CHAPTER FORTY
October brings an end to the heat.
Lachlan starts sleeping in Jules’ bed.
He knows he shouldn’t. He tries to resist it after the week following the lake incident, when exhaustion kept dragging him under in Jules’ arms for hours at a time, but it’s impossible. After that night, he begins to feel a little better.
He stops his manic research into the other kinds.
He starts eating properly again.
He and Danya both train Jules, but Lachlan eases back into taking the bulk of it.
Slowly, it becomes fun again. His hands don’t shake anymore.
His mind is less prone to obsessing over things like, why didn’t you teach Roman this?
Why didn’t you do this for him instead of what you did?
Violence is all you have, all you give and all you get.
The intrusive thoughts ease off.
He loves to see how Jules’ abilities come together, interwoven with pride and ego.
It’s a delightful balance that Lachlan and Danya shape well.
Lachlan will sometimes show Jules something new, take his breath away and use it to demonstrate that pride goeth, always, but deep down he knows that Jules’ ego, like any true artist, is the core of his innovation and talent.
Danya is impressed with Jules’ potential too. He ruffles Jules’ hair after a good spar session, and winks, calling him Charlie Foxtrot, which never fails to make Jules roll his eyes, but he likes the nickname, Lachlan can tell.
Sleeping in Jules’ bed becomes a serious problem because, despite Lachlan’s ironclad plans to distance himself from everyone before what he is certain will be his death, he realises he cannot break away from Jules.
Not properly, no matter how hard he tries.
He’s addicted to loving him. He’s caught in the riptide of it, unable to get free because he doesn’t want to. He loves loving Jules. It’s the highest point of peace he’s ever known, twined with the biggest roller-coaster drop of pure euphoric thrill, beyond compare in every possible way.
The house rallies around him.
Danya and Blaire cover everything.
Mimi and Jules are his world, and that world keeps on turning.
So slowly, Lachlan comes back to himself.
His mind is no longer foggy and tunnelled.
His body is no longer exhausted upon waking.
But Lachlan can’t stop himself from falling into bed with Jules, and staying there after. Sometimes, it’s not even always sex, although most of the time it is. Even in grief, Lachlan can’t get enough of Jules Penhalyx. He wants to worship him, make unholy devotions of love through bodily adoration.
Lachlan never loves himself more than when he’s buried inside Jules, fuck-drunk and obsessed with dragging one more out of him, and Jules is just as hungry for it, if not more so. He matches, meets and exceeds Lachlan’s own hunger and it’s all tempered with love.
Precisely what Penhalyx forbade.
He knows somewhere down the line, he’ll have to make a distinction, shift this into something more secret.
But September was a blur and October is his awakening.
He doesn’t want to risk fucking it all up.
Savannah says she’ll stay until Jules’ birthday, but then she wants to go back to England, where she was born.
Savannah has enough wealth to vanish into luxury for the rest of her life without consequence.
Instead, she talks with Jules and Vasily about funding trauma centres, private recovery housing, legal teams for abused children and women trapped in violent situations, discreet extraction networks for people trying to escape powerful families, corruption or trafficking rings.
She wants to buy old estates and convert them into long-term safe housing with on-site medical care, security and education programs. Real things.
Structural things. The kind of help that still exists after the donations dry up and the headlines move on.
Savannah Alderwyck might be one of the only people Lachlan has ever met with money who deserves it.
Her leaving means more than just her own freedom, though.
She could be someone on the outside for him.
Someone to protect the kids when Lachlan gets them free.
He has no doubt that she’ll succeed in whatever she wants, now that she’s surrounded by lawyers, advisors and security teams of her own.
Their job is to protect her interests instead of exploiting them.
She’ll be fine.
Vasily worries Lachlan.
Now officially in the process of being legally adopted by Alistair, Vasily is quiet and unobtrusive, but just because he’s not causing trouble doesn’t mean he’s fine. He seems stable and content here but losing his family has changed something in him. He’s like a little ghost sometimes.
One night, Lachlan is making the rounds when he gets a little ping to alert him that Vasily isn’t in his bedroom in the East Wing.
He’s in the South Wing, a guest room.
Heartbeat confirmed, it’s not an emergency so Lachlan goes there himself around three AM, knocks on the door and waits.
‘Come in.’
The ceilings in here are absurdly high, crossed with dark exposed beams and crowned by a tarnished brass chandelier the size of a small car.
Heavy burgundy drapes frame tall windows overlooking the grounds.
They are the only reason Lachlan ever comes in here, for alignment checks.
From this side of the Estate, you can just see the lake.
Every piece of furniture is carved hardwood, most of it old enough to predate electricity itself. The bed is an enormous four-poster layered with dark green velvet, heavy linen and enough embroidered pillows to bury a man alive, atop which sits Vasily Sorrenko.
He doesn’t look up when Lachlan comes inside, has his knees to his chest, wearing navy blue pyjamas that are too big for him.
There’s an open letter beside him on the bed.
‘Hey, kiddo.’
‘Hi.’
‘You OK in here?’
Vasily nods. ‘I did not mean to worry you.’
Lachlan presses on the mattress with his knee, glancing around. ‘You didn’t worry me. Wow, this thing’s nice, huh? So squishy.’
Vasily shrugs.
This room was Mikhail’s while he stayed in the Estate.
‘Do you want to talk a little?’
‘I do not think I know how.’
At first, it’s confusing to Lachlan, who knows Vasily speaks excellent English among other languages including his own, but then it clicks.
‘Talking about heavy stuff is hard. I never know where to start.’
‘Jules is good. He always knows.’
Lachlan smiles despite himself. ‘Yeah, he does.’
‘I am not like Jules. Not like Roman. Not like Papa. I do not know who I am without the people I love. Sometimes I feel like…’ Vasily pauses, subtly wiping his eyes. ‘Shadow. Without someone in front of me, I do not exist.’
‘I’m always gonna be in front of you, but you’re not a shadow. I promise.’
Vasily sniffles and finally looks up. ‘I got this today, from Rozhenska’ he says, lifting the letter but not showing it to Lachlan.
His dark brown eyes scan the page again, immersing himself briefly in the contents before folding it and tucking it under the pillow behind him.
‘It was written by Papa in case he died. I think he wrote it not long ago. He mentioned that he was glad I was learning to bake. He said…’ Vasily trails off, his back convulses just once.
Lachlan puts his hand lightly on the kid’s shoulder.
‘It’s OK. You don’t have to tell me.’
Vasily laughs, wipes his eyes, softly bitter.
‘That is what he said. You don’t have to.
He told me I don’t need to do anything I don’t want to.
All I need to do is be happy and safe. I know many people want to hear this from their parents, but from my father it is a knife to the heart.
He never knew what to do with me, and I never knew what to do with myself. ’
‘You can choose.’
‘Alistair is adopting me. He controls everything.’
‘Not everything.’
‘What am I going to do with my life? Without them, without Roman, I… I don’t know who I am.’
‘You don’t need to know who you are at seventeen.’
‘You did. You knew.’
‘Yeah, but it came at a cost I’d never want you to pay.’
‘Who am I going to be in this life? I am not like my brother.’
Lachlan touches the tail of the pyjama top Vasily is wearing, knows whose they are. Who left them here. ‘You don’t need to be like Roman.’
Vasily’s gaze drops to Lachlan’s wrist. The carved R. ‘You loved him.’
‘He loved you, Silly. Mimi loves you. Jules loves you.’ Lachlan rolls his eyes, gives a tiny wry smile.
‘I love you.’ Vasily’s tiny flicker of an answering smile gives Lachlan hope.
‘And despite everything, Mikhail loved you very much.’ Lachlan moves up the bed, sits with his back against the pillows beside Vasily. ‘You’re very loved, Silly.’
‘What if…?’
‘Go on, it’s OK.’
‘What if I never figure out who I am?’
‘The fact that you’re questioning it at all is a good sign.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. I think maybe you actually get to choose some stuff now and that must feel pretty overwhelming. I remember when I left the military, I had to buy my own food, and it was just baffling. I didn’t know what to buy.’
Vasily sits back. ‘What did you buy?’
‘I bought…’ Lachlan grins, staring ahead. ‘Cookies.’
Vasily tuts. ‘You did not.’
‘I did.’
‘Liar.’
‘Nope, honest to God.’
‘You don’t believe in God.’
‘I believe in you, OK? And you can do whatever the fuck you want, but you do have to want it, so my advice? Pick a good feeling and follow it. You’re always gonna have money, and that’s a privilege you can’t waste on being miserable forever.
That’s how rich people become the fucking monsters that they are,’ he says, voice lowered.
‘They get bored. They lose touch with humanity.’
‘A good feeling,’ Vasily echoes thoughtfully.
‘Yeah. And maybe we could get you some new clothes, huh?’ Lachlan suggests casually. ‘These aren’t really your style.’
‘What is my style?’
‘Whatever makes you feel good.’
‘Hmm. Maybe.’
Lachlan will take it.
‘Come on, let’s go raid the kitchen.’
Vasily smiles properly, his first one of the night. ‘Really?’
‘Absolutely. I’m starved.’
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