by Malone, Nana
Under the bed, Xander shivered and tried to make himself as small as humanly possible. Go away, just go away, please God, just go away.
Silas pushed the door open further letting the room flood with light and in the hallway, Xander could see Alistair.
The older teenager was quiet and mostly sullen, having no time for his future stepbrothers but Xander hoped that maybe, just maybe he would help. Maybe he knew the kind of monster his father was.
From his vantage point, Xander willed Alistair to look at him, silently begging, pleading. He shifted slightly so his future brother could see him more clearly. But when their gazes locked, Alistair merely stared at him. Xander mouthed the words, Help me.
There was something in Alistair’s eyes that flickered, and Xander took a deep breath. Thinking he would get one of the nannies or call someone. Anyone to come help him.
But instead, after what seemed like minutes merged into hours, Alistair walked in behind his father and closed the door behind them. Fear snaked up Xander’s spine. Large meaty hands clamped around his ankles and tugged him out from under the bed.
Xander thrashed. A distant part of his mind knew he was still in the throes of a horrific nightmare, but the other part did not. He felt like he was suffocating, unable to get air as he choked.
"Xander. Wake up!"
That voice. Soft, feminine, but insistent. Calming. His consciousness gravitated toward that voice. He would be safe if he could just get to it. If he could grasp it, someone would take care of him. Someone would love him. All he had to do was get there and he could escape his nightmare.
Someone pushed him hard on the shoulder and yanked him out of the horror. Sweat clinging to his skin, matting his hair, he scooted back on his king-sized bed with the sheets tangled around his legs. He dragged in several deep breaths as he struggled for oxygen and took in his surroundings. The room was dark, save the moonlight from the massive window overlooking London. He was in his room. He had access to two exits. He was safe. He didn’t need to be afraid. You are safe. No, not yet, the only way to be safe was with Alistair in a body bag.
At the foot of the bed sat a wide-eyed Imani. She'd wrapped a sheet around her and watched him warily.
His stomach rolled and he swallowed hard. He wouldn't be sick. Not in front of her. He wasn't going to lose control. Not like that.
Xander scrubbed a hand down his face and tried to get himself under control. Eventually his breathing evened and he slid his glance in her direction. "You all right? Did I hurt you?"
Imani shook her head slowly. She'd tucked her hair into a ponytail, but several of the curls around her face were making an escape. "Xander, that was a hell of a nightmare."
He was quick to apologize. "I'm sorry. They're unpredictable." He scanned her body for sings of injury. Even as his mind made its silent plea. Please don’t leave me.
"I'm not hurt. I'm more worried that you hurt yourself."
"I'm fine." The response was automatic and tripped off his tongue because he'd been telling himself the same lie for years.
She nodded even as her gaze slid to the faint bruises on his knuckles. "Just like you were the night you got those?"
He balled his hand up into a fist before rotating it so she couldn’t see the bruising. "That was—" What could he say? The violence of the other night was probably triggering something inside him. They still hadn’t talked about it really. He hadn’t wanted to.
"Nothing, yeah, I know." Her eyes were sad. "I'm only trying to help. But I'm not sure I can if you won’t talk to me. Tell me what’s going on. I want to know how to help you."
He itched to touch her, to hold her and not let go. But there was no way he could form the words to tell her that he needed her.
"Should I call Lex? Somebody."
"No." It came out harsher than he intended. "I'm sorry. I just—I don't need anyone's help."
She shook her head. "Don’t push me away." She reached her hand out to him and all he wanted to do was reach out and take it, but if he did, he'd have to open the door. It would have to come out and he didn’t want her running. She's going to leave if you don't tell her. Might as well cut yourself open and bleed.
His body still vibrating, he reached for her outstretched hand and pulled her close. She kissed him softly. "I'm here if you need me. Just tell me what's happening and we can deal with it."
"Okay, just let me get us some clothes. I'll never be able to get through it if you're naked." More like he wanted some shielding in case she ran from him. Standing awkwardly, he snagged two t-shirts and boxers from his bureau. When they'd both donned the clothes, he sat on the edge of his bed. Imani scooted over and sat next to him.
"When I was a kid, my parents divorced. I was about five or so when they got divorced the first time. Very small. Mum was pretty lonely. She's the one with the royal blood so she had her flurry of social obligations, but she was mostly lonely and obsessed with finding us the right kind of father figure. Dad's a bit of a twat."
She kept quiet, but still reached out and took his hand in hers, offering him silent support.
“She finally found someone. Silas McMahn. On the outside he seemed to adore Mum. He was attentive and wanted to spend time with us. He had a son from a previous marriage, but he was older. A teenager, and he hadn’t really been around for his childhood much, as he lived with his mother. It seemed like an instant happy family at first. The more Mum trusted him, the more she left him with us alone."
Next to him, he could feel her stop breathing as she squeezed his hand tight. Xander squeezed his eyes shut. He could do this. He could.
"Late at night, he used to sneak into my room and…" The bile rose in his throat and he forced himself to swallow it down. "Touch me. Told me I liked it. That it was my fault that this was happening. That I made him do it. When I resisted, he beat me."
"Oh my God, Xander."
He sniffed. "He told me if I told my mother then he'd hurt her. I didn’t find out until much later that he'd also been hurting Alexi. But he had a preference for blonds. Lex was too dark for him. I was really tow-headed as a child."
"No one helped us. Mum was blissfully unaware, and I've never forgiven her for it. At the same time, I can’t blame her. I was wild as a kid even before Silas came into her life. Around him, I was quiet, withdrawn. She thought he had a way with me." He snorted. "Little did she know."
"Someone must have known, tried to help you. You were just a baby."
"Alistair knew."
Her shocked gasp filled the silence. "He was the teenager."
Xander nodded and ran a hand through his hair. "As you can see, he's blond like I am. There was one night when I was hiding under the bed. I could see Alistair outside in the hallway and I begged him to help me. To call somebody to do something."
"What did he do?"
"He came in and he—" His voice broke as the memory threatened to choke him. "He held me down for his father."
Imani stared at him agog, her eyes wide with horror.
“One night when Mum had travelled, Lex stayed in my room with me. My little brother, protecting me. Can you imagine?"
"He loved you."
"Yeah, he did what I couldn't. Silas came for me that night, but Lex was there. You should have seen him. So small and so brave. At six years old he told Silas that he was going to tell. That he was going to call the Bill and Silas was going to go to jail forever. I thought the tosser was going to kill him."
"Oh my God."
"The whole time, Lex was shouting at me to run and I did. I can still hear his little feet behind me. I ran past our stairwell and I was desperately looking for a room that would lock where we could hide, then, all of a sudden, I didn’t hear Lex's feet. Just a curse, then several loud thuds in a row. When I turned back to go for Lex, I found him at the top of the stairs. He'd pushed Silas down."
"Fuck."
Xander scrubbed a hand down his face. "He'd saved my life. My brother had done what I couldn't do. He might
seem quiet and affable, but he's a wall of strength, that one."
"You're strong too, Xander. None of what happened was your fault."
He laughed mirthlessly. "Maybe not, but my choices were on me. I told my mum and everyone I had pushed him down the stairs. Of course, my father started his PR campaign. I don’t think he ever believed I’d done it. There was something so steely about Alexi back then. I refused to let them send him to some boarding school far away, though. He was six, for the love of God. Instead, I went. To Dexter Academy. It was for troubled children, but very exclusive. I had my fill of shrinks and therapy while I was there."
"Did any of it help?"
"Some. A little. Not enough." He rubbed his jaw. "The one good thing that came out of that place was it gave me an outlet. It's where I first picked up a camera."
"Xander, you still turned out great, you can’t keep torturing yourself over something that happened when you were a little boy."
He laughed. "You think I'm great, do you?" He gestured at his body. "This is the result of Alexi saving me again. If you’d seen me five years ago, you wouldn’t be so eager to hold my hand."
"Stop it, Xander."
"It's the truth. There wasn’t a drug I wouldn't try, some reckless thing I wouldn't do. Some dubious woman I wouldn’t sleep with. Screw that, women."
"What happened? Why did you spiral after all your therapy?"
"I met a girl at uni. Christie. She was beautiful. So smart. You know, the kind of girl who kept me on my toes. I was going to marry her. She seemed like the answer to my prayers. But then, I had a chance meeting with a grown-up Alistair. Let’s just say it didn’t go well."
"I hate him," she whispered. Ice dripped from each word and there was a fierce sincerity inscribed in her eyes that told him she meant every word.
"Oh wonder of wonders, the club numbers swell. I hadn't forgotten that night. And I lost it. I threatened to kill him, to expose what he was, what he'd done. He took it all in stride. The next day I caught him coming out of Christie’s flat. He’d told her about my past. That I’d killed his father. Dad had covered it all up, and as far as the public was concerned, Silas had fallen after a night of drinking. But Alistair knew at least my version of what happened. And he told Christie."
"Please tell me she believed you."
He shook his head, the pain too hard to relive. "No. She left me." He inhaled sharply. "That's when the spiral started. My anchor was gone and I blew a fuse."
"Xander, you were hurting."
Fuck. Why was she being so understanding? He scrubbed his face, unsure of what to tell her, how to tell her. "My chance at normalcy was gone and I lost myself in women. In sex. You said it yourself, it’s how I fix problems. There were hundreds of women. Sometimes two or three or more at a time."
She blinked at him rapidly, but didn't let go of his hand.
"I was pretty much a sex addict. But the kicker of it was, the more women I slept with, the more disconnected I became.” Just saying the words made him feel ill. “It was like I was trying to prove that what happened to me didn’t affect me. But it colored everything. My relationship with my mother, with Lex. The women I slept with. Eventually, even sleeping with these women got tedious.”
He gave a mirthless chuckle. “The irony was, because of my name and this face, more women approached me. All kinds of women. I wanted them all. I had to prove something. But I couldn’t bring myself to care about any of them. Eventually, I couldn’t even come anymore. Sex had become this habit. A way to numb the gaping hole in my chest."
"Xander." Her voice was so soft, but he could hear the tears in it.
“I ran my nutter arse back to a doctor pronto, but it wasn’t physiological but psychological. Of course the doctor said I needed some serious time on a couch if I wanted to stop. Shit, at the time, I could be with two or three women a day. It didn’t help that the world’s most beautiful women surrounded me. All it took was a look of interest and I would fuck someone. I didn't care where. A dodgy alley, a car, by the wharf, the loo at a club. Hell, I’ve had women blow me at one of the VIP clubs before.”
The whole time he spoke, she didn't let go of his hand once, just gripped tightly, as if she was afraid he might bolt.
“At one point I wondered if maybe I was gay." He shook his head, disappointed with himself. "That was a disaster of a failed experiment. I couldn’t get it up. But at least it answered a question. Though I still couldn’t get my rocks off with anyone. Sure, I could come on my own, but it wasn’t the same. I’d leave women in bed, then have to do something to relieve the pressure after unless I wanted a wicked case of blue balls. The relief I couldn't get with sex, I numbed with drinking and party drugs. Fuck, I didn’t even like being high. I was a fucking mess. Until one night three years ago, Lex dragged me out of some East London club by my scruff." He shook his head. "It was humiliating, but he wouldn’t let me give up on myself. I really had no choice but to get myself together. What I was doing wasn't working.”
“You were able to just walk away?”
“It wasn’t always easy, but I started choosing the thing that felt good. Or rather the path where I didn’t feel like an arse. The drugs were easy to stop. I never liked being high. It was harder to quit whoring around. Until recently, I hadn't slept with anyone for two years." He swallowed hard, not wanting to tell her about what he’d done. But he knew he had to. “I shifted my focus to revenge over the last few years. Lex said it would eat at me, but I didn’t understand until I met you. I’ve only cared about making Alistair pay and I’ve been willing to do anything to make that happen. That includes sleeping with his wife for information.”
She went still, but she didn’t let him go.
He pressed on hoping he could just get it all out before she decided she was done. “I knew who she was and I targeted her. I slept with her. I told myself it was for information. But a part of me wanted to punish him. We’ll just say it wasn’t good for me. You pretty much changed everything.”
Imani parted her lips and he fought the urge to kiss her. "I don’t understand. Why me?"
"I wish I understood it myself. All I know is that first night, I felt this instant connection to you. Like a part of you was as afraid as I was, but so strong. I wanted to touch you. I was desperate to kiss you. Just tasting you was enough to have me on the edge of an orgasm."
Imani frowned as she tried to understand properly. Sitting up straighter, she asked, “Then why do you try to block out that connection?”
"Because you scare the shit out of me. The other night, by the time I got home, I was a wreck. You weren’t here and it kept running through my head what I could have done to that guy. It terrified me that you make me lose control. I would have happily killed him with zero remorse. Having someone that close to me terrifies me."
"You were different."
He nodded. “I needed you. But I wanted to distance myself from you emotionally. The moment I tried to do that, we didn’t work."
She nodded, then reached up to his face and cupped his cheek. "It changed when I kissed you?"
He nodded. "I can’t hold back from you."
She kissed him softly. "Then don't."
Twenty-Seven
This was it. Today was the day. Xander was finally putting all of this to rest. But he still couldn’t shake the shadow of last night. Imani hadn’t left him and he’d held her till the sun came up, still unable to sleep, but feeling lighter than he had in months. It didn’t stop the raw, exposed feeling though.
To Imani’s credit, she'd acted completely normal this morning, complete with shower sex that completely blew his mind. And if he was honest with himself, he'd rather be locked in the house with her all day, but he had other commitments now. LeClerc wanted to meet later today about one of their campaigns. But before they discussed work, he’d be presenting the old man with all the information he’d dug up on Alistair. When it was over, the man wouldn’t be allowed into the building. He’d wanted a public spectacle and
shaming, but the work the trust did was genuine. He didn’t want that tainted by Alistair.
Before he could focus on his future, he had to deal with his past. Garrett had finally found something he could use. Though it wasn’t what Xander expected. After last night's purchases he was finally ready, though he'd thought he'd be more excited about it. Mostly he just wanted it over with. He was just so tired.
This morning, he and Lex had made their move. In the next five minutes, the announcement would go out to all the media outlets regarding the purchase and control of Trident Media. They’d also leaked it that he and Lex were behind the company that made the purchases. No point in making someone twist in the wind if they didn’t know it was you.
The knock on the door had him standing up straight. "Come in."
Alistair pursed his lips as he shut the door behind him. "Let's get this over with, shall we? What did you what to see me about? We have work to do today and I don’t really have time to deal with your particular brand of whiny bullshit."
Xander's lips tipped into a half smile. He waited for the rush of victory. Something, but he was too tired. Too empty. He'd hated this man for twenty years. The pain he'd caused him was unspeakable. But at the same time, the anger had only affected him. Eaten him alive. Alistair was for the most part unaffected.
Yeah, well, that was about to change. And then he'd be done. After this he could spend some time with Imani, get to know her for real, figure out how to live without the need for revenge. "Have a seat, Alistair."
His once-almost-brother shoved his hands in his pockets. "I prefer to stand."
"Fair enough." Xander rolled his shoulders. "Within the next few minutes, I expect you to resign from the Artistic Trust. I don’t want to ever see you again. Matter of fact. I'd like you to move out of London. I don’t really have any say about that, but if I do see you anywhere in London, I will make it my personal agenda to destroy you."
