Chapter 17 #3
“I pulled out a gun and aimed it at him, said he needed to get the fuck out and never come back or I’d shoot him in the head right there.
” He shook his head, his face twisting into a sneer.
“He tossed my sister aside like she was nothing. Told me to put down my gun and fight me like a man. If I won, he’d let her live. ”
A part of me wanted to reach for Boston.
To offer him some kind of physical comfort in the face of what he was telling me, but I sat still, listening to him.
He was sharing such horrific things so openly, and I didn’t know how to reconcile that level of vulnerability with everything else I’d be told about him.
“We fought,” Boston went on. “Beat the shit out of each other, actually. My sister and mother were screaming. He pulled a knife on me, almost got me across the throat too, but I wrestled the blade from him. I saw the opportunity to bury it in his throat, and I…” He swallowed.
“I didn’t hesitate, I took it.” He glanced up at me then, so much emotion swirling in his eyes.
“And I’d do it again if it meant saving my sister. ”
I nodded, unable to tear my gaze from him.
That story was nothing like the one I’d heard where he’d slit the throat of an intruder who’d tried to break in and steal from his family without a second to question it. But there was something entirely different about killing the man who was brutally assaulting his sister day after day.
“You did what you needed to do to protect someone you cared about.”
His gaze locked with mine, something unreadable there now. Like he wanted to tell me something, but couldn’t.
His voice was hoarse when he eventually spoke. “I’d do anything for the people I care about.”
Silence fell over us again, and I turned back to the ocean in an effort to collect my thoughts. He killed people for his father because that was what was expected of him. He’d killed his sister’s husband to protect her. There was something still left unanswered.
“There’s one last thing…” I said quietly.
He let out a deep sigh. “I can’t wait for this one.”
“There were rumors that you…”
His eyes cut sideways to me, expectant.
“That you hurt the women you’re with.”
His jaw clenched and he sat up straighter. “I guess… I did hurt them.”
I recoiled, shifting away from him on the seat.
“Not how you think.” He went to reach for me, then thought better of it and stopped himself.
“What do you mean it’s not how I think?” I demanded.
“It was consensual. I have certain tastes in the bedroom. I like certain things in certain ways. Things that sometimes others don’t.”
How cryptic. Leaving me to fill in the blanks only had me filling them with the worst kinds of things. “Like torture?”
His head snapped in my direction. “No. I don’t hurt women for sport, I just like to push things to the limit.
The women who started those rumours were friends with each other, we had fun together and they signed up for everything we did.
” His eyes searched mine, imploring me to believe him.
“They literally signed a contract saying they understood what I liked and were willing participants. I always get them to sign an agreement first, I learned a long time ago to cover myself that way.”
I blew out a long breath, trying to process his words.
“You have particular tastes. You get women to sign contracts outlining those tastes and agreeing to them before you sleep with them. Yet two women hated you so much afterwards that they bad-mouthed you all over Seattle.”
I’d intended to sum it up in my head, but had said the words out loud instead.
Boston nodded ruefully.
“Why would they do that?” I asked, genuinely intent on knowing the answer.
“Because they got attached. Wanted more from me than I was willing to give them.”
“They were scorned?”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “I guess you could say it like that.”
It was hard to tell how much of what he was saying was a fuck boy making excuses for treating his hook-ups badly or if it was genuine. My mind leaned towards genuine. He’d been so open about his role with his father and what happened with his sister, he had no reason to suddenly lie about this.
He shifted on the seat beside me so he was facing me. “I make no claims about being a good person. It’s not a way I’d ever choose to describe myself, but I’m not the villain everyone thinks I am either.”
I bit the inside of my cheek, eyes locked with his, sincerity shining back at me.
Maybe I had gotten it wrong. Maybe there was something decent inside Boston, under all the death and violence.
And were we really that different? Both of us had become a product of the environments we were raised in back in Seattle.
My father beat me and degraded me and wore me down until I was a shell of the person I was meant to be.
Boston’s father honed him into a weapon and taught him to do his bidding.
We were both pawns to our fathers in different ways.
“Our world back in Seattle slowly steals your soul piece by piece,” he said, staring into the distance. “It feels different out here, I can understand why you chose to run here.”
I shifted closer to him again, closing the space I’d put between us. “If you could choose a different life than the one you have back in Seattle, would you?”
He sat back in the chair, eyes never leaving mine.
“Why do you think I’m here?”