“What do you want from me?” he whispered.
Niles heard footsteps coming down the stairs.
“Nothing, Jacob. There is nothing you have that I need anymore. Your usefulness ended the day you decided to cross one of my oldest and dearest friends. Goodbye, Jacob Knight,” he said and then he stepped back far enough for Jacob to see the man who was now standing in the doorway, well not just standing in it, filling it with not only his muscular, six-foot-six body but also with his mere presence. A presence that was intimidating enough that Niles swore it could block out the sun if he wanted to. Yes, Aleksy Constantino was a frightening man, kind of like his Uncle, only on the right side of the law, well, the legal side anyways. Sometimes it wasn’t always right, at least not in Aleks mind.
And don’t ever fucking call him Aleksy. Only his Mama and his Uncle got to call him that. To everyone he worked with, to everyone else in the world, he was Aleks.
Jacob’s eyes took in the man’s shrewd gaze before they perused down the man’s body until they stopped, with a shocked gasp falling from his lips, at the detective badge clipped firmly to the man’s belt.
As he pulled a pair of handcuffs from the pouch at his right hip, Aleks stepped forward and in a booming voice, said, “Jacob Knight, you are under arrest for kidnapping, child endangerment, assault and battery and anything else I can think to throw at your sick, perverted ass.”
Jacob’s eyes squeezed shut as he realized in that moment that life as he knew it was now over.
Thirty-Four
Bas squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath to try to calm down. “No, no, Jesse. You can’t say that. You’ll help the prosecution if you say shit like that.”
“I’m sorry,” Jesse whispered in a quiet voice as a tear trickled down his cheek.
God, this kid was trying so hard, but Bas was beginning to think that maybe putting him on the witness stand was a bad idea.
Bas sighed out his breath, “Okay, let’s try this again. Why didn’t Jacob go with you to the bathroom that night?”
“His work friends made fun of him when he started to escort me.”
“But that’s what he usually did? Escorted you to bathrooms in public places?”
Jesse nodded his head, “Yes.”
“Why?”
“He said that other men would try to look at my dick and he didn’t like that.”
“Why?”
“He said my dick belonged to him and him alone.”
“And how did that make you feel?”
Jesse bit the inside of his cheek.
“Jesse? How did that make you feel?”
“Scared,” he finally whispered.
“Why did it scare you?”
Jesse’s narrowed glare turned to Bas, “Because it’s a damn body part. How can you own someone else’s body part?”
“Did you ever tell him that?”
Jesse’s eyes went wide, “God, no.”
“Why not?”
“Because I learned early never to question Jacob’s rules,” Jesse whispered as he began absent-mindedly rubbing his cheek.
Bas’s eyes flicked to Noah, who was leaning against the wall behind Jesse, before locking onto Jesse’s eyes again, “How did you learn that, Jesse?”
Jesse’s gaze turned to the glass wall that looked out over the valley below, but both Bas and Noah knew that he wasn’t looking at that view. He was lost to a memory.
“I told him no, once,” he whispered.
“When, Jesse?”
“Shortly after he brought me to his home. He stepped into the shower behind me when I was washing myself and he said only he gets to wash me down there. I thought he was joking and I laughed and said, no, I don’t think so.”
“What happened after you said that, Jesse?”
A tear slid down Jesse’s cheek as he closed his eyes and shook his head.
Bas glanced at Noah, who pushed off the wall and walked up behind Jesse, squeezing his hands on his shoulders before moving to the side of him and squatting down, “Babe, look at me,” he whispered as he cupped Jesse’s cheek.
Jesse’s eyes opened. “It’s okay, babe. It’s okay to remember. I’m right here to catch you when you fall. You’ll always be safe with me, Jess.”
Jesse swallowed hard as he nodded his head. “H-h-h-he slapped my face so hard that I crashed into the tiles and fractured my cheekbone.”
Noah’s hand cradled the back of Jesse’s neck as he pulled him forward into a hug, cradling him against his chest. “You’d forgotten that, hadn’t you babe?”
Jesse nodded into his chest, “He was so sorry afterward. He made me swear to never question him again,” he said and then he gasped as he leaned back and looked at Noah, “He said the last boy who’d lived there always questioned him and he didn’t like the angry man it made him become. He said he didn’t want to be that way anymore and that was why I had to promise to be good. He was talking about you, wasn’t he?”
Noah pressed his lips to Jesse’s forehead, “Yeah, babe. He was.”
“God, I wish I’d met you sooner.”
“No, babe. We met when we were supposed to meet. If we start regretting the fact that we didn’t meet sooner, it will take away from the beautiful time we have together now.”
Noah heard a chair scrape the floor as Bas stood up, “I think that’s enough for today,” he said and then he started to walk past them both. But he stopped and placed a hand on Jesse’s shoulder, “You did good today, kid.”
Thirty-Five
Bas stepped out onto the deck with his coffee in hand and walked over to the railing. It really was stunning up here, especially the early morning light as it swept across the sleeping hills.
This was it, he thought as he took a deep breath of the cool air. They’d done all they could, prepped as hard as possible. It was sink or swim time, do or die. Either they made it or they didn’t.
The trial started at nine the following morning. A trial that Bas didn’t really understand why it was happening due to the overwhelming evidence against Jacob Knight. It made him nervous that Jacob had pled not guilty instead of taking a plea, because it really made no sense. Unless Jacob had something up his sleeve that Bas didn’t know about.
Which, knowing Jacob Knight, was entirely possible.
But what could he possibly have that would negate the videotapes, negate the testimony of the two men who currently slept in the house behind him, negate the piles of documents and medical records?
“It’s a little cold out here, shouldn’t you be wearing a shirt?”
Bas spun around to find Ten lying on the lounger with a thick comforter covering his body, almost as if he had….
“Did you sleep out here?”
Ten snorted, “Sleep, yeah, sure, let’s call it that.”
Bas sighed. For three weeks, he’d been trying to get the man to open up to him, and for three weeks the stubborn fuck had shut him down every time.
Maybe it was time for him to try a different tactic.
He walked over, sat sideways on the lounger next to Ten’s, set his coffee cup on the little table between them and said, “You can’t keep going on like this, you know that, right?”
Ten frowned as he crossed his arms over his chest, “I can do whatever the fuck I want!”
“No, Ten, you can’t. That shit you’re holding inside? It’s eating you up, like battery acid, and if you don’t spill it, if you don’t talk to someone, you’re going to wake up one day an empty shell.”
Ten’s arms and legs flailed as he threw the comforter off and shoved to his feet, “I’ve been an empty shell since the day he died!” he shouted.
“Fuck!” Bas shouted as the coffee cup went flying and landed right in his lap.
The second he felt the burn, he jumped to his feet and shoved his pajama pants down to his ankles, “Goddamnit, fuck!” he yelled as his thighs began to turn red.
“Oh, fuck, Bas I’m so sorry!” Ten said as he grabbed the water bottle that he had on the d
eck next to him, opened it and poured it over Bas’s dick, balls and legs.
Bas squealed, “Jesus Christ that’s freezing!”
“Would you rather burn your fucking dick off?” Ten growled at him as he looked up into his angry eyes.
“No, I’d rather bury it in your ass to soothe the motherfucker!”
They both froze.
Bas stared at Ten. He watched the breath sawing in and out of his lungs as his nostrils flared and his pupils dilated.
“Fucking son of a bitch,” Ten growled as he launched himself at Bas, smashing their lips together in a brutal, vicious coupling.
“Fuck,” Bas muttered into Ten’s hot mouth as he sucked his tongue inside.
Ten clamped his strong hand on the back of Bas’s neck and pulled both of them back down onto the lounger behind him. Bas grunted as his chest thumped against Ten’s and then it was two sets of hands trying to win groping dominance between their bodies.
“Condoms?” Bas mumbled into Ten’s mouth as he shoved the waistband of Ten’s sweatpants to his thighs and wrapped his hand around the thick cock that made its presence known with a wet trail of pre-cum over Bas’s belly. He stroked it up and down a few times, enough to realize that the man’s name might be Tenley, but his nickname of Ten definitely fit perfectly.
Ten grunted into Bas’s mouth as his hips punched up, “Don’t have any here,” he said.
And it took a moment for Bas’s sex-crazed brain to remember what his question had been. Oh, right, condoms.
Well, fuck going inside right now, fuck stopping this shit. Bas was too close, and from the feel of it, so was Ten. He lifted his hips enough to line up their cocks and wrap his hand around both. As his hand moved up and back, he kissed and sucked down Ten’s neck and groaned, “My balls, touch my balls.”
Ten’s hand slid between their bodies and squeezed, not to hard but none of that gentle shit either – just the way that Bas liked it.
“Fuck, fuck, ugh, fuck, Ten!” he moaned as his cock spit out his orgasm like an angry serpent.
“Oh fuck, shit,” Ten groaned as he bucked his hips almost hard enough to knock Bas off and then Ten’s slick come joined Bas’s on his stomach.
Bas’s forehead was pressed to Ten’s collarbone as tiny shudders continued to shake his body while he milked the last drops out of both of them.
Ten’s hands moved and his fingers squeezed Bas’s hips. Bas turned his head and found angry, livid eyes glaring at him.
“What the fuck did you do?” Ten hissed at him and then he shoved Bas’s body off.
Bas landed with a thump on his ass on the deck and he watched Ten’s back muscles ripple as he stomped inside.
“I’ve had you now, Tenley Pinkerton, and I’m going to fight for you with everything I’ve got,” he whispered into the light of dawn.
Thirty-Six
Bas ignored the silent, glaring, angry man in the driver’s seat and turned to look at Noah and Jesse in the back, “Today is just preliminary stuff. I’ll make my opening statement, the prosecution will make theirs, but more than likely we won’t get to witness testimony today, okay?”
Both men nodded their heads.
They drove for a few more miles in silence until Bas’s phone pinged with an incoming email. He checked it and saw that it was an updated witness list from the defense team. He tensed as he opened it because he hated this kind of last minute bullshit. He opened it and scanned through the names. At first he didn’t see anything different but then……there….tucked into the middle of the list where it would be easy to miss was one name that made him frown. Henry Miller. What if this was……
“I need you to find a place to pull over,” he said.
When he got zero response from Ten, he sighed. He’d get more reaction from a stone statue.
“Ten, I need you to pull over soon, please.”
Ten frowned as he glanced over and all Bas could think was, oh, gee, he can actually move.
Ten dipped his chin, flipped on his blinker, checked his mirrors and then pulled over to the side of the highway.
As soon as his SUV was stopped, Bas turned his head to glance at Noah and Jesse, “I need to make a quick call. Just wait here, I’ll only be a minute.”
“Everything okay?” Noah asked as his arm snaked protectively around Jesse’s shoulders.
“Yeah, it’s fine. Just a change to the defense’s witness list that I need to check on,” he said and then his eyes locked with Ten’s for a brief moment as he reached for his door handle.
Thankfully, Ten understood his silent message and he, too, climbed out and walked around the front of Bas’s SUV to meet him on the passenger side.
“What’s wrong?” he said.
Bas held up his phone to show Ten the witness list, “What’s the problem?”
Bas enlarged the list, “That name, right there.”
“Henry M…..” he stopped when Bas’s finger pressed against his lips. And then he glared at Bas and Bas knew only too well the silent message he was conveying: Don’t fucking touch me.
Message received.
Bas pulled his finger away and began scrolling through his contacts, “I think that might be Jesse and Kelly’s father,” he said as he brought the phone up to his ear.
“Cole, hey. Were you two planning on going to the courthouse today?”
“No, why? You said today was just preliminary stuff.”
“I thought it was but there’s a problem.”
“What is it?”
“What’s Kelly and Jesse’s dad’s name?”
Silence answered him for a long moment before Cole literally growled out, “Henry. The bastard’s name was Henry. Why?”
“He’s on Jacobs witness list. They just added him this morning.”
“Oh Jesus. So, you’re saying he might actually be there, today?”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of. What better way to get Jesse to go off the rails than by having dear old dad show up when he’s not expecting it.”
“Fuck. Okay, we’re leaving now. We’re not dressed for this shit but fuck that, right?”
“Yeah, fuck that. I’ll keep these two in the car as long as I can. Hopefully you and Kelly will be able to get there before nine. If not, I’ll have to take him in, I don’t have any other choice.”
“Understood. We’ll hurry,” Cole said and then he ended the call.
Bas caught Ten’s confused look.
“I thought Connor Braddock was Kelly’s father?” he said.
“He is. Adopted though. He adopted Kelly after he found him living on the streets as a teen, doing god only knows what in order to survive after his dad, Henry Miller, had threatened to kill him because he was gay, not kick him out, not disown him, kill him, Ten.
Ten slid his fingers through his hair as he glanced into the closed car, “Fuck,” he mumbled.
“From what I understand, before Kelly left, life with dad had been pretty brutal and bloody.”
Ten lifted his chin at the car, “You should tell him.”
“I will. I just wanted to see if Kelly could be there too so Jesse doesn’t have to confront him alone.”
“Life sucks,” Ten mumbled as he began to walk around the car.
“But sometimes it doesn’t, Ten. Sometimes there’s something out there, someone out there, who can make life fucking beautiful.”
Ten’s feet froze and even though his back was to Bas, Bas knew that his eyes were squeezed shut.
Ten’s shoulders lifted as he took a deep breath, “I found someone like that once,” he whispered.
“So, have I,” Bas said and Ten’s head whipped around, his eyes wide as he stared at Bas.
Ten opened his mouth and Bas braced himself for the vitriol that he knew was going to be flung at him but instead, all he got was, “We need to go,” and Ten stomped to the driver’s door and yanked it open.
Ten got them back on the road and then Bas turned in his seat to look at the two men in the back. “We have a
problem.”
Noah’s arms tightened around Jesse, “Tell us.”
“There’s been an addition to Jacob’s witness list.”
Noah frowned, “Who?”
Bas’s eyes moved to Jesse so he could watch his reaction as he said, “Henry Miller.”
Jesse’s eyes went wide, “What? Why?”
“Well, I don’t see what value he could actually bring to Jacob’s case, so my guess is he was brought in for the sole purpose of throwing you off of your game, of rattling you so bad that you choke.”
Jesse stared down at his hands as he wrung his fingers together in his lap. Noah and Bas looked between each other and Jesse as they waited.
“I can do this,” Jesse finally whispered.
Noah cupped his face, “Are you sure, babe? You don’t have to. We can wait out in the car today.”
Jesse’s determined gaze locked on Noah as he shook his head, “No. I want to do this, Noah. I need to.”
“Okay, babe, if you’re sure,” Noah whispered as he pressed his lips to Jesse’s forehead.
“I am.”
Noah pulled back and looked at him, “You stay with me, okay? I don’t want you anywhere near this fucker without me.”
Jesse nodded and leaned into Noah.
Twenty minutes later, Ten turned into the parking lot. Just as he was putting the Hummer in park and shutting off the engine, he heard a gasp, followed by a growled, “motherfucker,” and then Jesse shot out of the back door and took off towards the steps.
“Son of a bitch!” Noah yelled as he unbuckled and took off after Jesse.
Bas looked and saw an older, grey-haired, weathered man, limping as he took the last two steps to the top of the stairs.
“Did you even look for me?” Jesse shouted up at the man from the bottom of the stairs.
The man froze and then turned around with a sneer on his face. He shielded his eyes from the sun as he stared, “Still a fucking fairy, just like your brother, I see,” he said in a voice that sounded like it had been abused by years of tobacco and alcohol.
“Answer my question, asshole!” Jesse yelled as he put his hands on his hips.
Blackbird Fly Home (Doyle Global Securities Book 1) Page 19
