Chapter Thirty
~ Let Him Have This ~
Soren
Ray and I stepped back into the house after dealing with the Vanderburn brothers downstairs.
We hadn’t told them we’d already gotten Christopher back.
Instead, we took our time letting out some much-needed stress relief on them.
Then watched their faces twist in shock when I casually mentioned that a five-foot-six, skinny twenty-two-year-old had beaten their brother to death with a metal rod and then put six bullets in his face.
Their expressions went bone-white. They couldn’t process it.
Why should they care? They were more than willing to sell Finn out for a chance to stay in this city.
The only problem was that I wanted Kit back in one piece…
that’s not what I got. I got him back in fractured pieces.
I saw the exact moment something inside him cracked.
Kit used to be the kind of person who wouldn’t hurt a fly.
Now he’s killed someone. Yes, Finn deserved it, more than deserved it, but that kind of thing changes you.
You never fully come back from it. Disturbingly, I found that change in him unbearably attractive.
The moment something fractured behind his eyes…
the moment the soft, harmless boy I’d kept for two years finally broke and became something sharper, something bloodied…
it stirred a dark, possessive heat low in my gut.
I should’ve been concerned. Instead, I was fascinated, proud.
Thankfully, he still has that shyness and quiet obedience when it comes to me; I would’ve missed that far too much.
And then there’s his face. The bruises and small cuts on his ribs and neck will heal and fade like they were never there. But his face… I clench my jaw hard at the memory of Finn slicing into him. I walk up the stairs toward our bedroom, telling myself Finn is dead; he’ll never touch Kit again.
I push through the bedroom door, expecting to see him right where I told him to be…
curled up in bed, dark curls spilling over the pillow, taking up barely any space at all.
It’s late, he should be asleep by now. But when I flick the bedside lamp on…
the bed is perfectly made, empty. My heart rate spikes instantly.
I told him to be here… he said he would.
I rush to the bathroom and shove the door open, hoping he’s just on the toilet or washing his face. He’s not.
For one sick, suffocating second, my mind turns against me.
It whispers that none of this is real… that I never got him back at all.
That I’m standing here alone, hallucinating the whole thing like a broken man, and that Kit actually died on that boat.
That his small, fragile body is still out there somewhere, cold and floating in the ocean because I failed him.
Because I wasn’t fast enough. The thought hits so hard and so vividly that my chest tightens painfully, a raw, visceral panic clawing up my throat.
I growl at myself, angry at the thought.
Then a cool breeze hits me and I frown instantly.
No one ever leaves this window open unless I specifically demand it.
I walk over, eyes dropping to the carpet.
There are faint marks in the pile where the tufts have been dragged the wrong way, like something heavy was moved.
I follow the trail to the decorative stool at the foot of the bed.
It’s slightly out of place; I straighten it without thinking, then return to the window.
Was he sitting here? Doing what?
I lean on the sill and look out. The gardens are lit below, a view I rarely appreciate. My gaze sweeps across the estate until it lands directly in line with this window… the black steel door to the basement.
My throat tightens with a flicker of fear. Did he see Ray and me go down there? No… no, surely not. But what else would he have been doing? He was here long enough to drag that stool over. Was he sitting here the entire time I was gone?
So, where the fuck is he now?
My eyes widen. No… Kit wouldn’t be stupid enough to go down there. He wouldn’t even be able to get in; you need a key. Still, I slam the window shut and rush back out.
I meet Ray on the stairs; he was probably heading to his room on the second floor for the night.
Ray frowns the second he sees my face. “What’s wrong?”
“With me,” I say sharply.
He nods without question and follows. We head straight back outside. The night air feels colder than it did before, maybe it’s just the dread. The fear that Kit somehow figured out his own birthday is the code to those cell doors.
A few minutes later we reach the steel door again.
Ray frowns. “We’re going back down? Did we forget something?”
I inhale sharply. “Kit was watching us.”
Ray’s eyes go wide, before he points at the door. “And you think… he’s down there?”
I run a hand down my face. “Fuck knows.”
I unlock the door and we jog down the stairs.
Ray mutters behind me, “How would he even get down here?”
I storm down the long corridor, eyes scanning every door. Just as I feared, the Vanderburn cell window is no longer blacked out. Someone’s inside.
Ray notices my hesitation and steps forward, looking through the small, reinforced window. He lets out a disbelieving laugh. “Yep… there he is.”
I growl low. “Fuck.”
I’m about to push the door open when Ray holds up a hand. “Wait, boss.”
I stop, watching as Ray taps the screen beside the door, connecting to the internal audio. The thick soundproofing means this is the only way to hear what’s happening inside without entering.
Kit’s voice comes through, quiet, taunting, and carrying a new kind of steel I’ve never heard from him before. “No, no… first, let me tell you what your brother did to me. Then we’ll decide if you should leave this room.”
Ray raises his brow at me. I look through the small window at Kit, unsure whether I’m proud… or pissed.
Ray says quietly, “Let him have his moment, boss.”
I nod slowly, jaw tight. But I already know I’m not going to like whatever Kit is about to tell the brothers.
Kit’s voice comes through the speaker again, quiet and sad, but laced with trembling anger. “He never let me leave the chair.”
He pauses, breathing shakily. “Ninety percent of the time I was tied up with ropes, so tight, I couldn’t feel my hands after a while. And he’d just disappear for hours, sometimes half the day.”
Another pause. His voice grows quieter. “I’d just sit there in the dark… rocking with the waves. Not knowing if he was ever coming back… or if I was just going to die out there alone.”
He pauses before continuing, his voice cracking slightly. “When he did come back… he always had demands. Or he’d bring drugs.”
A bitter, broken little laugh escapes him. “Or he’d just want to hurt me.”
He inhales sharply, the anger simmering beneath the sadness. “He’d throw two slices of bread at me… like I was a fucking dog. That was all I got in a day, and sometimes the bread was soggy from the sea spray.” Another harsh, self-deprecating laugh. “I was so hungry… I still ate it anyway.”
His voice drops lower. “And to drink… all I had was a bucket of disgusting seawater. It made me throw up even more, so eventually I just stopped drinking it. I chose dehydration instead.”
My jaw clenches so tightly it aches. Ray glances at me but stays quiet.
Kit’s voice cracks slightly. “He kept injecting me with something… I don’t even know what it was. It made me so nauseous. I was throwing up constantly, but there was nothing in my stomach, so all that came up was bile. It burned my throat so bad… over and over again.”
There’s a long pause. I can hear him breathing shakily.
“And when he cut my face…” Kit lets out a bitter, broken sound, something between a laugh and a sob that makes my stomach turn. “Do you have any idea what that feels like?”
His voice trembles with rage and disgust. “When someone drags a blade slowly across your face while you’re tied down…
helpless… screaming… the way the skin just…
splits open under the edge. That sharp, burning sting that turns into fire.
The blood pouring hot down your cheek, into your mouth, down your throat…
the metallic taste of it. I could feel every inch of the blade tearing me open.
I thought he was going to keep going. I really thought he was going to carve all the way down to the bone…
just to see how much I could take before I passed out. ”
He lets out another shaky, disgusted laugh. “I could hear the sound it made… wet, ripping. Like cutting through meat.”
White-hot rage floods through me. My fists clench so hard my knuckles turn white. The image of Finn slicing into Kit’s face plays behind my eyes like a nightmare I can’t escape. I take a step toward the door without thinking.
Ray’s hand lands firmly on my shoulder. “Easy, boss,” he says under his breath. “Let him get it out. He needs this.”
I force myself to stay still, but my breathing has turned rough. I hate every second of this… hate hearing what that piece of shit did to my boy. Hate that I wasn’t there to stop it. Hate that Kit has to carry these memories now.
Kit continues, his voice quieter but no less angry. “I kept thinking I just had to survive. No matter what. So… I did.”
The silence that follows is heavy. Ray keeps his hand on my shoulder, grounding me.
I don’t move. I just stand here, staring at the door, torn between pride at how strong Kit has been and a sick, violent fury that threatens to tear me apart.
We don’t go in, not yet. This is Kit’s moment.
And as much as it kills me to hear it, I owe him the chance to say it all.
◆◆◆
I’m pacing outside the cell door like a caged animal, jaw clenched so tight it hurts, eyes burning with barely contained rage.
Every word Kit says to Mitch and James feels like a blade dragged across my own skin.
I hate this. I hate listening to what that psychotic fuck did to him. I hate that Kit had to endure it.