32. Shaw
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
SHAW
Leaving Gennaro Corporation without confronting Jace was my only option. We had caused too many problems for one night and I wanted to get as far away from Salvatore as possible. The older man’s presence lingered like a bruise, but Jace remained the sharpest blade in my side.
I wandered the streets before returning to the apartment I shared with my uncle and cousin.
Taking off my shoes in the entry alcove, I listened for my relatives.
Silence answered. I slammed the door hard enough to rattle the hinges, following it with a string of curses that did nothing to calm the violence brewing inside me.
Hurried footsteps approached. I swore when Trent appeared.
“What happened?” Trent asked.
“Sorry, I wasn’t aware you were home. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
He stepped closer. “What happened?”
Speaking the truth aloud would make everything real. It would cement the reality of Jace with Dante. The thought of what they might be doing turned my stomach rancid.
“Shaw, please tell me.”
“I can’t.” They had been friends since elementary school. I had become part of their group in high school when I moved in with my cousin after my parents died. I couldn’t let my problems poison their friendship. “Not right now.”
“Did you fight with Dante?”
“No.”
He followed me to the kitchen. “Did you fight with Jace about Dante?”
I shook my head. “Can we please talk about this later? I can’t do this right now.”
“Sure. I’m always willing to listen.”
I gave him a small smile to reassure him. “Thanks, I appreciate it.”
He lingered in the kitchen. I couldn’t bear the silence, so I asked, “How was your night?”
“Fine. I’ve been working on that annoying group project. Nothing exciting.”
Heavy fists pounded on the front door.
“Don’t answer it,” I told Trent.
“Damn it, Shaw! I know you’re in there,” Jace yelled, striking the wood again. “Come out here and face me.”
“Maybe I can tell him you’re not home?” Trent offered.
The door slammed open with a loud thud. I winced when I realized I had forgotten to lock it.
“What, are you too ashamed to face me?” Jace yelled, his voice echoing through the marble-floored foyer.
I stormed back to where he waited under the crystal chandelier. “Get out.”
“No.” Jace slammed the door shut. His eyes were wild, and a thin sheen of sweat covered his flushed face.
“Get out of my apartment before I call the cops.”
He rolled his eyes. “It’s not your apartment. It’s your uncle’s.”
“That doesn’t matter. Get the fuck out.”
Trent walked over. “Could someone please tell me what’s going on?”
“Why don’t you tell him, Shaw?” Jace goaded. “Tell him how you’ve been taking it up the ass from Dante Gennaro.”
“Leave Trent out of this,” I snapped, my nails biting into my palms.
Jace ignored me. “Shaw’s been betraying all of us by fucking that filthy whore Dante behind our backs.”
Trent’s expression hardened. “Watch your mouth, Jace.”
Jace blinked. “Are you serious right now? You’re defending that piece of shit?”
I shoved Jace against the nearest wall. His shoulder hit the plaster hard. “Shut up and leave!”
He broke my grasp, a dark flush creeping up his neck. “Why the hell should I listen to you when you fuck him?”
“Who I fuck is none of your business.”
“It is when it’s Dante,” Jace shot back. His face twisted with disgust, but beneath the revulsion sat a panicked hunger.
I threw my hands up. “Why? What difference does it make? How does that impact you?” I searched his flushed face. “Unless you want him for yourself.”
“Why would I want anything to do with that asshole? You’re supposed to be my goddamn friend, and you’re fucking my worst enemy!”
“If you were my friend, you would support me.”
“Not when it’s Dante,” Jace snarled. “Out of everyone in that damn building, why did you choose him?”
“What makes you think you get a say in my sex life?”
Jace lowered his voice. “I would understand if you were doing it to humiliate or punish him for being such a dick to all of us. At least that would make sense to me.”
“That’s sick, Jace,” Trent protested. “Who thinks like that?”
“I refuse to believe Shaw goes to see that bastard because he enjoys it.” Anguish fractured Jace’s tone. “That’s too disgusting.”
“Why? What’s wrong with them being together?” Trent asked.
Jace stared at him in disbelief. “Are you okay with Shaw being Dante’s bitch?”
“I wouldn’t use that term,” Trent said, standing beside me. “My only problem is you coming into our home and talking shit about my family.”
Jace used my shirt to yank me closer. “Now you’ve turned Trent against me, too? You fucking backstabber!”
“You’re so full of shit, Jace. You only hate Dante because you want him,” I countered.
Panic flared in his gaze before narrowing to fury. “Shut your fucking mouth.” He drew back his fist.
Trent shoved himself between us. “Back the fuck up. You’re not throwing punches in here.”
Jace stayed focused on me. “So, this is how you want to play it, huh? Dante turns you against me, then you turn Trent against me.”
“No one is turning against you,” Trent insisted. “Stop spewing homophobic bullshit and threatening my cousin. You don’t treat friends that way. Come on, man. What are you doing?”
I shoved Jace hard, breaking his grip. He stumbled back with a pained grimace.
“This bastard’s fuck buddy almost breaks my damn shoulder,” Jace snarled, pointing at me, “and neither one of you gives a shit?”
“You shouldn’t have fucking touched him.” I had no idea what Jace had done to Dante to provoke physical retaliation, but he deserved it. “You shouldn’t have been there at all.”
“Are you jealous I saw your boyfriend at work?” Jace taunted. “Does it piss you off to know I got to witness firsthand what a nasty freak he really is?”
“Shut your damn mouth.”
“Aw, does it upset you to know I’ve seen what he does?” He moved closer. “That I know exactly what kind of filthy pervert you’re in love with?”
I refused to back down. “You don’t know anything about him.”
“I know he spreads his legs for anyone with enough cash. When are you going to realize he’s nothing but a disease-ridden whore who’s manipulating you?”
“I don’t want to hear it.” It was already more than I could bear. If he gave me more details, I wouldn’t be responsible for what happened next.
“Do you still intend to go back to him?” When I didn’t answer, Jace took another threatening step toward me. “Are you going to keep paying for his time while pretending it’s real? He’s just lying to you that he gives a shit about you beyond your wallet.”
Trent grabbed Jace’s shoulder and spun him around. “That’s enough. Stop before you say something you’ll regret.”
“Can’t handle the truth?” Jace sneered. “Does it hurt to know that your precious Dante is nothing but a pathetic prostitute who’d let anyone do anything to him for the right price? Everything he’s ever said to you is just part of the service.”
I tackled him. We hit the marble floor hard, and I drove my weight into his injured shoulder injury to pin him under me. “Don’t say another fucking word.”
Jace inhaled sharply as I straddled him.
His body responded to the violence. There was an undeniable start of an erection pressed against me that contradicted every hateful word spilling from his mouth.
His breath came in short pants. “You can’t deny he’s a whore by profession. He takes money to let people fuck him.”
I grabbed his shirt to jerk him off the floor, then slammed him back down. His skull cracked against the marble. Trent grabbed my arms, but I shook him off.
“He’s not like that,” I growled.
“He fucks anyone who pays him,” Jace spat. Blood stained his teeth from a bitten lip. “You’re nothing but a walking ATM to him.”
Trent abandoned trying to separate us and grabbed a fistful of Jace’s hair. “Shut the fuck up before I help Shaw rearrange your face.”
“Stay out of it,” Jace ordered, knocking Trent’s hand away. He looked up at me with a cruel smile as he gestured at me straddling him. “Is this how you fuck him? Or do you enjoy when he holds you down like this?”
I shifted my weight forward, burying a knee into his injured shoulder. He cried out in pain, the sound morphing into a breathy moan. He hardened further beneath me.
“You’re getting off on this,” I hissed. “You call me awful names, but you’re aroused because I’m on top of you. What does that make you, Jace?”
Horror and shame warred for dominance in his expression. “Fuck you.”
“Is that what you want? To join us?” I pressed down harder on his injury, shifting my hips deliberately against his erection. He squirmed under the friction.
“There’s no ‘us’ when he fucks everything that moves,” Jace snarled, his body arching as he struggled.
“You hate yourself because you can’t admit what you want.”
“I don’t want that disgusting asshole.”
“Then why are you hard?” I ground against his erection for emphasis. “Why did you go to Dante’s room? To fuck him or to get fucked by him?”
His face twisted with self-loathing and rage. “I wanted to make him stay away from you. I’m trying to help you.”
I laughed bitterly. “Do you hear yourself? How fucked-up is that?”
“Not as much as you falling for some used-up cum dumpster.”
My fist connected with Jace’s jaw with a sickening crunch that snapped his head sideways. Blood sprayed from his mouth, spattering my cheek. My second punch landed high on his cheekbone, opening a cut beneath his eye. I drew back for a third strike, ready to let him have it.
Trent grabbed my wrist. “He can’t learn his lesson if you beat him unconscious.”
Jace lay dazed beneath me. His arousal remained prominent against my thigh.
“Let me finish this.” I wanted to feel Jace’s bones break beneath my hands as I shattered his jaw so he could never speak Dante’s name with disrespect again.
Jace spat blood onto the floor. “Why the fuck did you hit me when all I’m trying to do is protect you from that manipulative ass-licker?”
“This isn’t about protection. The twisted jealousy inside you would rather destroy what it can’t have than admit your true feelings.”
“I’d rather die than touch that repulsive monster.”
I grabbed his throat, pinning his windpipe under my grip. His frantic pulse beat rapidly against my palm.
“Say one more word about him,” I threatened. “Give me a reason to knock you into next week.”
“You’re sick,” he choked out.
“And you’re a liar,” I replied, squeezing hard enough to remind him how easily I could silence him. “You’re so hard you’re practically throbbing while I choke you. Is this what you want, Jace? Is this what you’ve always wanted?”
His face contorted with shame as I rocked against him again, forcing an unwilling moan from his throat that he couldn’t suppress.
“Feels good, doesn’t it?” I taunted.
Jace clawed at my wrist, his face turning red.
“All your rage is disguising the fact that you like dick as much as us.” I eased up enough to let him gasp. “You’re pathetic for hating us for being honest about what we want while you lie to yourself every single day.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jace denied.
“You’re never going to have him or me,” I murmured in his ear. “He’s mine. You don’t get to talk about him or even think about him.”
Trent pulled at my shoulder. “Shaw, ease up before you kill him for real.”
I shoved off Jace and stood.
Jace rolled onto his side, coughing violently as he gasped for breath. Blood from his split lip stained the marble. The sight of what I’d done should have horrified me, but all I felt was a cold, hollow satisfaction.
“I don’t need your protection, and I sure as hell don’t need you as a friend!” I snapped.
“You would choose that asshole over our friendship?” Jace asked through a cough.
“If you were really my friend, you wouldn’t make me choose.” I stared down at him with contempt. “That’s not protection. It’s pure jealousy.”
“What? You’re just going to walk away?” Jace pushed himself upright, bracing against the wall as he swayed. “After everything we’ve been through?”
I turned on him. “You mean like the time you said that gay guys who hit on straight men deserve to get their asses kicked?” My voice cracked with emotion. “Did you think I didn’t hear you? That I didn’t feel every single word like a knife in my gut?”
“It wasn’t aimed at you.”
“Bullshit! You’ve spent years making it perfectly clear how you view people like me. I hid who I was because you made the consequences crystal clear.”
Jace tried to step toward me, but I backed away.
“Do you have any idea what it’s been like to live in fear that my best friend would hate me if he knew the truth?
” I demanded. “How much it hurt listening to you talk about gay men like we’re perverted predators?
After my parents died, you and Trent were all I had left, so I put up with your casual cruelty. ”
His face paled. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“I stayed silent because I couldn’t bear to lose you. Now, I’ve lost you anyway.”
“You haven’t lost me,” Jace protested. “I’m being a good friend by protecting you.”
My laughter sounded on the verge of hysteria. “Is that what you think you’re doing? You tried to ruin the first real thing I’ve had since I moved here.”
Jace winced. “Damn it, Shaw, if I had known you were queer, I never would have said those things.”
“That shouldn’t matter. You’re trying to salvage your ego because you got caught being an asshole. You haven’t apologized once for the years of homophobic bullshit, for attacking Dante, for making me feel like I had to hide who I am to keep your friendship.”
When Jace tried to apologize, I cut him off. “Get the fuck out. If you ever go near Dante again, I’ll do a lot worse than bloody your face.” I turned my back and walked away.
“Do you think he actually cares about you?” Jace called after me. “You aren’t special to him when he sees you as nothing but another dick he has to suck to make rent.”
I turned back to lunge for him again, but Trent caught me around the waist. “He’s not worth it,” my cousin muttered. “Don’t give him what he wants. Let me deal with him.”
Jace’s eyes glistened with what might have been tears beneath the rage. “Fine. Go back to your hooker. But don’t come crying to me when you realize he’ll never love you because that’s not what he’s paid for.”
I strained against Trent’s grip. “Get. Out.”
Jace swiped a trembling hand across his bleeding mouth. “This isn’t over.”
Trent pushed me behind him and stepped into Jace’s space. “Get the fuck out before I finish what Shaw started.”
Jace shouted as I walked away, but the noise faded into white static. I closed my bedroom door and slid to the floor with a broken sob.
My split knuckles throbbed, but the physical pain paled compared to the agony of not knowing what Jace had done with Dante.
The worst part was the razor-edged seed of doubt Jace had planted. What if Dante was only pretending to care? What if I was just a client? The suspicion burrowed deep, promising to bleed me out from the inside.