Chapter 27
NOVA
The moment Wes’s eyes grew shiny, his lips forming a deep frown, I moved even closer. I rested my legs in his lap as I traced his tattoos. He placed his broad hand across my thighs, tracing circles with his thumb absentmindedly.
“While I watched my mother get sick and die, my dad got rich several states away. His promise had only ever applied to himself—that, one day, it will all be worth it. By the time I landed on his doorstep at seventeen, he’d gotten everything he ever wanted.
And I had one mission.” Wes paused, his grip on my thigh tightening.
“To meticulously and systematically destroy him and everything he’d built. ”
I blew out a breath. “Can’t say I blame you,” I murmured. “I’m so sorry, Wes.”
He nodded, intertwining his fingers with mine as he met my eyes again.
“My master plan didn’t include a spiral into addiction, which was what ultimately prevented me from succeeding,” he said with a humorless chuckle.
“The only one who ended up destroyed by my resentment was me.” Wes winced, shaking his head slightly.
“Sorry, I misspoke. My resentment cost me someone I loved, and it was her destruction that destroyed me.”
The image of Wes hanging his head, the woman from the party’s hand on his shoulder, rose to the forefront of my mind.
“Like you, I knew I was different from a young age. And also, like you, I harbored quite a bit of shame for my proclivities,” he continued.
“Before I truly understood kink—and myself—I associated dominance with my father, who I obviously wanted to be nothing like. I hated the part of myself that wanted to be in control. I didn’t think there was a safe way for me to express myself without hurting someone, so I bottled it all up.
But then I met a woman here in the city who opened my eyes to her world—a world I had no idea existed.
I pursued kink the way I pursued revenge.
The way I pursued drugs and alcohol.” He paused. “With obsession.”
A current moved through my body, hanging on his every word, recognizing so much of myself in his story in a way I hadn’t expected. Wes had always seemed so at ease. It was hard to imagine the lost man he described.
“That relationship ended, but my involvement with the kink world remained. When my next serious relationship came around, I was too blinded by my own ego to understand I wasn’t capable of being a healthy Dominant, let alone a healthy partner.
I was selfish and self-serving. I prided myself in being better than other male Doms. I knew how to safely tie a knot, which areas of the body should never take impact, but more than that, I saw a power exchange dynamic as something sacred, a deep expression of vulnerability, responsibility, and trust. Yet, I paid no mind to my dark, wrathful emotional and spiritual landscape, my ever-growing hatred and preoccupation with my father and his circle.
I denied my drinking was a problem, one that was dangerous to both myself and to my partner.
My denial was the strongest drug of all.
And one night,” Wes said, faltering, “we were supposed to be going to a party together. But I was too drunk, as usual. I woke up to so many missed calls.”
His voice broke. Tears sprang to my eyes in anticipation of what was coming before he could even say it. His eyes swam with a kind of heartbreak I could feel in my own chest.
“I started listening to her voicemails. The ones asking me where I was, that she’d worn what I told her to wear, and she couldn’t wait to see me.
And then, a voicemail reporting that she was leaving the party.
Another in which she thought she was being followed.
She asked me to come meet her, because she was halfway between her place and mine in Chelsea. And then, the voicemails stopped.”
I held my breath. Wes was back to staring out the window, everything about him rigid. His breath was shaky. His shoulders sank.
“She needed me, and I failed her,” he said, a tremor rolling through him. “She was assaulted.”
I covertly wiped at my eyes, not wanting to take up any of the emotional space. I held Wes’s hand as he finally cracked himself open, as he finally allowed me to see behind his impenetrable walls.
“I failed her,” he repeated, stronger this time.
“Not only had I failed to protect her, to be there when she’d needed me physically, but I also didn’t stop drinking.
If anything, the shame made my drinking worse, which made my shame worse, which—well, you get the picture. I was nowhere near rock bottom yet.”
Anger, maybe self-loathing, and guilt racked Wes’s features, darkening his warm hazel eyes. His jaw tensed.
“I failed her in the aftermath too. Guilt became a second skin. She was withering away right before my eyes, just like my mom had. I couldn’t handle it. And this time, it wasn’t my dad’s fault—it was mine. There was no one to blame but myself.”
My brows drew close. “Her assaulter is to blame,” I said gently. “I hope you don’t hold yourself responsible for that part, Wes. You can’t be with someone every minute of every day.”
Wes closed his eyes for a beat. “That truth’s a hard one for me,” he muttered, slowly meeting my gaze again.
I nodded, all our previous interactions taking on a new light. All I kept coming back to was the fear in his eyes when I’d been auctioned off. My heart broke all over again.
“Were you able to make amends after you got sober?” I asked.
Wes swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing as his gaze took on a faraway look. “No. She took her own life.”
I didn’t know what to say. All of me broke with him, understanding clearly now the roots of his perceived unworthiness. He was punishing himself for a crime someone else committed, a tragedy he believed was entirely his fault.
“I got sober a year later,” Wes said. “That year was my dark night of the soul, and I almost didn’t make it.
I had no one left to save me. I still don’t know how I did it, considering I didn’t believe I was worthy of salvation.
I didn’t start believing until year two, and it’s been touch and go ever since.
” Wes kissed my hand before brushing away a stray tear on my cheek. “Don’t cry for me, baby,” he whispered.
“Thank you for sharing this with me,” I said.
“I’m so sorry.” I still struggled to find the right words, the right way to convey how I felt.
“You’re more than worthy of salvation, Wes.
You deserve it. I don’t know what my higher power is anymore—if I even have one—but I know yours led you out of that darkness for a reason.
I know you’re meant to be here, with the living, being your intense, stubborn, impossible self. ”
“I’m a Scorpio,” he said, as if to explain the origins of the qualities I’d mentioned.
I rolled my eyes. “Of course you are.”
We shared a small, sad smile. “Thank you, Nova,” he whispered. “Like I said, you deserved to know.”
“So this is why you joined The Circle after being away from the scene for years?” I asked. It would seem my suspicions about Wes having control issues and a white knight complex had been right on the money from the start.
He nodded. “After what happened, I left the scene. I went no-contact with my father and his world, working to let go of my resentments and build a life for myself that had nothing to do with him. I made myself… unemployable,” he said, gesturing to his tattoos with a slight curve of his lips.
He sighed. “I still struggle with all of this.” He waved a hand at his home again.
“Because although I make my own way now, I got here using my father’s money.
Everything I have is tied to him in one way or another, and I fucking hate it, and I hate complaining about it even more.
Nothing is worse than a poor trust fund kid who resents his own privilege. ”
“You didn’t grow up a trust fund kid,” I said gently. “You didn’t ask for any of this. But I get it. I will admit your chef’s kitchen does make me less sympathetic to your plight.”
Wes smiled, and the sight of it after all he’d said warmed me from within.
He nodded. “When I ran into someone talking about The Circle and expressing concern about the people running it, it brought up a lot of old resentments and fears. I made it my problem. It was an emotional relapse. I knew I needed to walk away. I met with my sponsor at the diner the day you and I met.”
My unsub had at long last been identified.
“I lied to him, right to his face. I said I was going to drop it. But I didn’t.”
“Why?”
His eyes flashed with uncertainty. “Because I met you.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you,” Wes sighed, shaking his head with a small smile. “A beautiful, young, inexperienced sub without a single clue what she was getting into and who she was getting into it with.”
I opened my mouth to protest his assessment of me, but in the spirit of radical honesty, I decided it had been an accurate one.
“I don’t want to be the reason you’re emotionally relapsing,” I said, my stomach twisting. “I don’t want you to get hurt because of me.”
He reached for my face, his touch gentle as he cupped my cheek. “Sweet girl. You’re not responsible for me. I’ve made my own decisions, and I’m now being honest about them with my support system. You don’t have to worry about me.”
His voice was calm, resolute. I was lost in his easy authority again, just like I was at the party. It was still difficult to wrap my brain around his declaration—that he’d stuck around, surrounded by people he’d spent his life hating, for me.
“I’ve spent my entire life worrying,” I whispered. I tilted my head. “Is it my turn to lore drop my trauma?”
Wes rolled his eyes and dropped his hand with a chuckle. “You and your Zoomer fucking lingo.”
“Regretting your return to ancient times?” I asked, poking the lump of flip phone in his pocket.
“I do not envy your rotted little brain.”