by Anne Russo
Chapter 13
Once Ian had returned from his miserable excursion and found that Adam hadn’t returned, he’d been far more incensed than worried. At that point, Ian’s first instinct was to call Adam, demanding he return, but pride got the better of him. Instead, Ian stood in a scalding, hot shower, scrubbing every inch of himself until his skin was raw. The sensation of wrongness from earlier, returning, getting into his head, building. Unable to shake the nagging sense of having committed an unforgiveable sin. One he’d need to beg forgiveness for, atonement.
Odd, considering that sex previously had always been perfunctory. A means to an end. Information, boredom, release from the buildup of violence Ian carried with him. Never as simple as mere desire alone. Lust, yes. Ian had lusted after his fair share, but he either had them or moved on to the next. Each man was every bit as interchangeable as the last. For the first time, fucking a random warm body into the mattress wasn’t enough. The encounter, every bit as soulless and empty as the ones before it and yet, that mattered now. Because he didn’t want any warm body—he wanted Adam. All day. Every day. And now, it’d take far more than a onetime indulgence to kill what was intensifying between them. Wild and out of control. Because once having him, Ian would want him again. And again.
Ian stood under the blistering spray, consumed by thoughts of Adam until he had to take himself in hand, remembering him earlier on his knees, the promise in his eyes. So close, the image sending him over the edge. Ian bit his lip bloody as he struggled to hold himself up as he came harder than he ever had with any flesh and blood person.
How could fantasy alone undo him this much?
Ian toweled off, irritated and frustrated with himself and Adam. Torturing himself with who might be waking up beside him—or falling asleep next to him as the early morning peeked through the semi-closed blinds. Ian didn’t bother with a shirt, only slid on a pair of jeans over wet legs. Out of habit, he placed his gun by the bedside before tossing himself on top of the still made bed. Eventually, exhaustion piercing through the tangled web, spinning circles in his mind. Images of where Adam had run off to, what he was doing with someone who wasn’t him.
God, Adam had been right. Ian had behaved like a coward, a gutless, worthless coward. And this was his penance, impotent to do little except wait for his return. Ian awakened several hours later, furious that Adam still hadn’t returned to their room.
He finally gave in and called, but no response. Ian refused to leave a message, unable to find the right words. Instead, fed up, he’d gotten in his car and drove. Ian had stumbled upon this desolate spot near the water by chance, after taking a turn off the interstate. Eventually he coasted his car to a stop next to a large gravel pit tucked beside a massive construction site. After several minutes of idling, Ian kicked open the door and started dialing Adam. He’d had enough with the silent treatment, ready to lay into Adam with enough threats to put the fear of God into him. Yet, as his calls went ignored, the more frantic he became. He felt livid when Adam didn’t answer or return his calls.
Ian watched with gritty, bloodshot eyes as the sun set over the Hudson River. The NYC skyline painted a fiery shade of red and orange as the wind blew in gunmetal hot. Around him, a city of millions came alive together in the sultry summer heat while he alone in his misery waited for a call that never came. The fading sun’s glow left his forlorn figure slumped forward, head bent, weary and defeated. Ian tried to smooth out the kinks in his shoulders to no avail, his back tense enough to hurt. Half-aware he’d been grinding his teeth, he now noticed his jaw ached as a consequence.
Under this bridge, time ticking by far too slow, overcome with rage as the seconds passed. If Adam thought he was going to indulge ridiculous temper tantrums, or these half-ass rebellions, he was mistaken. Ian busied himself contemplating the things he might do to Adam once he had his hands on him.
The phone clutched between his bone white knuckles vibrated. “Where the hell are you?”
“Hello, Ian.” A modulated voice as poisoned as arsenic replied, one which certainly did not belong to Adam.
“Who the fuck is this?” Ian demanded as his heart plummeted, the air knocked loose from his rib cage.
The evil chuckle at the other end confirmed his worst suspicions. “I’m insulted. And after everything, we shared.”
Grady. Ian would recognize his slimy voice anywhere. A recognition made worse by the immediate knowledge if Grady had Adam’s phone, than he had Adam. Furious, Ian hated himself for not taking Grady out when he had the chance. No, instead, all he had done was send that rat fuck scurrying back into a hole to plan his revenge. Well, Ian refused to let him slip through his fingers a second time, a vow whose flames were further fed by the words Grady uttered next.
“I bet right now you’re wondering if your pretty friend is as pretty as when you left him.”
“You sonofabitch.” Ian was aware of the shakiness in his tone, the fear he couldn’t swallow away. “If you so much as touch him, I’ll kill you, and I’ll do it fucking slowly.”
Grady chuckled, low and sinister. “Oh, that’s sweet, and quite romantic. Is he your lover? Hmm, makes this all the better, doesn’t it?”
Ian forced back another sharp response, realizing he’d given away something crucial. Grady, no doubt, had people posted all over the city hunting for him. He and Adam were likely spotted checking into the hotel and tipped off by one of Grady’s informants. From there, it wasn’t hard for Ian to deduce what’d happened next. Grady, realizing he’d found not only Ian but his lover, seized upon the opportunity. A person didn’t survive to be an all-around revolting piece of shit like Grady and not learn a lesson or two about taking advantage of opportunities as they arose.
Ian panicked, ready to beg, unable to curb his tongue. “Tell me what you want me to do?”
“I want you to suffer.”
Ian bit back the fear building, struggling to push it aside to get his thoughts together. But he couldn’t see past the red fog sweeping over him, decimating any strength he might have possessed.
“Don’t worry. It looks as if a few of my boys took a shine to him. I’ll let them have a couple turns with him, and if he’s good, I’ll do you the courtesy of ending him quickly.”
Ian swallowed back the taste of bile, his voice a shaky whisper, but he meant every word. “You’re a dead man.”
“We’re all dead men. Some deader than others, some sooner than others.” Grady laughed, clearly enjoying his torment. “You take care, Ian.”
The phone clicked off, leaving only the chilling finality of silence. Ian closed his eyes and tried to steady his shallow, ragged breathing. He failed as chaos reigned, hot and heavy for several slow seconds. An encroaching panic, so acute it threatened to take over all reason and logic, he was powerless to keep his imagination from getting the better of him. Grady was every bit sick and vicious enough to carry out every disgusting threat. But imagining those scenarios would get him nowhere, unnecessary fuel to his terror.
First, Ian needed a strategy and help. Lots of it. His hands were shaking as he dialed Mei, who answered on the second ring.
“Yes?”
“I need you,” he started, the words stuck dry in his throat. His skull throbbed, and his chest burned. He took another painful breath, his voice hardly above a whisper. “I need everyone. Grady’s back, and he has Adam.”
She didn’t question how or why, only, “Text me where you are. We’re on our way.”
The line went dead. The sun now gone, and the night dark, empty and stretched out forever in front of him, enormous and terrifying. A fear without limits waiting to swallow him whole.
* * * *
Adam was home again. The ramshackle Victorian he’d grown up in and had shared with his mother. Standing at the top of the staircase, hearing breakfast dishes clanking in the sink below him—coffee percolating in the old, battered kettle.
Dread filled him, as Adam took each step down, afraid of what he’d encounter at th
e bottom. Yet there was little besides warm sunlight pouring in through semi-closed plaid curtains—dust motes dancing in the golden streams swirling as he passed. He glanced into the living room, called out to his mother, unable to locate her among the ancient sofas and armchairs. The curio cabinets filled with knickknacks, forgotten and unseen. In the haze of early morning, Adam carried on, curious.
At last, he discovered her seated at the kitchen table. Her favorite chipped mug in front of her, steam rising over soft, loving brown eyes as they lifted to meet his own.
“Mom?”
The word sounded faded as if his throat refused to cooperate. He tried again, gaping in silence, pleading. The world shifted around him—static raising the hairs on his arms. There was a crack of thunder, a zag of lightning in the distance.
Outside, the sky darkened. The bright sun was fading as storm clouds gathered, the sound of hail pinging against the glass. The wind whipped and blew, rattling the windows. His mother’s once cherished expression darkening into something terrible.
“You should’ve stayed dead,” she told him. But, the voice wasn’t her own. It belonged to Ian.
Startled, Adam awoke, heaving and desperate for air, as a heavy hand slapped him across the face, jarring him into wakefulness. The taste of blood filling his mouth as the cobwebs of his dreams cleared, plunging him straight into a living hell.
If Adam had learned one thing from this past year, it was how rapidly one’s fortunes were apt to switch on a dime, in the blink of an eye. And just when his fortunes couldn’t get any worse, here he was smack dab in the middle of another nightmare, worse than the one before it.
Awake now and tied to a metal chair in a dank basement. A bright light trained on Adam’s face, forcing him to squint as he struggled to focus on his captors’ faces; out of the sea of shadows, an ominous figure appeared, turning the lamp away from his upturned face.
Adam jerked away, startled, forced to meet dead, unfathomable eyes. Eyes devoid of even the most minuscule warmth. The sinister, sly grin revealing in an instant who had kidnapped him and why. Horrorstruck, Adam’s blood went frozen as realization dawned. He was in far more trouble than even he had first anticipated.
“I’m Grady,” the man confirmed, favoring him with a hideous leer as he searched him up and down, sinister and deliberate. “And you are?”
Adam tried not to panic as Grady pulled his fortunate decoy wallet from his pocket and started shuffling through the cards inside. He tossed them into the puddles by his feet, rummaging until he found his license.
“Jason Suffield. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Suffield.”
“Who are you? Why am I here?” Adam demanded and made a show of wiggling out of too tight bounds; he had no immediate means of escaping. Still, it provided him the opportunity to test out their strength.
“Easy now,” Grady cautioned with a tsk as he tossed his possessions aside. “You’ll only hurt yourself and before I get the chance to do it myself.”
Adam stopped struggling, eyes wide, panting for breath. “What do you want?”
“I want you to tell me everything you know about Ian Abbott, starting first with how you came to be in his company tonight.”
Adam flipped through the various answers he could provide, attempting to gauge what Grady wished to hear as he formulated a quick response.
“Who the hell is Ian? I don’t know who that is!”
Grady blinked once, twice, his beady eyes narrowing. Those eyes gave Adam the legit creeps as if studied by a life-sized rat wearing human skin. Grady tilted his head to the side, scrutinizing him before responding.
“You’re lying.”
“Do you mean, Will? Will Mason?” Adam pleaded, his story gathering steam as he went. “We met a few months ago. I swear to God. I don’t know anything!”
Grady smirked and stepped close, too close. Close enough for Adam to get a whiff of both musty body odor and sweat mingled with too strong cologne. Adam struggled not to gag from the stench as he turned as far from his captor as possible. Grady, right in his face, refused to allow him an inch of space, his breath as hot and dry as a barren desert. He gripped Adam by his hair, ripping strands straight out from the roots.
Adam didn’t even have to fake the instant tears that sprung, crying out for Grady to stop. He struggled with his first reaction to fight his way out of his grip. Instead, Adam went limp, blinking up at his tormentor with wide, pain-filled eyes. He focused on making his expression appear frightened and vulnerable—anything but a threat. Inside, he was seething with the itch to tear Grady apart with his bare hands.
The only one keeping you here is you. Ian’s voice reminded him, and Adam clung to those words, repeating them like a mantra. Ian’s harsh lessons, a talisman Adam anchored himself to even as he cursed his existence.
“Oh, I’m sure he’s taught you plenty,” Grady hissed, tugging harder on the strands clutched between his bony fingers. The gesture, as well as the implication, snapped Adam back to reality.
“Please! Stop!”
Grady snickered with delight, tossing his head back. The metal chair slammed against the concrete hard enough to jar Adam’s bones.
“Does he love you?”
“What? I don’t—” Adam sputtered, thrown off by the question before it clicked. Grady had somehow drawn the conclusion he was Ian’s lover. How Grady had come to that deduction, Adam wasn’t sure.
Grady stunned him further. “Does he tell you he loves you when you fuck?” Grady taunted with a crude sneer.
Sickened, Adam figured as long as Grady considered him a bargaining chip he could use against Ian, he served a purpose. Otherwise, he’d be as good as dead. But not before Grady had his fun with him first.
“Yes, I—he said, he said he wanted to be with me.”
“Oh, you poor boy. I hope he was worth it.”
He gestured to his men, and a hefty set of arms ripped Adam from his bindings, jerking him out of his seat. “Lock him up in the other room. We’ll wait until Ian shows up looking for him, and then the real fun can begin.”
Grady turned back to Adam with a depraved grin. “I’m going to enjoy our time together, Mr. Suffield, however brief.”
His gleeful chuckle sent a chill of revulsion up Adam’s spine. Grady’s sick laughter followed him as they dragged out of the room.
* * * *
Mei skidded the car to a screeching halt, kicking up a whirlwind of gravel and debris as she flew into the lot. The doors opened, and she leaped out of the driver’s side with Regan hot on her heels from the passenger seat. Ian was beyond greetings as he headed straight for the trunk of their car. The hidden lock revealed the secret cache of weapons Mei had brought with her. Without pause, Ian started strapping up, pocketing several firearms as if in a daze.
Mei stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Ian.”
He turned, having forgotten the two standing beside him. Mei’s eyes were full of concern. Regan wore a similar expression as she stood off to the side, watching them both for her cues.
“Hold on,” Mei tried once more, gentle.
Ian shook his head, in no mood for a lecture, gentle or otherwise.
“You’re upset. You need to get yourself together first. We need a plan.”
“And Grady will kill him in the meantime. I can’t let that happen.”
Mei’s face softened. “It won’t come to that. Don’t underestimate Adam. You taught him well, remember that.”
Everything she said made sense. There was no point in Ian going anywhere without a plan first or even the hint of where Grady had taken Adam. It was foolish of him to run off guns blazing, tearing apart the city while Adam was tortured or worse. She was right. They needed a plan. They hadn’t time to spare when every second counted.
Ian’s cell phone rang. He grimaced when Katherine’s number appeared. He turned from Mei, marching several paces away, bracing for the incoming tirade. She didn’t disappoint, but even still, nothing prepared him for her absolut
e disdain as she laid into him.
“What did you do?”
Ian closed his eyes, panicky and shaky, unable to find the breath to answer.
“Ian?” Katherine’s tone sharper as he tried to defend himself, sputtering over his words.
“I—I screwed up.”
“You were not to let him out of your sight. Not for a single moment.”
Ian caught Mei’s concerned expression from his peripheral and moved out of earshot. “Tell me how this happened? How in the hell did you let Michael Grady get a hold of my son?”
“I didn’t mean for—we—we argued, and he went off to calm down—”
Katherine stopped him, her words pure venom. “Enough. Frankly, I don’t even want to hear your voice. Get him back, Ian. I don’t care how you do it but do not come back here without my son. Do you understand me?”
“I understand.”
“Good, now make it happen.”
The phone clicked off as Ian stood there, waves of nausea rising. Dark and tormented voices rose until he wanted to scream in frustration. Instead, he pushed everything else aside, concentrating only on the task at hand. And that was getting Adam back. No matter what it took, no matter the cost.
Chapter 14
A day had passed since they locked Adam in a cramped, one window room with exposed beams and a leaky ceiling. Alone with a single guard to keep him company. An immense, beefy guy who stood by the door, arms crossed, staring at him with hooded, unreadable eyes. Well, at least his ruse of being the helpless civilian boyfriend worked. Obviously, they didn’t see him as a threat if they left this idiot in charge of him.
It struck Adam as laughable that he might die here, his life reduced to little more than a footnote in Ian and Grady’s blood feud. Adam wondered If Ian knew yet that Grady had kidnapped him. He could die waiting for aid that may come too late or not at all. If Adam wanted to live, he needed to save himself.
Adam tested the ropes’ strength and wondered how much time he would need to get out of them. That feat would depend on how long the Neanderthal guarding him remained here. Would he become bored and wander off or stay here the entire time watching him? And he enjoyed watching. An icy quiver of revulsion crawled up Adam’s spine, confirming his theory as he attempted to wiggle out of his binds. Adam released a breathless throaty moan at the effort and studied the guard for a response. He didn’t disappoint, his eyes growing saucer wide at his performance, shivering though the room’s temperature was stifling.
