19. Chapter 19 #2
I nodded and lifted Luca to stand. He was still shaking and refused to look up at anyone.
All my progress with him had been set back.
Now he had regressed during the meeting, and he’d been feeling really good lately.
Vibrant and lively. We knew Misha was involved somehow with Luca’s slavery, but we didn’t know he had a personal hand in it.
Fucking disturbing, and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the fucker and make him pay.
Nothing would please me more than anything to cut off his dick.
I grabbed Luca’s hand and threaded our fingers together. He finally looked up at me with a small smile. I was quickly learning he enjoyed small touches of affection to help him. I had no need for them, but he liked it.
“We’re in the big city. The whole world is at our fingertips. Let’s go get some dinner at a restaurant. I’ve only taken you out to lunch. Would you like that?”
He lit right up, just as I had hoped. “Can we have pizza? It looks so yummy on TV.”
“Sure. Pizza it is. I know just the place.”
“Can I have a soda, too?”
“You can have whatever you want, Sunshine.”
The restaurant was a dive, but it had good beer and good music, not to mention excellent pizza.
We sat down at a small and dark booth with classic rock blaring through ancient speakers. The lighting was dim and moody and not the romantic kind.
“Do you know what you want on your pizza?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never had it before.”
“Do you trust me?”
He nodded vigorously and bit his bottom lip, smiling and popping those dimples. It was a classic Luca look.
When the waitress came by, I ordered a beer on tap, a soda for Luca, and a large pepperoni pizza with red onion, sliced green olives, and extra cheese.
“Are you okay now?” I asked. I swear, this kid has been pulling out all my empathy strings with little effort. Perhaps I had some left after all.
“I am now. Just seeing… Master made me… freak out a little.”
“Understandable. And don’t you fucking dare call him ‘Master’ again. He’s a monster. You no longer belong to him. Understood?”
“Yes, Angel. I belong to you now.”
“No, I don’t own you.”
“No, I know… I mean, we are together. We are each other’s… uhm… we own each other.”
I chuckled. “Close enough.”
“I’m going to wash my hands.”
I nodded as Luca climbed out of the booth and went in search of a restroom. While he was gone, the server brought us our drinks and some breadsticks. I took a long sip of my drink and munched on a thin, crispy stick as I waited.
My beer was halfway gone, and there wasn’t any sign of Luca returning. He was taking too long just to wash his hands. I sighed and stood up to go in search of him. As soon as I opened the restroom door, my blood turned cold. Then it turned to fire as the anger raged inside me.
A man taller than me, wearing a baseball hat, had Luca cornered and cowering as he held his wrist limply.
“What the fuck?” I hissed.
The man instantly backed away from Luca, but he wasn’t afraid. In fact, he approached me with menace. “Mind your fucking business, asshole. This boy and I were just having a little chat. Weren’t we?”
Luca trembled and rubbed his arm. “No. He hurt me. He called me a… faggot.”
“Is that a fact?” I said, stepping closer to the man and fingering the knife I pulled out without his noticing.
“He was lookin’ at my fucking dick as I took a piss.”
Luca shook his head. “No. I didn’t. I swear.”
I believed him and figured this asshole was just looking to fight someone smaller and weaker.
“You see, we have a little problem now. He belongs to me, and I belong to him. We don’t lie to each other.
I guess that makes me a faggot, too. Does that make it clearer for you?
You just hurt him. Now, I’m going to have to hurt you. ”
Before he could mouth off or threaten me, I was on him, shoving him against a bathroom stall with a tight grip on his throat with one hand and the knife pressed against his jugular in the other.
He gripped my wrist to pull it off, but I had a good hold on him, and he was clueless about how to throw me off.
He gasped and tried to talk as he slowly lost his oxygen levels.
“Yes, gasp, pant… use up all your oxygen faster like a good boy.”
His eyes rolled up into his head before he got his second wind, trying to hit me off, but he was quickly losing strength. There was no pain behind his blows.
Once I felt he was about to pass out, I let him go, and he instantly fell to his knees, wheezing, and coughing.
I kneeled down before him and pressed my knife to his throat once more.
He froze as his lungs tried to recover. “Tell me, Sunshine. You get to decide what I do with him. Do I make it a quick death? Do I make it slow? Or do I let him live with a reminder not to touch those who don’t belong to him? ”
“Don’t kill him, but…”
I stood and looked at Luca to see what he wanted. Instead of telling me, he put one foot back and swung it at the man’s face, knocking the bigger man to the ground. “You’re mean! You’re weak for picking on someone smaller.”
My brow was raised by this surprising turn of events as he turned on his heel and walked out with his head held high. I chuckled, but I didn’t leave just yet, kneeling again. “You’re so lucky he’s a kind soul,” I said and left.
I found Luca sitting at our table, chowing down on a large slice of pizza with a smile on his face. That little brat.
“Proud of yourself?” I asked.
“Yes.” But his big smile turned sheepish. “Of course, it had to do with you there. It made me brave. I was… scared when he grabbed my wrist hard.”
“You did good, Sunshine.” I lifted a large slice of pizza and took a bite. “Mmm, damn good pizza,” I said with my mouth full.
“Angel?”
“Hmm?”
“What’s a… faggot?”
“Nothing. Just a cruel name for a gay person.”
“What’s a gay person?”
Shit. Did no one tell him about that? Surely, he understood all about men and women compared to men and men.
He had seen enough TV and had been online.
Not that those psychos taught him anything.
“It’s when someone likes someone else of the same sex.
Like you and me. We’re both men. You know…
we’ve watched romance movies about a man and a woman. ”
“I thought we just liked who we liked. Some people like women, and some like men. Why is that bad?”
“Fuck if I know.”
After we got home, we sat on the couch and turned on a movie, as Luca loved to do.
He had a lot of catching up to do for the past decade.
I rarely watched anything, not knowing why I even had a television.
But now I watch it with him, and I even enjoyed it sometimes.
Fuck, he was turning me into a normal human without even trying.
Regardless, there was nothing normal about either of us.
Luca had been lying on the couch with his head on my lap before he fell asleep on his back, clutching his damn rabbit. He’d been keeping it in his room more, but at night, he seemed to need it.
Speaking of normalcy, or maybe it was weirdness, I stared at his youthful features.
His blond locks were getting longer, but I couldn’t bring myself to chop them off.
The curls fell back, away from his serene face with fluttering eyes from a dream.
His full lips were pouty, and he had a cute button nose and beautiful cheekbones.
My hand rested on his chest, feeling the gentle rise and fall of his breathing.
I lifted my fingers to trace the outlines of his face gently, then I delicately combed back his soft curls as I worried that maybe I was ruining him.
He wasn’t innocent, yet he was. He knew all about the world of sex but little else.
Seeing him kick that asshole tonight made me proud, but I felt maybe my training him would take away something that I shouldn’t be taking.
The last thing I wanted was for him to turn into me.
Hard. Cold. Nothingness. Luca was light, warmth, and sunshine.
I didn’t want to dim him. It wasn’t that he was always happy or positive.
Sometimes he could be downright morose or pensive.
Who could blame him after all he’d been through?
Yet, there was also something uplifting about him.
That no matter the horridness he had to endure, it didn’t quite break him.
To make matters worse, he was rebuilding my soul in a way I always thought was impossible after Ben. Luca was becoming my addiction. An addiction of love and healing.