Aloha, page 95
I waited for him to gather his thoughts, not making it any easier on him. I might not care what he had to say, but I gave him the quietness he needed to spill his confessions.
“I dreamed of blood.”
It was my turn to stiffen.
His story so far sounded eerily close to mine.
“I dreamed of fucking a girl and hurting her.” He winced. “I woke and found my sheets a mess. And ever since that day, I can’t get those fantasies out of my head. I hid from them for as long as I could. I had a girlfriend in high school—for a couple of weeks at least. But she dumped my ass when she got sick of my lack of interest. I’d burn in shame whenever she’d reach for me because her innocent, gentle hand only made me soft.” He wiped his mouth. “There I was, a fifteen-year-old guy, and I couldn’t get it up. But whenever I’d break my self-control and watch porn late at night, I’d get hard as a fucking rock.”
“What sort of porn?” I asked.
He didn’t raise his eyes. “Bad stuff. Choking. Breath play. BDSM but…not the role play kind. The real kind where the tears are real, the pain is real, the blood is…real.”
I dropped my hands and gripped my knees. “Why are you telling me this? You’re a complete stranger. No one in their right mind would come to a stranger’s house and confess all the shit inside them.”
His grey eyes met mine, swimming in troubles and begging for salvation. “I-I have no where else to go. My mother….she, eh—” He cleared his throat. “She’s been ill for most of my life. Recurring breast cancer with periods of remission. It finally claimed her last month. One of the last things she told me was who my father was.”
Ah, so it was a deathbed confession.
Something that’d eaten her alive and now she’d passed that demon onto her only son.
Stupid woman.
Why couldn’t she have let that filth die with her?
She’d only condemned her son to a worser fate.
“Is that why you wanted to kill yourself?” I asked clinically, feeling no emotion to the thought of him alive or in a grave.
“No. I mean…it was the slippery slope that led to it but no. I loved her deeply. She was my only family. She told me that my father ran off when she was pregnant with me. That she had no other kin to turn to. How she ended up in Devon when we aren’t originally English is a question she didn’t have time to answer.”
“You’re not English?”
“I have a feeling she might have been French Canadian. She raised me bilingual but her accent never sounded Parisian. She also taught me Spanish but never told me why, or how she knew it.”
I frowned, drawn in despite myself. “So you’re raised in a village where no one really knew you and then a month after your mother dies, you decide to commit suicide?”
He flashed me a tight smile. “Sounds pathetic when you say it like that. It makes me sound like some poor little boy who can’t survive without his mother.” Sighing hard, he said, “The thing is…with her gone, I allowed the parts of myself that I’ve always suppressed out to play.”
Ah, fuck.
That wasn’t good news.
I could almost see where he was going with this.
Where I’d gone.
Why I’d forbidden myself from touching a woman unless it was a paid professional, until Tess came along. Why I’d murdered my father in cold blood and spent my entire life repenting for what he’d done.
I couldn’t cure myself.
I couldn’t turn off the blackness inside me.
I could merely live within the cage Tess kept me content in, ever so fucking grateful that she could withstand my violence, my sickness, my curse.
“You killed a girl?” I kept my voice deliberately calm.
His answer would determine on him walking out of here alive or dying right there in the wingback.
He caught my gaze, flinching at whatever he saw in me. “No, I didn’t go that far. But…I did hurt her. Badly. I was the idiot who took a one-night stand back to my family home, where I’d nursed my sick mother for the last seven months, and spilled her blood all over my childhood bedroom.”
My hands balled. My gut churned. My mouth watered to end him.
“And you’re here for me to bail you out? To get you off a criminal charge?”
“No.” He slouched into the chair as if he wanted all his sins to devour him. “I know what I did. I know how badly I fucked up. I compensated her, and she didn’t press charges. Thank God.” Licking his bottom lip, he took his time forming his next sentence. “I came because…the moment I held that knife to my wrists—ready to draw my own blood for drawing hers—I remembered what my mother had said. That she’d been taken and raped for over a decade. That she’d birthed me in some chateau in France. That she’d done her best to raise me when she was granted the permission to spend time with me.”
I studied him.
Did he remember that time?
Did he remember me?
His eyes locked on mine; he answered my unspoken question. “I thought I’d recall something from my childhood driving up here. I thought for sure I’d recognise you if what she said is true. How could I have spent the first eight years of my life in a place I can’t remember? How could I have a half-brother that I’ve never met? How could I have this disease inside me and have no way to get rid of it?”
The doors cracked open as Tess stuck her head in. “Q…everything okay?”
My heart skipped then hardened. “Not now, Tess.”
“But—”
“I said…not now.”
Her eyes fought mine. I had no doubt I’d get a fucking tongue lashing later, but I didn’t want her hearing this. Not because she couldn’t tolerate the darkness Henri spoke about but because she’d cajole me into letting him stay.
She’d force me to welcome him into the family.
She’d command me to give him somewhere safe.
She’d do that because…he was me.
This fucking stranger was me.
And it twisted me up in ways I didn’t want to acknowledge.
I want him gone.
Now.
Shifting in my chair, I went to stand as Tess obediently drew the doors closed, leaving us alone. “Look, I’m sorry for your loss and for everything you’re dealing with, but you have to leave—”
“Wait.” Henri shot to his feet, towering over me while I still sat.
Ever so slowly, calculatingly, I stood until our eyes were in line, our hearts at the same height. “Don’t ever think you can command me in my own home, boy.”
“Boy? I’m only eight years younger than you.”
“Just because you saw my date of birth online doesn’t mean—”
“I know because my mother told me you were sixteen when you shot your father. That you freed them. That you did everything you could to get them home to their own families.”
I froze.
Fuck, how much had this woman told him and how the hell did he not remember a thing from before?
Not that I had many memories of that time.
I’d deliberately forced them away. Preferring to forget what went on in this house before it was mine.
Henri stepped into me, our chests almost touching. “That’s why I’m here, brother. Not for your money or your help with whatever sickness stalks inside me. At least I know now where that sickness comes from. I didn’t come to blame you. I didn’t come to thank you. I came because…all my life I’ve always felt alone. My mother loved me but I always got the feeling she hated me too. Which makes sense now I know who created me. I’ve always done my best to be good. To obey the rules. To be like the others. But…I’ve never fit in. I never wanted what others wanted. I barely sleep because I don’t have the strength to dream such sickening things. I barely exist because I’m fucking petrified I’m going to slip and hurt someone. I hate myself. I hate what I am and I hate that I’m so fucking alone.”
Breathing hard, he went to the fireplace and ran a finger over one of the very few pictures of Tess and me. It’d been taken outside in full summer with the sun shining and Tess sprawled over my belly and me on my back. We’d both fallen asleep because the night before I’d proposed to her, put my ring on her finger, and then seared my brand into her chest.
She’d branded me in return.
We’d fucked like absolute deviants.
And then, we’d passed out like teenagers on the lawn.
I smothered my snarl as he ran his finger over Tess’s perfect face. Hanging his head, he murmured, “I want what you have. I came here to ask if you suffer the way I do. If you fight every damn day not to hurt those you desire but…I don’t need to ask. I know.” Turning to face me, he shrugged. “I saw it in the way you spoke to her. The way you looked at her. The way she looked at you. You walk a fine line of disrespect and devotion and I…I want that.”
I bared my teeth. “You think I can snap my fingers and conjure you a wife?” I laughed. “You’d be better off asking me for money.”
Crossing his arms, all his grief and loneliness vanished beneath a mask of ferocity. It was like looking in a fucking mirror and I hated it. “I don’t want money and I don’t expect you to find me a wife. I’ve long come to terms with the fact that I’ll exist alone and I’ll die alone but…in the small window of time I have left, I would very much like to know what it feels like to belong.”
“Belong?” I crossed my arms, matching him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I want my brother. I want at least one person to know who I truly am with no fear of being arrested or—”
“I’d do worst than just arrest you,” I said. “If you’d killed that girl, you wouldn’t be breathing right now.”
He froze. He studied me to see if I lied. When he found no such evidence, he braced his shoulders. “So…you didn’t just stop murdering with our father? You kill other men like him? Other men like…us?”
Jesus Christ, how did he jump to that conclusion so quickly and why did I like it?
Why did my interest in him creep from intolerance to mild curiosity?
“I’d be careful if I were you.” I stalked around the library, moving toward the window. The very window where Tess had made me swear a blood oath to try loving her. She’d returned to me after I’d set her free. She’d become my air, my reason, my gravity and—
“Q, I’m sorry, but I really must interrupt.” The object of my affection and annoyance came bounding through the doors again, heading straight toward Henri.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Fucking hell, Tess. You try my patience.”
She flipped me the bird as she stopped in front of my unknown brother. She gasped as she studied his face. I growled as she cupped his cheek and traced his cheekbones that weren’t mine on a face that clearly shared my genes.
“Esclave, enlève tes mains de lui.” (Get your hands off him).
Spinning to face me, she didn’t flinch as I crossed the room and grabbed her wrist, tugging her away from Henri.
Her eyes widened, brimming with joy. “Oh my God, it’s real. He’s really related to you.” She looked back at Henri. “I-I have no idea how this is possible—”
“It’s possible because my father was a raping bastard who sowed seeds that shouldn’t be sowed. You’ve met him and now he’s leaving. Say goodbye—”
“Goodbye?” Her nose wrinkled. “But he just got here.”
“And now he’s leaving.
“But—”
“Say au revoir, Tess.”
“Please…” Henri was wise enough not to come near us but the smile he shot my wife almost made me strangle him. “It’s an honour to meet my sister-in-law.”
“Nothing about her is yours,” I snarled. “It’s time you left—”
“Will you think on my request at least?” Henri asked. “It would mean—”
“What request?” Tess asked, pulling her wrist from my pinching hold. “I deserve to know. You’re family.” She elbowed me in the side. “He’s family, Q. Your brother.”
“Half-brother.” I scowled, rubbing where her sharp little appendage caught me.
“He’s still blood.”
“Yes, and he likes to spill blood,” I hissed.
Her eyebrows raised. “As do you if I’m not mistaken.”
Henri sucked in a breath.
I groaned. “Esclave, you’re really not—”
“Esclave?” Henri scowled. “You call your wife slave? What the fuck?”
Tess grinned. “Think of it as sweetheart or darling. I always knew, even from the very first moment he called me that, that he was madly in love with me.”
“Madly obsessed with you more like,” I muttered. “Dangerously obsessed. There’s a difference.”
“Not for us there isn’t.” She winked. “And we all lived happily ever after, even with your fetishes.”
Goddammit, this woman.
Pressing a kiss to my cheek, she waved between me and Henri. “So…what’s the story? You’ve been in here ages and are still glowering daggers at each other. Let’s go get a drink. Have some dinner. Mrs Sucre is getting mighty tetchy that her souffle is ruined because we didn’t eat it in time.”
“Tess, my love.” I gritted my teeth. “Please leave. I’ll escort Henri out and—”
“Dinner would be great,” Henri interrupted, throwing a hesitant smile at Tess. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble?”
“Trouble? Oh, no, Mrs Sucre always cooks far too much. You can meet Suzette and Franco and—”
“He’s not staying, Tess.” I did my best to hold on to my temper, failing by the second.
“Why not?”
“Because he’s not welcome.”
“So that’s what this is about?” Tess asked, flicking both of us a look. “Henri came looking for family and you’re refusing to give him one? How can you not welcome your own flesh and blood, Q?”
Fucking woman.
She’d always read me too easily.
Always put her nose in where it didn’t belong.
Before I could form an answer, Henri murmured, “I don’t know a thing about either of you, and you don’t know a thing about me but…I feel more myself in the twenty minutes I’ve been here than I have in my entire life. I feel like I can breathe. Like I’m…free. Not fully. I doubt I’ll ever know what true freedom feels like, but I do feel as if I can relax a little. Like I won’t fuck everything up by saying the wrong thing or admitting who I truly am.” His grey eyes landed on mine. “If I can have that freedom for a few more hours before I’m evicted from your lives, then—”
“Nonsense.” Tess smiled kindly. “You’re my brother-in-law—”
“He’s nothing to you, Tess. Just like you are nothing to him,” I snapped.
“Jeez, stop being such a monster, maître.”
Everything inside me went still, dark, dangerous. “Careful, Tess.”
She drew herself up but didn’t back down. “He came for you, Q. Don’t you see? He needs you.”
Henri wisely stayed silent.
I tripped into Tess’s beguiling blue-grey eyes.
I could never refuse her anything when she got stroppy like this. Fiery and fierce and tempting my palm to bring her back into line all while she made me fucking beg.
“What do you need from him to prove he’s looking for nothing more than company?” Tess crossed her arms.
At least she’d changed into a faint blue jumper and jeans. She looked young and innocent, belying the temptress beneath. The temptress that’d turned me inside out and back to front all because she could handle the filth inside me.
An idea sparked.
An idea I tried to crush but couldn’t.
She called me a monster?
I didn’t like that label but it fit.
It had always fit.
I was a monster.
To my enemies and my loved ones.
The curse never lifted.
The needs never faded.
I’d learned to exist despite them.
I was happy in spite of them.
But I remembered all too well the haunting, harrowing existence I’d lived before Tess came along. The agony of wanting what I couldn’t have. The despicable need burning me up. The lust that came with so much disgust and shame.
If Henri fought such battles, I wasn’t surprised he’d turned to suicide.
I’d contemplated it a few times.
But each time I sank into such self-pity, I threw myself deeper into my work. I saved more slaves. I rescued those that’d been hurt by men like me. I did my best to erase my shame by giving back those lives that were ruined because of bastards that deserved to be dead.
Wiping my mouth, I shook my head a little.
The idea kept evolving, spreading, unfolding like a map before me.
He could be useful.
He could be my secret weapon to infiltrate the clubs that knew who I truly was.
The traffickers I’d dealt with in the past and managed to slaughter, only for new ones to spring up like weeds, fully aware of what I did and always one step ahead of my usual methods to hunt them down.
Lowering my hand, I studied Henri with new eyes.
Would he have the strength?
Would he lose his rotten soul if I threw him into the darkness where we both belonged?
“What are you thinking, Q?” Tess asked quietly. “I know that look and it’s not good.”
Ignoring my meddling little wife, I locked gazes with my half-brother and said the words that would ultimately break him or save him. “You want to belong? You want a ready-made family that sees you and accepts you? Fine.”
Henri sucked in a harsh breath. “Really? Fuck, I can’t thank—”
“There’s a club. It’s called The Jewelry Box and is run by a sadist called Victor Grand. I’ve been trying to bring him down for years. I don’t know where his club is, but I do know he’s trafficked hundreds, possibly thousands, of girls and boys through his doors. Not one has ever been found. All of them lost without a trace. I can’t touch him because I have no one to infiltrate his operation. His intelligence is clever and always seems to find a link between the mercenaries I send in and me. He’s ruthless, calculating, and a dangerous son of a bitch.”
