13. Samson
SAMSON
This is it. The moment I’ve been waiting for. Rowan’s confirmation that he’s responsible for the death of Adam Willis.
I know what I should do. What my brothers would tell me to do. What they’d expect.
But I don’t reach for my dagger. Instead, I keep rubbing Rowan’s spine in soothing motions. “Who’s Adam?”
I don’t feel bad asking this. Everything I know about him—his name, occupation, address, cause of death—none of that tells me who he was to Rowan. Why he killed him.
Why the anniversary of his death has him unable to get off the floor of his closet.
I’ve killed a lot of people over the years. Too many, probably. Never once have I reacted like this. Not even the first time I took a life.
A psych team would have a field day with me.
Rowan hiccups a few times softly before he answers. “He was my best friend. My everything, really.”
My hand pauses. “Did you love him?”
“Not like that.” A ghost of a smile passes over his lips. “I loved him with my whole heart, but platonically. Adam was like my brother.”
The suspicions that have been quietly growing over the past couple of weeks grow louder. Ones that scream that this case isn’t as cut and dried as it seems. “How’d you meet him?”
“At school. He sat next to me the first day of middle school, and that was it. He never left my side again. Kept all the bullies away, too.”
I rub at my chest with my spare hand. “You were bullied?”
Rowan gives a dry chuckle. More like a wheeze. I suspect he doesn’t have the energy for anything else. “I was an openly gay kid who cared more about dancing than anything else. Yes, I was bullied. Viciously so.”
“I don’t like that.” I flatten my palm against my chest and push, like that might ease the ache there. “Not one bit.”
“Neither did he,” he whispers. “Made sure it stopped. He always looked out for me.” A sob rips out of him, and it carves into my skin. “I didn’t do the same. He needed me, and I wasn’t there. I didn’t listen.”
The skin on the back of my neck prickles. “What happened?”
“It’s my fault.” He shrinks in on himself even tighter, something I hadn’t realized was possible given how he’s already huddled. “All of it.”
“Tell me.” Fuck, I’m not even asking because of The Firm. I’m asking because I can fucking see how this is eating him alive. I’ve been tortured several times before…but watching this beautiful man tear himself apart?
This is far, far worse.
He shudders. “It started a couple of months before…that night. Adam began getting these weird text messages.”
“Weird how?”
“Details of what he’d been up to that day. What he’d been wearing. How whoever was messaging wanted to peel him out of them.”
My lips thin. “He was being followed.”
“Yes. At first, neither of us took it very seriously. Just laughed it off as him having an obsessed fan. Even joked that he’d finally hit the big time if he had a stalker.”
Ah. Adam had been an up-and-coming artist. I’m not meant to know that, though. Guilt twinges as I ask the next question. “Why’d he have fans? Was he famous or something?”
“Only in certain circles. Adam was a portrait artist. Really fucking good, too. There was a waitlist a mile long to sit for him. He—”
Rowan’s words are cut off by another bout of sobbing. I gently rub his back, carding my hands through his hair until he’s able to continue.
“Sorry,” he says eventually. “It’s just weird to talk about him in the past tense, you know?
And when I think about everything he had to live for…
” His voice drifts off. When it returns, the desolation has me wanting to weep alongside him.
“Adam had everything to live for. Everything. It’s not fair. Why’d he have to die?”
My eyes drift shut as Rowan basically confirms my suspicions. Rowan might blame himself for his friend’s death, but he wasn’t the one to wield the weapon.
Yet you almost killed him for it.
That throws up other questions that I don’t have the bandwidth for right now.
Ones about The Firm and the level of research we do on our marks.
Whether we truly have the right to play judge, jury, and executioner.
I shelve them for another time. It’s too fucking messy, and Rowan is all I want to focus on right now.
“Adam blocked the messages.” Rowan is crying again now, his pain punctuating every syllable. “But they kept coming through via different numbers.”
“Did he go to the police?”
His head bobs. “They didn’t give a shit. Said they didn’t have the resources to get involved unless the stalking escalated.”
My jaw locks. Yeah, I know all about the St. Dismas police department. They’re actually one of the best-funded on the West Coast. No amount of money can compete with the level of corruption in the force. It’s why The Firm gets so many requests.
Where the official channels let people down, my family never will.
I make a mental note to bring them up at our next meeting. Over the years, we’ve delivered many warnings to the chief of police. He will generally behave for a few more months before stepping over the line again.
Looks like it’s time for us to pay another visit.
“Adam started to get paranoid. Wouldn’t leave the house unless I was with him. I thought he was overreacting. This is the kind of shit that happens in movies, you know? Not real life. I should’ve done fucking better.”
“You couldn’t have known,” I murmur, already seeing where this is going. “There are fucked-up, evil people everywhere. If you spend your life looking for them, it’ll eat away at your soul. You’ll be left seeking out joy in the craziest of places.”
Like dancing in a woodshed with axes.
“The messages didn’t stop.” Rowan continues as though he didn’t hear me. “Just kept coming. But I thought that was all it was. Weird messages. Figured the less Adam left the house, the quicker they’d give up. I thought, so long as he stayed at home, he’d be safe.”
My throat constricts as I remember when Adam’s body was found. I almost want to beg Rowan to stop with his story, but I need to see this through to its bitter end. We both do.
“One year ago, I had the starring role in Swan Lake.” Rowan’s tone takes on a robotic quality, like he can’t allow himself to fully feel the events of that night.
“It was my dream role. Back in school, I used to make Adam watch old video productions down in my basement. He’d be so patient when I’d stop the tape to practice a particular move over and over. Adam never complained. Not once.”
“He sounds like a very special man.”
“He was.” Rowan’s voice trembles. “And I should’ve listened to him. Why didn’t I? I was so fucking selfish, so fucking awful.”
I don’t have any answers for him, only questions. “What happened that night?”
He exhales shakily. “Adam was more freaked out than usual. The messages he’d gotten that day…they were different.”
“Different how?”
“Violent.” Rowan squeezes his eyes shut tight. “They’d always had a sexual undertone, but this was the first time they’d threatened him. He was freaked out. We both were, but I didn’t take it seriously. Not seriously enough, anyway.”
He slowly pulls himself into a sitting position, his knees brushing mine. He takes a deep breath, like it’s taking all his courage to get through this final part. I take both his hands in mine and squeeze, reminding him he’s not alone.
I’m starting to think I don’t want Rowan to be alone ever again.
“Adam was worried they were going to escalate soon.” He shudders, and I hold his hands tighter as though that might stop him from fracturing. “I told him he was overreacting. That we’d be fine waiting until the following day to go to the police.”
“That’s a normal assumption to make.”
“It was the wrong one.” Rowan’s face is filled with so much horror and self-loathing it’s difficult to even picture his usual smile.
“I was wrong. I was selfish. All I cared about was my big role. My show. I didn’t want anything getting in the way of that.
I insisted on going home that night because I wanted to be well rested for the opening show.
I put my own needs over Adam’s. He never would’ve done that. ”
I reach over and squeeze the back of his neck. “You can’t think like that. You had no idea what was going to happen.”
“I should have stayed,” he whispers. “I shouldn’t have left him.”
I swallow around the lump in my throat. “If you had stayed, you might’ve died too.”
“Good.” He lifts his chin defiantly. “I would’ve rather died fighting for Adam than sleeping in my own bed. I’d rather that than live with this fucking guilt. It’s eating me alive. And you know what? I don’t even want to stop it. It’s what I deserve. It’s the least of what I deserve.”
All right. Now I have the truth. I’m done letting Rowan chastise himself.
Reaching out for him, I tug him forward until he’s in my lap. With my chin on his shoulder, I wrap my arms around him and hug him tight. “No.”
Rowan rests against me as his exhaustion wins out. “No what?”
“No, it’s not what you deserve,” I murmur, holding him close.
Have I ever done this before? I don’t think I have.
I’m not one for affection or romance, preferring to fuck and run.
But with Rowan in my lap like this, I’m suddenly questioning everything.
“You aren’t responsible for Adam’s death.
The person who killed him is. No one else. ”
“That’s not tru—”
“It is.” I cut him off firmly. “And you know what? I’m glad you weren’t there that night.”
I’ve seen the reports. I know what this fucker did. My gentle dancer isn’t a fighter. He wouldn’t have stood a chance. The only change to the outcome would’ve been the police investigating a double homicide.
“From the little you’ve told me about Adam, he wouldn’t have wanted you living like this,” I add. “He wouldn’t blame you. I bet he was fucking thankful you weren’t there too.”
Rowan presses his face to my neck and the wetness there has me rocking him gently.
I have just one more question. I can’t help myself; I need to know. Need to know if we failed them as badly as the police. “Did you go to The Firm for help?”
Not everyone in St. Dismas believes in their existence. Even Wyatt was half-convinced we were a myth before he found himself on the path to that crumbling church.
“No, but we were planning to.” Rowan’s words are thick with grief. “Adam didn’t want to. He was scared they’d ask too high a price. I didn’t give a shit though. If it meant keeping him safe, I was ready to do it. I would’ve, I swear.”
“I know, baby.” I kiss his temple, both relieved and fucking hating myself.
We hadn’t let Rowan and Adam down in the way I’d been expecting, but we had in another way entirely.
It’s true that there’s a price to pay, but it’s to stop greedy fuckers taking advantage of the system.
For this kind of request, we wouldn’t have asked much.
If the request had fallen to me, like the other one involving Rowan, I probably would’ve asked for tickets to one of his shows.
Maybe even the Swan Lake one he’d been so excited to perform in.
“I’m going to say it until you believe me. You aren’t responsible for what happened,” I say. And I’ll keep on saying it until he finally hears me.
“The police have no leads,” Rowan murmurs, his sobs finally subsiding into the occasional hiccup. “No one to blame. I thought about going to The Firm, but what’s the point? The stalker is like a ghost. Just disappeared into the night. No one can find him.”
That’s because we haven’t tried. There’s not a single person who can hide from The Firm in St. Dismas. If this cunt’s still in the city, we can find him. I can find him.
I will find him.
“You don’t need to go to The Firm,” I say quietly. “Justice will find him. I’m certain.”
He gives a disbelieving huff. “It’s been a year, and the police aren’t even trying anymore. Thank you for trying to make me feel better, but it’s hopeless. I’m not planning on going to The Firm. It’s my fault. If I take the blame, then maybe Adam’s soul can rest in peace.”
I doubt that very much. No friend of Rowan’s would want him flagellating himself this way, let alone one as close to him as Adam had been.
Rowan doesn’t need to worry. I won’t let him continue to blame himself. I’m going to make sure that the man responsible pays for his crimes.
Rowan might not be planning on making a request to The Firm, but we’re going to fulfill it anyway.
Whoever killed Adam Willis, whoever brought such pain into Rowan’s life, they’re going to suffer in the worst ways possible.
By the time I’m done with him, he’ll be begging for death. Even then, I might make him wait.
Eternity might not be long enough for everything I’m already planning.