by Carol Caiton
Logically, he understood that line of thinking was reasonable. But logic didn't hold much sway when sorrow and guilt and anguish had a chokehold on him. He'd shot and killed a thirteen-year-old kid he'd laughed with, had watched grow up from the age of seven. And the pain that weighed down on him now was the same pain he'd felt when his kid brother's brains were splattered all over the fucking wall. Death and loss had touched him once too often. He had no idea how people survived it when a child suffered with cancer or some other terminal illness and died.
He figured he'd get past it again. Eventually. And he was working on it. In a twisted kind of way Michael was even helping. He didn't know it though. He had no idea Kyle was a member of RUSH. But hanging out at Threshold would bombard him with loud music, sexy women, and the possibility of a mind-blowing orgasm before the end of the night. It was also a partying environment he could walk away from when it stopped being a distraction and started firing up all that tension. Unfortunately, that happened pretty regularly.
Six months ago he'd considered renting an A-frame up in the Poconos, away from everyone he knew. He would have been content living like a hermit for a while, letting all this grief and self-blame work itself out. But he'd been in the break room one afternoon, only half paying attention to the news on television while he fished some change out of his pocket for the snack machine. Internal Affairs had investigated and cleared him of shooting Azram Washington, but he hadn't gone back out on the streets. Hugging a desk. That's what he'd been doing. He hadn't been ready to wear a gun yet. Maybe he'd never be ready for that again.
He'd just dropped a second quarter into the machine when breaking news reported a riot taking place outside the gates of RUSH, Inc. in Orlando, Florida. Always a topic of interest, Kyle and the other two guys in the room had looked up. And right before his eyes, clear as day after seventeen fucking years, Michael Vassek's face lit up the screen. Michael Vassek.
Yeah, he could have been mistaken. But he wasn't. He knew he wasn't. For years after Michael disappeared he'd searched for him. Tirelessly. Doggedly during the first few. Then slowly, gradually, he'd tried to accept that Michael was probably dead. But it wasn't until he was eighteen that he finally came to terms with that. The facts might not have been staring at him in black and white, but he knew by then what had probably happened. And later, as a cop on the streets of Philly, he'd seen some of the ugliest shit he ever wanted to see, and he'd known for certain. Michael hadn't disappeared willingly. Michael was dead. If he'd been alive, he would have made his way home.
For seventeen years Kyle had believed that. Michael would have come home had he been able to. And then he'd looked up and the kid he'd loved like a brother rose from the dead in full color on CNN. He'd watched, dazed, as Michael slammed his fists into those assholes from PIC, one after another, keeping them away from the girl trapped inside an overturned car. Michael. Jesus.
Kyle's world had turned upside down all over again that day. Thoughts of an A-frame in the Poconos were forgotten. Getting his hands on a computer topped his list of priorities, and in lieu of that, he pulled out his cell phone and Googled Michael's name, fucking stunned when he hit pay dirt.
Staring at the information that turned up, he'd pulled out a chair and sat down before his legs gave out. There were several hits, most of them focused on Senator John Rawson rescuing a kid off the streets, then later, adopting him. Kyle had read all of them, everything he could find. After that, he'd turned in his badge, packed his bags, and headed for Florida.
During the few days it had taken to wrap things up and get on the road he'd tried to come up with a plan. But he didn't know what awaited him, so he settled on plotting a course to Orlando, locating RUSH, Inc., and filling out an application for membership. From there he'd play it by ear and see how things went.
But after six months, he'd still made no move to approach Michael. Instead, he got a job on a road crew, found a place to live, and spent a lot of time at RUSH, watching, waiting, then wondering if he shouldn't back off, leave things as they were, and go home to Philly.
But the first time he saw Michael live and in person, the pain had been like an emotional knife to the gut. He'd been standing in line at the coffee bar take-away counter when Michael and a dark-haired guy walked up and joined the queue. Kyle's stomach had knotted with equal parts exaltation and fury and he'd stared, absorbing the reality, the changes, the blond hair that was slightly darker than it had been as a child, the mature features shadowed by an afternoon growth of beard, the scar on his face, familiar blue eyes, and the ache of hearing a somewhat familiar laugh, only deeper, all of it forcing him to turn away because he didn't know what to do with what he was feeling.
Then came the anger. The fury. Michael had walked away and never looked back. The street-smart protégé of Senator Rawson had had the tools and the know-how to find Kyle any time he wanted to, but he hadn't bothered. He'd walked into a cushy job, collected his millions when Rawson died, and took himself off to sunny Florida without a backward glance.
So the asshole was standing on the other side of his door now.
Kyle rolled his shoulders once, then reached for the doorknob and opened it. And sure enough, those crystal-blue eyes, still so familiar, stared back at him. And even now, fuck it, his heart constricted with emotion.
For a minute neither of them spoke, each taking in the other. Michael's uncombed blond hair looked like it had been ruffled by a stiff breeze. Kyle was pretty sure his own looked about the same. Funny, as kids, people thought they were related, even though Kyle's hair and eyes were dark brown. Now, as adults, they were both tall, had a similar build, and neither one of them walked around with combs in their back pockets. Kyle almost smiled at that. But he didn't.
"What the hell made you become a cop?" Michael finally asked, a mixture of irritation and curiosity in his eyes. And just that fast, a little chip of the ice between them broke away. Leave it to Michael to act as though they'd been the best of friends only yesterday.
Kyle stepped back and held the door open, but he didn't invite Michael to sit down. Nor did he offer him a beer or anything else. This wasn't a friendly social call. It was a let's-clear-the-air-while-I-try-not-to-rip-out-your-fucking-guts visit.
Michael stepped inside, took a look around, then met his eyes again. For a split second something flashed there, just for a second, then it was gone.
But Kyle had seen it. He knew what it was too, and it put him off balance. He was familiar with that look. It was exactly the same expression that came into his foster mother's eyes when he hadn't stopped by for a while—that searching kind of look that says I've missed you . . . let me look at you . . . it's so good to see you.
But it was gone now, and Kyle didn't even want to admit he'd seen it. He was too angry. And he felt too many other things, goddamn it. Which made him even angrier.
"The family that took me in was big on law enforcement," he said, and probably didn't even need to say that much. If Michael knew he'd been a LEO, then he knew as well that Kyle had been caught up in the system and raised by foster parents. The asshole had done his homework before coming here, but it was a little late for that, wasn't it.
It was interesting though, what he saw in Michael's face. The guy was guarded. That flash of affection a few seconds ago had only been there for a moment before it was buried. His face now was smoothly expressionless. But a person's eyes told stories that were hard to hide, and Michael's eyes were as ancient as his own. For all his millions of dollars, Michael had seen something of life.
"So why'd you act like such as ass the day my wife was attacked?"
Kyle shrugged a shoulder. "Because you expected it."
"Fuck you, Kyle. What else would I expect after finding out you were tailing my wife? You just figured I'd know you switched over to the side of law and order?"
"Yeah, I guess I did. But you never bothered to check, did you? You didn't even know Joey was dead, and that was seventeen goddamn years ago. Right after you
walked away. So I know you never checked. Well fuck you too, Vassek."
"Is that what this is about?"
"My mother was sick. Remember that? You were supposed to go with me to steal some antibiotics. But you went after that kite and never looked back. Just took off and never bothered to let anyone know you were still breathing. So where did you go, Michael? Where the fuck did you go?"
Kyle knew what had happened, knew Michael wouldn't have taken off on his own, but the devil was riding him hard so he pushed. He wanted to strike back, to make Michael hurt the way he had hurt. Because goddamn it, just looking at him made him ache inside.
"Well?"
In contrast to his own agitation though, Michael stood across from him composed and . . . still. Just still.
"I got picked up," he finally said.
"The hell you got picked up. Unlike you, I checked. And I kept checking. For years I checked. You weren't in any system anywhere. I searched. Other people searched. The whole goddamn Philly police department looked for you. So don't give me that crap. You went out after that kite and never came back. Not even when you could have."
This time Michael didn't answer. He showed no outward reaction at all. Just stared, his eyes steady but unreadable.
"Why didn't you come back, Michael? Why the hell didn't you give me something? Anything."
Still no answer. Nothing.
Fury rose up inside. Fury at Michael. Fury at what had gone down when his kid brother found the guns he and Michael had stashed inside a hole in the wall. Fury at the cops who wouldn't let him help his mother. Fury at the paramedics who didn't listen when he kept shouting that she was allergic to penicillin. Fury—fury—for for the kid who lost everyone and everything in the space of forty-eight hellish hours, screaming over and over and over, "Find Michael for me! Find Michael for me!" until he lost his voice.
But no one had listened. His kid brother had blown his brains out because the little shit didn't listen when he was told the third floor was off limits. His mother had been killed by a syringe of penicillin because no one listened to a twelve-year-old kid from the streets. And now this fucking asshole wouldn't even give him the peace, the frigging relief of an explanation. Just a goddamn explanation. He didn't need details. He just wanted to know why the fuck Michael hadn't come home when he could have.
"Seventeen years, Michael. Then one day I look up and there's your face lighting up the news. After all that time. Hell, I couldn't get to a computer fast enough so I pulled out my phone and Googled you. Fuck if I expected to find anything, but there you were in the headlines. Sixteen-year-old homeless boy adopted by Senator John K. Rawson. Sixteen, Michael. What? Was he a closet queen or something? Did you find out how much money the guy had and decide to play pretty boy?"
The words exploded from his mouth in anger. He knew Michael didn't swing both ways. But accusing him of it, flinging some of that hurt back at him, released a nice little edge of the fury driving him on. He opened his mouth to throw out some more because the opportunity was too sweet to pass up.
But Michael just stood there. His face was pale but utterly blank. Not even the flicker of an eyelid gave anything away. Hell, the two of them should have been tumbling around on the floor by now, beating the crap out of one another, knocking the legs off his shitty second-hand furniture.
But Michael didn't say a word, didn't move a muscle. Just looked back at him with a flat dead stare that started a rising flood of self-hate through Kyle.
No, goddamn it.
No.
"I never did get that kite," Michael finally said into the silence. "I spent two years chained up in a cellar. And after that? When I got free? I did whatever I had to do to survive, Kyle. And you can put whatever spin you want on that." He turned toward the door. "'Cause I really don't give a fuck."
