was running from—perhaps he was afraid they’d all agree too readily… well, duh, we knew that…
It didn’t help Kate being there. Not only had she shaken his faith in the loyalty of his team—and therefore his judgement in selecting it—she was tangible proof of how absolute his darkness was.
As far as anyone around this table knew for sure, he and Ben had only started sleeping together four years ago, when they’d both left the department and moved into this house in London together.
He knew the truth, of course—and so did Ben, come to that.
They’d carried on a secret affair that had begun the first weekend after Ben’s interview for the job in the department, meeting at Barton Combe for the occasional weekend or in hotels between ops.
And for six months of this time, Ben had also dated Kate—openly.
He’d moved into her apartment for a while, the perfect boyfriend, all the time meeting up with Nikolas to fuck him, be fucked… anonymous, private, and totally secret.
Although Nikolas always maintained he’d wanted their relationship with no strings attached, had he not stepped up the frequency of their meetings the first time Ben had mentioned Kate?
“What are you doing this weekend?”
“Oh, I’m going out with Kate Armstrong in the typing pool on Saturday.”
“Kate. My computer expert?”
“Yeah. Thought we’d go see the new James Bond.”
“You are going to a film together?”
“Yep. Proper date. Curry house after.”
The weekend after that date, he’d taken Ben to Paris, and they’d spent the whole weekend together. He’d taught Ben lots of good swear words in French as they’d fucked.
He’d deliberately allowed Ben more of himself, just as Ben had begun to dig in with Kate.
He knew exactly how their relationship was progressing.
He ran a black ops department, for fuck’s sake.
He’d had Kate followed, monitored her calls.
After that first mention of a date, Ben had never spoken of her again.
But Nikolas had watched the growing intimacy with great interest.
It had been so easy. How could Kate compete?
And it hadn’t even been done with presents and spoiling Ben, which he could do so much easier than Kate ever could.
Nikolas was too clever for that. He’d won Ben over by giving Ben the one thing he desperately wanted—attention.
Ben was forever seeking something he’d lost at eight years old.
Nikolas—wealthy, sophisticated, intelligent, mature—had seen this need as his niche and had ruthlessly exploited Ben’s vulnerabilities.
He found out about a day spent with Kate at the zoo?
That weekend, he started teaching Ben how to ride.
Kate hadn’t even been in the race. She wanted an equal as a partner, a man in her life—not someone who wanted to be absorbed. Nikolas had seized on the child in Ben, the lost innocent, and wanted that as much as the man.
Nikolas didn’t need to examine his motives too closely to see why the innocent child within Ben had attracted him.
Ben wasn’t the only one with loss in his life.
Nikolas had seen in Ben an opportunity to find his missing half—his better half.
Ben wasn’t his brother Nika, but he was what Nika represented. A chance to do things better this time.
And what had Nikolas done with this second chance? This wild, savage creature he’d taken and broken and tamed to his own desire?
Premorbid tendencies.
That’s what he’d done.
* * *