Varick’s eyes turned toward the older doctor. “Callaghan Family?”
Thomas spun his phone where it sat on the table. “That’s actually why the FBI became involved, thinking it had to do with Kieran’s...familial link to the Irish mobs of St. Louis. Kieran and Jae are on some watch lists. Kieran doesn’t know that his mother was disowned by her family for marrying Jae. Sarah was such a sweet girl. I am sure she had no interest in her Family’s illegal dealings anyway. Who wouldn’t want to get away from a mobster father?”
Varick stared at him for a solid minute before he could speak. “How do you know this and he doesn’t?”
Thomas shrugged. “Well, we did that biography on Kieran, so his family history is in it. Gives the book a lot of intrigue, you know?” he smiled. “Successful young doctor, child prodigy, coming from a family history of crime...”
“Wait, you actually publicly linked him to the fucking Irish mob?” Varick hissed in utter disbelief. “Do you know how stupid that is? Do have any idea what that information could do to him?”
Thomas just stared at him blankly. “I...Well, it was...I didn’t think it would matter much. No one that’s involved with that would read something like Kieran’s biography,” he dismissed it with a wave of his hand. “Besides, the book has only been out for a week, and there have been no problems. The sales have been excellent thanks to all my work.”
“Your work? Don’t you mean Kieran’s work? It’s his story and his life that you’re talking about,” Varick growled.
“Yes, of course that’s what I mean. I’ve arranged all the interviews and publicity, so that part has been my work.” He snorted and looked away from Varick.
“Publicity that has been created by making him do things he obviously doesn’t want to do?” Varick remarked in a low town as he cocked one brow.
Thomas rolled his eyes. “He’s fine, I know how far he can be pushed. I’ve worked with him since he was a child. He has to be pushed out of his comfort zone or else he will have another breakdown, and we can’t have that. He doesn’t know how to handle himself, and he has no idea what real life outside this hospital is like. And he never will because of his disability.” He glanced at his hands. “I hate it. I love him like my own child, but it is the truth, a hard truth that Kieran himself is going to have to understand. Sometimes, other people make the best choices for him. He just doesn’t get a lot of the world around him.”
Varick’s patience snapped. He had to leave or he was going to punch this guy in his pretentious face. He stood up and spoke tightly.
“I’ve got to go, tell Special Agent Richmond that she can call my cell if she needs anything.”
Somehow, Varick made it outside the hospital without thinking. He stopped to lean against building and fought the horribly strong urge for a cigarette. He hadn’t smoked or even thought about smoking, in at least five or six years. Right now, it was the only thing he wanted. Smoking had always been one of his ways to cope with anger. Instead, he closed his eyes and took series of deep breaths. He started his visualizations that would help quell the irrational anger the was still surging in his chest. After a few minutes, he found his calm returning.
He looked at his phone, realizing he had it in his hand. He should call Devan. He hadn’t noticed anything recently from Devan indicated he was a bad person, quite the opposite actually. He knew he was affiliated with these Callaghans. From what he could tell, the authorities were at an impasse, and this Dr. McKellar that professed to love Kieran like a son didn’t seem to care much. That left stepping outside the law as the only viable option. Varick flicked the ball in his tongue piercing against the back of his teeth a few times as he thought. He’d do what he had to do to try and save his doctor. Even if it meant doing something illegal.
He dialed Devan’s number.
“Yo, Leo-love, what’s up?” Devan answered. Varick heard music in the background so they must have been up on the first floor arranging something for the night. He was lucky to have caught them.
“Hey, I need to talk to you and Carmine right away,” he belted out so he could be heard over the background noise.
There was a long groan of annoyance. “Man, I just got into my favorite bustier and thigh highs, and me and Carmine got this sweet little subby girl...”
“Please, it...Look, my doctor, he’s been kidnapped...and...” Varick responded.
“What? The one you and Carmine are mooning over?” Varick heard the background noise diminish almost completely.
“I know. I mean, I remember what I heard when you dropped that night, and Mia told me who you worked for. The police... They found the guys who kidnapped him. One’s dead; the other might be soon. The FBI said they worked for that Callaghan guy,” he replied as he rubbed his head.
“What?” Devan’s reply sounded more shocked than Varick expected. “You...you said he looked young, right?” The sheer fear in Devan’s voice was enough to make Varick go cold.
“Yeah, he...he’s this tiny Asian guy, like five and a half or something, and he’s got this cute heart shaped face, and big blue eyes, and these big pouty red lips with a cupid’s bow, and a little button nose...” Varick stopped. He realized he was going into way too much detail. “Um, yeah, he doesn’t even look sixteen. Carmine thought he was younger...”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he heard Devan say. He could hear the click of her heels as she paced back and forth. “This is bad; this is really bad...”
“What is?” Varick asked, his own worry building.
“It...Fuckin’ Rian Callaghan’s a goddamned pedophile. But he’s got this idea that God made him the way he is, and he has to get rid of the urges somehow so he doesn’t hurt a child. He’s adamant, well both him and O’Brien are, about not harming children in any fashion. So-so he gets rent boys sometimes, the ones who look young, twink boys, y’know, and sometimes, if there’s someone that’s involved in something, instead of killing them, he takes them back to the mansion, like long term.”
Devan’s voice was shaking. “They don’t fuckin’ last long, Varick. He fuckin’ abuses them until they start to bore him, then he fuckin’ kills them. If Kieran, if he’s half of what you described, he’ll fuckin’ take him back, and he’ll brutalize him. Chances are, he’s already fuckin’ raped him. If we’re lucky and he’s not already dead.”
Varick’s eyes went wide. Despite the almost nonsensical rambling, Varick got the gist of what Devan was saying. “You work for these people, how...how can you know this goes on and work for them...I...”
Varick wanted to be angry, he really did but when Devan spoke next, he could hear Devan choking back tears. “I tried to get out...but Varick you can’t get out...not once you’re in. The only way out is dead, or getting picked up by the cops, and I didn’t want to see my family get hurt because of me being a fuckin’ idiot when I was a kid and getting mixed up in this shit. I try, I work for Liam, he’s a good man, but Callaghan, he’s sick and twisted. I try...I try to keep the fight between them from hurting others, but...I can’t...I don’t...” he panted desperately in obvious panic.
“Devan, stop. Stay there. I’ll be there for you and Carmine in a few minutes. Don’t leave,” he exclaimed, taking off for his bike at a dead run. “Is Carmine there with you?”
“No... I think he’s out in the-the playroom with you sister.” he stammered, and Varick could hear he was completely falling apart.
“Where are you?” he asked with concern. He paused before he opened his saddle bag to get his helmet and gloves out.
“I went to the locker rooms, don’t know...” he trailed off. Varick was worried because his voice was sounding hollow.
“Stay there,” he insisted. “I’ll be there in fifteen. Don’t move.”
“Okay.” The line went dead.
“Motherfucker,” he mumbled as he dialed another number.
“Hey, what’s up?” came Carmine’s voice, the background noise of the club filtering in behind him. “Thought you said you were b
usy tonight? Devan just took off downstairs...”
“Get to Devan, now,” he commented and opened the saddlebags to fish out his gloves and helmet.
“The fuck is going on?” Carmine stated in a worried tone.
Varick swallowed. “Look, our doctor got fucking kidnapped and the people who did it are either dead or almost there, and it turns out Devan works for the fucking Irish mob boss that has him now, and he’s a fucking pedophiliac pervert who likes to get his hands on young looking guys, and Devan’s flipping out. Get to him so he doesn’t do anything stupid before I get there.” He didn’t for an answer before he cut the line and shoved it in his leather jacket. He pulled his helmet on and started up his Triumph. He adjusted his gloves and took off at a speed well above the legal limit.
CARMINE STARED AT THE phone and looked at the sub they were about to play with. “Sorry, go on, can’t do a scene, something came up,” he told her. Carmine had been waiting for Devan to come back to finish settling on the scene rules for the night.
She looked cute with her pigtails and the set of bright pink wrist cuffs. She wore no collar, of course. Her hair was also dyed pink, and she was wearing nothing else but a pink and purple plaid skirt and a black leather bralette with a pair of chunky pink boots. She frowned and nodded, getting up from the table with a deep sigh. She had said she was looking forward to spending time with the pair of Doms.
Clair and Charles were waiting for Carmine and Devan so they could all go downstairs together. She’d said something to Carmine about a there being a problem at the hospital when Varick had run off in a rush. She’d shown Carmine the text Varick had sent her, just saying “I’m fine, go on to the club tonight, talk soon.” Carmine had tried texting him as well, but hadn’t gotten an answer. He’d been slightly worried, but he figured Varick would have let Clair known if he was in any real trouble.
Carmine had been happy to see Clair had come to enjoy her position as Charles’s Domme. He was impressed at how quickly she fell into the role, but then again, she was Varick’s sister. She definitely looked the part; she’d taken to wearing mini-skirts with low-cut bustier which showed her breasts well. She wore her hair elegantly pinned up in a bun and usually wore high stilettos. Charles now proudly displayed her initial consideration collar, a one-and-a-half-inch wide stone studded tan leather collar. The tag on it had small clear stones around the circle of metal, reading simply Corporal on the front and Property of Contessa inscribed on the back. It featured three D-rings around it; the center one had a matching leash clipped to it loosely wrapped around Clair’s fist. He, as usual, wore his desert camo fatigues and army boots.
“Did you see which way Devan went?” he asked as he nervously fingered his phone.
Clair shook her head, “I think she went downstairs when she got a phone call,” she responded with a deep frown, worried now about what had happened. “What’s wrong?”
“Something about Varick’s doctor. He’s been kidnapped, apparently by some people Devan works for or something,” Carmine muttered, heading off to find him.
Carmine headed downstairs, waving at Jerome as he went through the curtain. He figured if Devan wanted privacy while on the phone, he might have gone to the employee locker room down in the Playroom. He waved at Syn as he went through the check-in room and around the side to the locker room. The locker room was plain, lined on two sides with tall tan colored lockers. In the center of the room, there were two tables with four chairs around each one. On the empty wall, sat a leather loveseat. Devan was pacing back and forth along the left side of the room in front of the lockers. Their hands were in their hair, pulling it harshly now and then.
Devan was still wearing the sheer skirt and bustier that had been for the scene they were going to do. Carmine shut the door behind him and went over, pulling Devan’s hands down from their hair. Carmine was immediately aware Devan was definitely out of Domme mode. Devan looked up at him and Carmine was shocked at the look on his face. This wasn’t the Domme Devan; she was long gone. This was also not the sub Devan that Carmine had come to know.
“I’m so fuckin’ messed up... How can I even-? This is all because- I don’t fuckin’ know-” he stammered as he tried to wrest his hands away from Carmine, and that’s when Carmine realized something about Devan’s wrists.
Perhaps he’d noticed before, but now he saw it even more clearly. He saw the scars just barely visible under the black-light tattoos because whoever had done the tattoos had done a really good job of covering them. The more Carmine looked, the more he saw, and the more he realized he’d never met Devan, not really. He’d met the Devan who he wanted to be seen as, not the one he spent most of his life as. Carmine swallowed hard, pinning Devan’s hands between them before pulling Devan tight against his body. He felt Devan trying to pull his arms free, but Carmine just held on tighter. After Devan finally relaxed, Carmine kept ahold of him as he steered him to sit on the loveseat. He let go of Devan’s wrists and took his hands. He wasn’t afraid he was going to pull out his hair.
Devan was quiet for a long time, leaning back into Carmine and staring into to space. “I was fifteen,” he whispered. “So fuckin’ stupid. I-I got mixed up with this fuckin’ pariah Dom...” His voice was much quieter than Carmine had ever heard before.
“Pariah Dom?” Carmine asked, stroking his hands down Devan’s arms as he held him and gently rocked him.
“They...they’re these fuckin’ assholes who cruise the places that aren’t regulated, slap and tickle joints, y’ know. Or they’ll have ‘bondage nights’ at some fuck bar and get the leather fetish junkies to come out, but it...it isn’t like here... There are no fuckin’ rules...and I was young, so fuckin’ stupid. My parents were in the D/s community, and I wanted to be, but I was fuckin’ fifteen, too fuckin’ young, so they said they wouldn’t even take me to their munches until I turned eighteen.” Carmine could tell he was getting upset again as his speech became more frantic.
“But I wanted to get into it right then. I got a fake ID, and then I got some of my mom’s clothes, because I figured a girl would have a better chance of getting in, first time I ever wore woman’s clothes, and I got into this place easy enough. Fuck, the door guy didn’t even look at the ID and even slapped my ass as I went in.” Devan shook his head. “I shoulda known then. This fuckin’ guy, Cryst, he picked up on me immediately. That’s what they do, find vulnerable young kids, and shit happened that never should have happened. But to deal with it, I got started taking benzos. I couldn’t sleep fuckin’ much, mostly because of how he made me sleep, but...”
Carmine continued to rub his back, pausing now and then to nuzzle against him to encourage him. He could hear the staccato of his heart against his hands. “So, I didn’t have money. Kept telling my mom that I was staying with a friend, and he’d fuckin’ cover for me every time. Now I wish he hadn’t. Anyway, I needed something to come down. And I tried to buy from this dealer with fuckin’ counterfeit bills. The dealer knew, of course, and when they took me to Callaghan, he just said to fuckin’ kill me.” Devan fisted a sudden batch tears out of his eyes. “But, this guy from the O’Brien’s was there, and he jumped in saying he had a better idea, that O’Brien could use a kid like me. I don’t fuckin’ know how he did it, but he talked him into letting O’Brien deal with me. Something about a good faith trade or something, I don’t know.”
Devan sighed, tears starting again. “But it was okay, Liam’s a good man; he helped me a lot, even when I didn’t want it. So, I just was a delivery boy, messages mostly. But then, because Liam trusted me, he made me a liaison to Callaghan. He said he knew I’d never move to Callaghan’s side no matter what the fuck happened. He said... That by doing it...I could help him reduce the people that got hurt. So, I agreed.” Devan stopped to take a deep shaky breath.
“Then, I came into Callaghan’s office one day, and there...there was this cleaning crew there, taking out this body... A kid, like eighteen, and he was fuckin’ dead, beaten and just...you could tel
l, y’ know? I went to O’Brien and he said-he said Callaghan had this thing for little boys. He said he’d collect a fuckin’ ‘treasure’ now and then. It was a fuckin’ boy he would hold onto and use to release his need on. Liam...he didn’t think it would happen again, because of how old Callaghan was getting...but he was wrong... He took that doctor, your fuckin’ doctor...and he’s going to...to...” he gasped out. Carmine saw Devan cross one hand over his other wrist. It gave him an idea as to what might have caused those scars.
“Devan,” Carmine spoke softly, and he Devan looked up into his eyes. Carmine put both hands on his face and smiled at him as Devan reached up, putting one pale hand over his darker ones. Carmine leaned forward and kissed his forehead gently.
“I’m going to help you,” he smiled at him softly. “I’m going to help you with whatever it is you want to do. No matter what, I’m going to be here, okay?”
Devan swallowed, blinking rapidly. “Why, you don’t... You... I’m just another unattached sub you play around with...and sometimes Dom with... Why...”
Carmine sighed, thumbing away his tears. “I can’t explain it. It isn’t just you being a sub I play with, it is you, every part of you, Devan. Yeah, the sex is great, but that’s not why I want to be here. I want to be the one you come to when you’re sad. I want to be the one you need the most. I know. I know you like Varick too, and it’s okay, y’know, I fuckin’ like him a lot too, and I think we’re good together. But...but you, Devan... I can’t explain it.”
Carmine couldn’t truly express everything he felt at the moment. He didn’t understand it but he wanted Devan to be with him for many reasons. He didn’t want to see him cry.
Chapter Seven
The Traitor and the Rescue
Kieran groaned when he was dropped on a bed by the huge guy with the bright red hair. He rolled to his side to keep the pressure off his hands. His ribs ached and he felt like he was going to vomit at any moment. Time passed and he had almost dozed off when he felt someone begin to clean his face with a warm, damp cloth. Kieran opened his eyes and gasped at the sight of a man who looked a little bit like the guy named Connor who had kidnapped him. He smiled slightly at Kieran as his hands moved over Kieran’s face and neck. He had hazel eyes and dark red hair, but unlike the kidnapper, this man’s eyes were clear and kind looking.
Stolen Innocence Page 21
