37. Brogan #2
And that’d been what I’d been trying to do ever since.
I’d been returned to my fucking cell, which consisted of a small bed not even long enough to allow me to stretch.
It had a mattress so thin it could barely be classified as a sheet.
The comforter on my bed at home had been thicker and plusher than this bullshit.
And I had a metal toilet and sink. Other than the loss of freedom and subpar conditions, what was bothering me the most were the voices and sounds.
They’d been sending me to the edge, and not knowing where they were coming from, and what they even were, was a mental torture I’d thought I’d once escaped.
From one prison to another… One set of cold, dank walls to another…
One torture to another… Only this time, I’d actually welcomed the physical kind over the mental kind.
I’d only ever spoken about that period of my life with one other.
Enslee. She’d guessed a lot of it without me having to tell her, but it’d actually felt good to let it out to someone, especially when that person showed no judgment toward me.
My father still considered me weak and some sort of sexual deviant to this day.
In disgracing him, I’d let down generations of Sinclair men.
He’d told me as much when my head had been forced into a trough of water and held down, when his men used my bound and battered body as a punching bag, and especially when he’d have those men pump electricity throughout my veins, causing my body to painfully convulse, all while he’d berated me for my life’s choices which didn’t align with his.
There’d also been the intentional envenomation, the electric shock therapy, and other mind control torture inflicted.
I’d been so fucked up by the time I’d left that I returned to the States and proceeded to fuck a myriad of girls, which pleased my father greatly.
I’d basically ended my friendship with Declan, but it’d all been a pretense too.
I pretended as if I’d snapped back to what my father had called the “Sinclair senses,” but he had no idea what he’d actually done to me.
He hadn’t made me hate him, Declan, or even other men.
He’d made me hate myself, and now as I lay in this cramped bed in the fucking fetal position, I wished for the death I’d fought so valiantly back then to avoid.
I was off my medications, which likely wasn’t helping matters, but I refused to do anything to change my situation.
I wanted to die, and the sooner the better.
If I did, I wouldn’t feel this gaping hole in my chest from Declan’s betrayal.
I’d never known all this time that his pain for me had been his guilt.
He’d claimed to have loved me, yet he put into motion the very things that had torn us apart.
I did know that he’d believed himself to love me, but if he truly had, he wouldn’t have kept this from me.
But he had, and for months. Instead of coming clean, he continued to lie and pretend as if he had others trying as hard to find her as I did.
The entire time, he’d known she was gone because of him.
He’d given her the means and opportunity while framing me for the motive.
I could tell my attorney that he’d been the one to give her money, but what good would it do.
I was sure there was some way the crooked prosecutors would still use it against me even though I’d had no idea about it until a few hours before my arrest. And if I hadn’t found out then, I never would’ve known the lengths of his duplicity.
I hated him, but I still loved him as well.
For a decade, I’d touched no one other than him, until recently when we’d let Enslee into our world.
Or more like, until we’d forced her into ours.
I was inundated with memories of the two of us together over the years.
So many would drive me to my feet, and I’d have to resist bashing my fucking skull against the stained bricks.
I wanted his voice to leave my head, but it only amplified the more I tried to silence it.
From his rasp in my ear as he pushed inside of me, or the soft-spoken way he’d tell me that he loved me, or the casual way we’d banter with one another.
There was even the pain in his voice as he’d tried to talk me off the ledge that night, and the guilt in his voice even more recently when he’d realized he’d been caught.
There was even his boyish laughter as we’d run along the shorelines of our Hampton estates, and the fear in his young voice when he’d become scared of sharks in his youth.
Every fucking moment we’d ever had was like a narration that repeated itself over and over in my head like a broken record.
Only, I was the one breaking. Physically… Mentally… and spiritually…
I’d never subscribed to overly religious ideals, especially since it’d been drilled into my head that they’d reject those like me.
Like Declan. I’d always focused and relished the Heaven found here on Earth, and one usually experienced when in his arms, as I prepared myself for the Hell I’d be relegated to upon my death. It couldn’t be worse than this place.
“Sinclair, you’ve got a visitor,” I heard outside the door.
A few minutes later, I was shackled and on my feet before I was led to the visitation area. Hoping it was not my father or Declan, I came to a stop the moment my eyes connected with a pair I never thought I’d see again, especially not in this place.