7. ~Julian~
7
~Julian~
Five Years Ago
I collapsed onto my bed, fighting to catch my breath.
“Fuck, the way you take me, darlin’. Perfection.”
Suddenly Milo was lunging from his sprawled out position on his stomach, enjoying the hot-as-fuck sensation of my cum trickling from his ass, and pouncing on top of me.
I groaned at the feel of his big, hard body and all that delicious muscle and ink surrounding me.
Those groans turned to growls when he licked the drops of sweat off my chest, making his way down my body before slicking that talented tongue of his all over my cock, eating up every drop of cum left remaining.
He suckled at my crown, then tugged at my piercings with his teeth in that way he loved to do and the way I fucking loved him doing, sending shocks of pleasure through me that had my hips lifting off the bed.
“Jesus Christ, I need a few minutes before another round.”
“We’re already at three rounds. Gonna make it four.”
“And we will, just after some hydration and coming up for air.”
He licked me from my balls, all the way to my crown, making me buck wildly.
And then he abruptly sat up. “All right.”
“Damn you.”
He grinned. “Right back at you, Sunshine.”
And then he was climbing off the bed and pulling on his boxers and jeans.
“You’re leaving?”
“Gonna get us some snacks and some water from the cafeteria. Don’t leave the bed. I’ll be right back.”
“You know I can’t just lie still for seconds, let alone minutes.”
“Do your IG bullshit, then. But just stay on the bed for me.”
“And then what?”
“And then when I get back, I’m gonna sit on your cock and let you fuck up into me like a goddamn jackhammer.”
A hot thrill ran through me. “Jesus Christ, yes. But you don’t get to move at all. You’ll take it all as I see fit, even as I clamp my hand down around your cock and fuck it with my hand like a beast.”
His whole face lit up, and a sly smile spread over his face.
Yeah, he loved that kind of dominant shit.
It was a time when he didn’t have to think and worry for once, where he could finally let go and give into the pleasure and wildness of it all in a safe space with me leading him through it.
“Goddamn,” he uttered, before snatching up my boxers from the floor and tossing them to me. “Put these back on. If I walk back in here and you’re still naked on the bed, it’s gonna be impossible to eat and hydrate first before getting right back to a fourth round.”
I chuckled. “You’re so easy.”
“When it comes to you, yes. The shit you do to me… damn, there’s nothing else like it. No one else like you.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“Arrogant dick,” he jested.
“Hmm, yes, my dick is highly arrogant.” I wiggled my eyebrows. “Rightfully so, wouldn’t you say?”
He rolled his eyes.
“Well?”
“Fine. Yes.”
I laughed. “That’s right.”
“Happy now?”
“Oh, very.”
He shook his head to himself, but amusement danced in his pretty espresso eyes. “Put those on now,” he reiterated, gesturing at my boxers that he’d tossed onto my abs.
I grumbled, but pushed up to a sitting position, then pulled them on. “Get me something chocolaty.”
“For dessert only. Just a small chocolate bar.”
“What? No.”
“You need to eat properly. Vitamins, iron, protein and—”
“Protein? Well, why didn’t you say? We’ve got that covered.”
“We’re not subsisting on cum.”
“But just the suggestion spilling from your pretty lips is getting me hard.”
“Even the protein of—” He stilled as he saw me grinning at him. “You’re screwing around.”
“That I am. Go forth to the cafeteria like you want. I am actually hungry.”
He walked to me, kissed my cheek, then headed on out of the room.
I slumped back on my pillows and tried to relax while he was gone and use the time to take a beat.
But my mind wouldn’t allow for that.
That usual eeriness once I was alone started creeping up on me.
It was the step that came before the bad thoughts, just moments away from that dark door swinging wide open and all the fucked-up memories blasting free and inundating me all at once.
I blinked hard and snatched my phone off the bedside table.
I opened my IG.
There wasn’t much happening there to keep my attention, so I took a selfie shirtless with my nipple hoops on display, my hair all wild and looking just-fucked. I uploaded it with the caption:
Those nights where you just can’t get enough. Here legends are made. #sexmarathon #bringithard
It wasn’t long before the likes and comments started rolling in, thankfully taking my attention.
Then a text came in while I was responding and enjoying the interaction.
Nico: So that’s where Milo is. Am I right?
Julian: Right you are, N.
Nico: Put him on.
Julian: Call him yourself. Kind of busy with my IG right now.
Nico: I can’t. His phone is on your pillow along with his wallet. You know, the brown suede one I got him for his birthday a couple of weeks ago?
Frowning, I swung my head and sure enough, there was Milo’s stuff on the pillow. I guess he’d grabbed it off the other bedside table right there intending to pocket it once he’d gotten dressed, but then dropped it in the process of pulling on his clothes and forgotten to pick them back up when we’d been talking.
Julian: Oops. He’s not here in my dorm room, anyway. Went to the cafeteria to get us some food.
Nico: I see.
Julian: Is this urgent?
Nico: Was expecting his company on a hunt.
Julian: Targeting Ray Simmons? The guy who threatened you and disrespected you?
Nico: Yeah.
Julian: Worst person he could have crossed, huh, mafia prince?
Nico: He’ll learn that lesson soon enough.
Julian: I told you I can help you with that, N.
Nico: No. You’re not getting involved in any of this.
Julian: Mafia justice?
Nico: If you really need to call it that.
Julian: I do. But you don’t need to keep me out of it.
Nico: Yes, I do.
Julian: Nico.
Nico: Once you cross that line, there’s no way back. This is us protecting you, J.
A knock sounded at the door.
Julian: Gotta go. Someone’s here. Probably Milo realizing he forgot his wallet.
Nico: Can’t be. He just walked into the cafeteria. Don’t open it.
I rolled my eyes at his paranoia.
Life as the son of a mob boss in our home city would do that.
But we weren’t there now. We were hundreds of miles away at college together, away from all of that and the nightmare that went along with it for him and Milo. And for me—just not the mafia angle. That wasn’t what gave me nightmares. Unfortunately, I had my own shit where that was concerned.
See where my thoughts went when I was left alone without enough distractions? I mean, it was probably nothing to do with any of that. Nico likely didn’t want me to open the door because it could be one of my fuck buddies knocking. That happened quite a bit. We were in college and I was living my best life, so, yeah; I had a lot of fun and even more sex. But I wouldn’t invite somebody else in while I was with Milo. And Nico should know better than that by now. I was aware that it bothered Milo seeing my horde of sex buddies , as he called it, up close, so I kept it separate and away from him. When he was with me, it was just the two of us.
I rolled off the bed and crossed to the door, noting that it was locked. I hadn’t even seen Milo do that. Sweet fucker, always protecting us. He’d forgotten his own damn wallet, but he’d remembered to do this for me in a bid to keep me safe.
I was just a couple of feet out from the door when another few knocks came, these much more aggressive and exhibiting an urgency too.
It had me hesitating on opening it.
“Who is it?” I called out.
I really wasn’t worried about security as a rule. Not while we were here living on the college campus. I mean, really? But I guess Nico had gotten under my skin where that was concerned.
There was a weird delay before a familiar breathy female voice responded, that breathiness turning me on when I’d first heard it. It was one of the main reasons I’d taken its owner to my bed.
“It’s me, Jules.”
And calling me Jules was the reason I’d only taken her to my bed once. She’d kept screaming that out while we’d been fucking.
“Lindsay?”
“Yeah!” she cried, excited that I’d remembered her name.
Of course, I had. I remembered everybody I’d been with. I wasn’t an asshole, and I didn’t like it when disrespect was present just because it was casual sex. Why couldn’t both parties—or more, in my case—be treated well and enjoyed at the same time? I didn’t get that shit.
I unlocked the door and opened it to find her on my doorstep.
She smiled out at me nervously, her long blonde hair cascading down her bare shoulders, a pink sundress doing her a hell of a lot of justice.
Wait. Nervously?
“What’s up?”
“Nothing, I mean—”
“Sweetheart, I’m already booked for the night. Got a friend over. He’s just getting us some food and he’ll be back any minute.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “He just… this guy… he offered me a lot of money and I… I really needed it and—”
She was suddenly wrenched away as a hand shot out from around the corner.
“You’re done. Get gone.”
I froze at the sound of that awful voice.
He rounded the corner and then stood there right before me. “I knew you wouldn’t open the door if you knew it was me.”
I choked as adrenaline tore through my body like live wires as I stood staring at the last person I ever wanted to have in my vicinity, any-fucking-where near me.
Dirty-blond hair that was like mine was wilder than I remembered it, grown out and unkempt like he hadn’t had a haircut in so long and like he’d been shoving his hand through it repeatedly. Normally clean-shaven, his jaw was now plagued by thick facial hair, verging on beard territory. He stood there in a rumpled black suit with a white dress shirt beneath that had a coffee stain on it right near the loose, plain black tie. Even his shoes were all scuffed up, adding to the down-and-out look.
But it was his eyes that were the main concern to me.
There was that look in them that I remembered all too well.
They were shining with malicious intent.
And an interest that made me sick.
Gabriel Carver.
My father.
“What are you doing here?” I somehow managed to get out.
“Can’t a father miss his son?”
“Not when that father is you.”
His lips twisted. “I see you’ve grown bolder since you’ve been away. I arrived just in time to beat that defiance out of you.”
He thrust his hands into my chest, knocking me back into the room.
It all happened so fast then with him forcing his way in, then locking the door behind him, then swinging his fist.
The first hit plowed into my gut, making me choke and double over.
He followed that through with a nasty punch to my face that had my head snapping to the side, blood spraying from my mouth from the brutality of his fucking hit. I had to slap my hands down on the foot of the bed to steady myself.
That was a big mistake as I realized in the next moment when he came up behind me, wrapped one arm around my throat and wrenched my head back, while his other grasped my dick through my boxers.
I shuddered and almost retched, but his grip around my throat prevented it from happening.
It got worse when I felt his breath at my ear as he spoke. “You belong to me, boy. You exist because of me and you’ll follow orders without complaint. You may think you’re free out here in college, but you’ll be back home soon enough and controlled again. It makes me sick that you’re fornicating with all sorts here, especially the Bardi boy. Is it not just an experiment anymore? Is that what you’re really into? It won’t stand. Do you hear me?”
“Why… are you… here?” I rasped against his constricting grip.
“My hedge fund is in trouble.”
“Need… money?”
“Yes.”
“How… much?”
“A couple hundred thousand.”
I frowned. That sounded like much more than mere trouble. It sounded like he was going under.
“Somebody ratted me out to the SEC. They turned over evidence about illegal deals, trading, bull about extortion going on.”
It wasn’t bullshit. I knew that for a fact.
He’d hurt a lot of people.
And I might have done something about that.
It had taken a long while for it to reach fruition, though. Then again, it had triggered a massive, in-depth investigation and that was a lengthy process.
Finally, it was happening.
Although, it was really biting me in the ass right about now.
“Let… go.”
“You need some convincing first. Isn’t that right?”
“No,” I ground out.
“The way you spoke to me at the door would indicate otherwise.”
He started stroking my cock then.
“Give me one, then I’ll let you go.”
“Stop… no.” I bucked against him, but he just tightened his chokehold making me fight for breath, my body weakening from the significant lack of air.
He stroked faster, his fingers all over me.
And then he shoved them inside my boxers.
I could no longer speak or make a sound as he choked me with his awful grip.
Twisting away and bucking didn’t help either. He just followed where my body turned.
A violent thud sounded and then a ferocious roar tore through the room a moment before my father’s arm was forcibly wrenched away from my throat. He screamed as a crack sounded, before he was ripped off me entirely.
Trembling, it took me some time to turn around, and when I did, I saw Milo on him, beating on him brutally, his hits coming hard and fast and absolutely mercilessly, while my father couldn’t defend himself at all.
A sick satisfaction betook me at the sight of him being dominated like that and utterly destroyed by a force more powerful than him.
“Milo!” Nico’s voice came a moment before he burst into my room also, then ran to him. “Not here. It can’t be here. Pull back. Just for now, I promise.”
With another roar, Milo smashed my father’s face into the carpet and knocked him out cold.
Then he turned to me, so much pain in his eyes as he looked me over. “Sunshine,” he uttered on a broken whisper.
I slumped onto the bed and hunched over, hanging my head. “Jesus Christ,” I choked, burying my face in my hands.
The trembling just wouldn’t stop.
I felt angry, sick, and ashamed all at the same time.
Arms wrapped around me and I heard Milo and Nico’s voices like lifelines in the face of the storm that was threatening to drag me into the undertow and away into its black abyss.
“Are you sure you want to be a part of this?” Milo asked me as we stood outside the abandoned warehouse that Nico had driven us to in his Ferrari. “It’s gonna happen either way. Your participation doesn’t need to occur for this to end, all right? There’s no pressure at all.”
He didn’t want me to be a part of it. That much was clear.
Before I could answer, Nico strode out from the warehouse.
The blood staining his hands was the first thing I noticed. As he drew closer under the lights beaming down over the parking lot, I saw his face was splattered with it.
He was dressed all in black, but not in his usual stylish way. Just a pair of baggy black jeans and a hoodie on. Milo was also similarly dressed, just wearing black tactical pants instead of jeans. And he’d advised me to come in all black as well. I had my riding leathers on.
“All right, he’s ready,” Nico told us. He looked at me. “To be clear, you do this and you become complicit, J. It will also bind us together in an irrevocable way. I know you want to be closer to us and you’ve asked to be part of this side of our lives before, the dark and dirty of it, but you need to know that there’s no going back after this. Not just with us, but for you in a very personal way. To Milo and I, you’re already joined with us, no matter what. So don’t do this for that reason. Honestly, I don’t want you doing it at all. But I also understand if you feel like you need to. If that’s what you believe you need to purge those demons that the sick bastard in there created in you.”
“A compromise would be if you just watched,” Milo offered. “Let Nico and I take it.”
“I need to see him.” It was all I knew right now as the weight of their words took time to be absorbed as I struggled with it.
“Yeah,” Nico said. “Follow me.”
And I did, with Milo at my side, as we trailed after him into the warehouse.
The place was completely empty of whatever it had been used for before, so I saw my father right away in the center of the large space. He was bound to a chair, the legs which were screwed into the concrete.
Blood stained the path all around him.
His head was bowed, and he was shaking.
I took in his hands that looked… wrong.
“All his fingers are broken,” Nico informed me when he saw me looking.
“He used those hands to touch, torment, and hurt you,” Milo spat.
As we drew closer, I heard my father wheezing.
“A couple of ribs too,” Nico told me.
There was a baseball bat in the corner and Milo strode to it and snatched it up.
Then, as Nico and I stood before my father, Milo swung the bat and clocked my father across the jaw. He let out an ear-splitting scream.
“Broken jaw now too,” Milo said, spinning the bat in his hand.
“Son,” my dad croaked, barely able to speak. “Help… help me.”
“Help you?” Milo scoffed. “Are you fucking kidding me? He’s the one who needs help from you. And that’s exactly what we’re gonna give him. I just walked in on you feeling up your son and choking him out at the same time, fucking threatening him. And all for what? Money? To force his hand there? Or to force yourself and your rule onto him? All of the above, you sick motherfucking demon!”
Nico laid his hand on Milo’s shoulder, well aware that Milo didn’t lose his temper like this. He was as calm and as collected as they came.
Yet here and now he was barely holding his rage in check, now he’d come face-to-face with my father again.
My heart broke that it was for me. That he was hurting for me.
It wasn’t the first time either.
And it had taken a twisted turn and become… sexual… since my eighteenth birthday. Since that very night, actually. Something else he’d ruined for me.
Although I’d tried my best to hide all of it from him and Nico, my father had hurt me too many times to count, and the two of them had seen through my upbeat facade and beneath to the awful truth of it all once or twice.
I knew, I just fucking knew that it would continue on like this for years and years if something wasn’t done about it.
If I didn’t do something about it.
Moving away and being here at college clearly wasn’t enough.
Distance wasn’t.
Nothing was.
I was bound to the bastard by blood.
And only one thing could break that link.
Death.
It was the only way I’d ever be free.
He’d brought it here.
I stepped up to him, rage coursing through my veins.
Rage and conviction.
It drowned out all the rest.
It buried the pain, the shame, the grief of the innocent boy that he’d taken from me years ago.
“You’re worse than a monster. Everything you’ve done to me has brought us to this moment. You kept coming, you kept hurting me, kept trying to degrade and humiliate me. You were so desperate to control me and tear me down, so fearful of what I could become, of my potential to completely eclipse you and your success.” I shot forward and fisted my hand in his greasy hair. And this time when those eyes connected with mine, I didn’t feel fear. For the first time in so long. I saw him for what he was. An abuser. A weak man who got off on victimizing others, on hurting his own son. On using and assaulting his own blood. “It ends here tonight. But before it does, before you go to your grave, I want you to know that I did beat you. In fact, I destroyed you. It was me who tipped off the SEC when I found out what you’d been up to. You cost dozens of innocents their fucking homes because of your greed, something that the money you wanted from me is rectifying as we speak. And the rest? The rest is building an empire of my own that will transcend yours utterly. So as you perish here tonight, know that the name Carver will rise and belong only to me, will be known only as mine. The mark you think you’ve made on the world will disappear as though it never was.”
“You… fucking…”
I jerked on his hair, growling, “You’ll die as nothing.”
“Scared… little… boy. That’s all… you’ll ever… be.”
I released him roughly. “You’re wrong. Just like you were about so many other things.”
He sneered. “No. I’ve made my… mark on you. It’ll remain.”
A shudder rolled through me.
Nico snarled.
Milo growled and pulled his gun, taking aim at my father’s skull. “Shut the fuck up, you sick piece of shit!”
A twisted smile played on my father’s lips as he glared at me. “Broken… boy.”
Nico snatched up the baseball bat.
And then it just happened.
Like a switch flipped all of a sudden.
I fucking snapped.
The next thing I knew, I was grabbing the bat from Nico, then sweeping it at my father.
Groans and grunts filled my ears, and it served to egg me on.
I needed more of those sounds of pain, of suffering, of fucking misery.
It called to the same that he’d inflicted on me. Over and over.
I kept swinging, losing myself to it, as his awful words played like a haunted soundtrack.
Until his groans turned to screams, drowning it out, burying it deeper and deeper as blood spewed, bones cracked, and punishment was delivered in its most brutal form.
Mercilessly.
Relentlessly.
Another scream cut through the space and it took me time to realize it was mine as I kept swinging and connecting, even as sweat poured off my body and I started to weaken from the insane level of exertion.
I just kept going and going.
“Sunshine.”
That one word reached me through all the rest, the noise from me and swirling around my head.
The care in it, the love, what it truly meant.
That somebody could see who I wanted to be, irrespective of the agony and darkness that threatened to get the best of me day in and day out.
That somebody could see the light that still existed in me.
That light that hadn’t yet been snuffed out by Gabriel fucking Carver.
I stilled and looked out at Milo.
An eerie silence filled the space.
Nico had a dark look in his eyes and a sadistic smile spread across his face as he looked at my father hunched over in the chair.
“He’s… is he… did I?”
“The motherfucker is dead,” Nico confirmed.
“You’re… you’re sure?”
Nico lifted his chin at Milo, who took the cue and stepped up to my father and pressed his fingers to his throat. He looked out at me. “He’s dead, Sunshine.”
“It’s… it’s really over?”
It didn’t compute.
A world without my awful father in it? I’d never imagined it possible.
I couldn’t believe it.
And it was because of them, the two friends I’d had by my side since high school.
“Thank you,” I breathed, as I tried to wrap my head around it all.
Milo came to me and wrapped me up tight. “He’ll never hurt you again. No one ever fucking will.”
Nico was there then, stroking my hair. “This stays between the three of us.”
“It dies with us,” Milo said vehemently.
“Absolutely,” Nico confirmed. “We’ve got you, J. Always.”
“Always,” Milo echoed.