12. The Day of Reckoning

CHAPTER 12

The Day of Reckoning

Zain

The rhythm established itself as days passed, each a little different than the one before it.

Mornings found me in Dominic’s bed rather than my own, and days passed in busy work. After Dominic had insisted on terminating the contract, I found myself missing it. We spoke about it at length until we agreed that simply helping him comb through the information on the men who had once bullied him didn’t need to constitute a working relationship. “Just a good guy helping his boyfriend,” I’d said, almost tripping over the word when a grin stretched my lips.

In the days that followed, I got used to it. We were a couple—an odd one, but a couple nonetheless.

There was more to Dominic than he had allowed me to see at the start. And as we navigated the strange new waters of something like a relationship, I discovered that he was a much more caring and attentive man. It had never been about his lack of kindness but the barriers he had placed between his caring nature and the world that looked down on things like that.

We had long conversations in the evenings, often about books in his library. He had been collecting rare editions, books banned at various points in history, and such rich and incredible queer reads that it felt like every time I browsed through his library, I discovered something new and unexpected.

We also talked about the future in a careful, noncommittal way. We talked about it vaguely, never imposing expectations.

“You’ll see just how thrilling it can be to hike through the forests in northern Sweden,” he would say. Or, “There are interesting estates closer to the city I noticed today.” Subtle hints or plain, they peppered our days. It was Dominic’s way of telling me he wouldn’t get bored of me. He saw a future in which I had a place, but he never pushed it hard. It was as though he feared sweeping me off my feet with the sweetness of his promises, so he kept it low and abstract and hypothetical. But the glimmers of hope were unmistakable in his eyes when he asked me if I liked dogs or if the city was the only place where I could see myself.

So we did our little dating act throughout the rainy days, sitting together near a fireplace, reading, and talking about the things that could happen if only we were brave enough to will them into existence. Then, we retreated to the bedroom and left all the conversations on the other side of the door.

Dominic taught me so much in so little time. He gave me the pleasures I hadn’t realized our bodies were capable of.

It wasn’t just about physical intimacy, though Dominic was more generous than I’d ever imagined possible. It was the way he made me feel seen, pulling back layer after layer of who I thought I was, exposing the pieces I’d buried for so long. He didn’t demand that I share myself; it just happened naturally, bit by bit, like a puzzle being assembled with time and care.

Sometimes, when I caught him staring at me—when he thought I wasn’t looking—it wasn’t the same hungry, dark gaze that once sent shivers down my spine. Now, it was something softer, something vulnerable. I think he knew, just as much as I did, that I had become a part of him. It wasn’t just lust or infatuation. It was something more, something deeper. You’re not just a fling , it said. There’s so much more to us.

The fear of it lingered between us, though. It wasn’t the kind of fear that paralyzed—it was the kind that kept you cautious, as if at any moment, the ground might give way beneath your feet. Neither of us was willing to acknowledge it outright, but it was there, hovering in the quiet moments after our conversations fell away and we were left with just each other, tangled in sheets and silence.

One night, as the rain pattered softly against the windows, Dominic turned to me, his hand warm on my back. “You know this is different for me, right?” His voice was low, almost uncertain, and it surprised me. He wasn’t often unsure of himself, but something about our time together made him hesitate.

“I know,” I replied, running my fingers over the back of his hand. “It’s different for me, too.” And it was. I had never felt this kind of connection with anyone before. The weight of what we were becoming felt heavy but not unbearable. In fact, it was almost comforting, like the knowledge that despite everything—our history, our differences, our fears—we were still here, still choosing to be together.

“I don’t want to lose this,” he murmured.

“Then don’t,” I whispered back.

Everything he said to me found a way to make me happy. His feelings were far from the unpredictable sort I had expected from him early on. He was a steady force of nature, touching me in ways that changed and improved us both.

I threw myself to work to make him happy in turn. The more I scratched the surface, the more I had to follow. While the gambling issues that had made Dominic’s takeover possible were now fairly public knowledge, I still compiled travel logs for all three men. Julian Hale turned out to be the most interesting one to follow, as Maxwell had mostly gone to very private gambling clubs that indebted him enough to lose him the company he’d helped build. Nicholas, on the other hand, was a plain and uninteresting man on the surface, and nothing he did was particularly out of the ordinary for men like him. He spent money lavishly on impressing people, cared greatly about his appearance, and enjoyed expensive wines.

Julian Hale’s activity was all over the place. He traveled from state to state in corporate jets, visiting two homes several times every month and taking his family on impromptu holidays without a strict schedule or pattern.

It took me the better part of two weeks to sort through Julian’s flights from the last two and a half years and another week to realize that there was one pattern that never changed. Every third week, Julian was in Boulder, Colorado. There were times he went there more often, adding noise to the pattern, but he never missed every third weekend.

I racked my head for two days about this. Nothing I looked for in the city told me why he would be interested in Boulder. I couldn’t quite convince myself that he simply enjoyed the breathtaking views of the Rockies.

My frustration with the mystery blew up one sleepy afternoon. The light pouring into the office was pale from the heavy rain clouds above us, and my eyelids dragged down as I read through emails dated around the times Julian Hale was in Colorado. It was an email to his assistant and a rare slip for Julian, whose correspondence usually felt cold and clipped in these times. It said, “Please deal with it however you see fit. I do not want this intrusion in our personal time. And if they can’t work with you on this, let them look elsewhere.”

I brought this to Dominic and watched the wolf emerge from far beneath the mellowed expressions I was getting used to seeing on his face. “ Our personal time?”

I nodded.

“And every third weekend?” he asked, his voice electric and cold.

“Sometimes more,” I said. “But the flight records show him always going there alone.”

Dominic’s eyes narrowed, warmth slowly leaving them. He stared at the screen like it was showing something it had repeatedly refused to show me. And finally, Dominic looked at me. “He’s got a lover.”

I blinked.

“He sure as hell isn’t visiting some old lady to keep her company,” Dominic growled. “He has someone on the side.”

“Don’t they all?” I asked, thinking that something so personal would be off-limits.

“Sure. But Julian’s is not just some side chick. This is serious. Every few weeks, he’s there. It’s got to mean something to him.” The look on his was battle-ready. He’d found the pressure point, and he wasn’t going to let it go.

“Do you think we should look at other activities?” I asked.

Dominic sucked his teeth. “Let me look into this .”

As I left him to it, a sense of having done something terrible washed over me. It wouldn’t let me take a lungful of air for the entire afternoon. The nagging feeling that I had opened Pandora’s box and released something foul into our lives wouldn’t leave me.

When I next saw Dominic, he was my dashing man again. He hummed a little tune I didn’t recognize when he joined me in the dining room that evening, planting a kiss on my lips like it was both the main course and dessert.

“You’re in a good mood,” I said when I caught my breath. My pulse spiked as Dominic’s eyes flickered happily, and he sat down.

“What do I have to be sad about?” he asked. “Truly, Zain, life’s finally good.”

A smile stretched my lips wide, and I didn’t know what to say to that. Dominic wasn’t the kind of man who indulged in sheer flattery. He rarely exaggerated for dramatic effects. When he spoke, he spoke his mind.

As we dined and spoke and carried our conversation upstairs to his warm, wonderful bedroom, the burdens I had carried throughout the day remained downstairs in his study, far out of sight and out of mind.

Over the weekend, Dominic took us to the city again on a surprise trip to Neon Nights and the penthouse where my life had changed so vastly. It was the third time we did it, the latter two having been Dominic’s way of making me as happy as I could be.

That night, he danced far more freely and even rubbed elbows with the Neon Nights boys without having to be dragged over. Some invisible force holding him back had loosened the knots that tied him. He dived into the fun of it all without thinking who would see him or judge him. For once, he began to believe that nobody here was out to get him.

It was still early—far too early—to form plans, but we tiptoed around it carefully. The morning after our third trip to Neon Nights, Dominic vaguely mentioned visiting my parents at some point, then quickly added that there was no rush.

The reality was a little tougher than the fantasy in which we had shrouded ourselves. I lived two lives that were stretching me thinner than I thought I could withstand without snapping. My family knew none of it. They weren’t allowed to peek at the things that made me happy. They were unaware of the heights to which I climbed when joy filled me and lifted me off the ground. Those I loved the most knew only the lies I created by omission.

The morning with my parents and siblings was nice. We had breakfast together and remembered the old times from when I was a child and my two little brothers hadn’t even been born. We laughed softly, and my heart clenched so hard with guilt at hiding myself from them that I had to find an excuse and leave before they realized something was wrong. But to tell them the truth would ruin a sweet moment. It would cause more pain than I thought I could survive.

Dominic and I returned to the warm and quiet mansion upstate, gently closing doors to the rest of the world and savoring each other’s company. On the first day it snowed, well into December, we listened to the fire crackling merrily in the fireplace downstairs in the sitting room, gazing out the window. That morning, much like every morning of the last three weeks, we had exercised together—something Dominic relentlessly pestered me about since seeing my terrible posture at the desk—worked and retreated early to the front-lawn-facing room to watch the snowflakes fill the sky.

“When was the last time you built a snowman?” I asked, my hands wrapped around a mug of hot chocolate. The snowfall was heavy, snowflakes thick and large, coming down fast. Christmas had always been a big holiday for my family, just as it had been for my mother. I could already smell the orange peel and cinnamon in the air.

Dominic chuckled warmly and thought about it. “Probably not since I was eleven or twelve.”

I smiled before the words reached my tongue. “How about we break that streak in a day or two?”

“Do you seriously want to build a snowman?” he asked.

I sucked my teeth. “I want to see you build a snowman.”

“I don’t think I’ve still got the chops, baby,” he said, making my heart leap.

“We’ll see,” I said.

Dominic’s attention flicked to the window a moment before I noticed it, too. A car. A car in this weather was making its way along the private driveway. Orwell must have let the car pass the main gates, but Dominic’s expression said he hadn’t been expecting a visitor.

We watched the car drive up to the main entrance. An older man wearing a black coat stepped out and walked to the door, rang the bell, and waited.

I observed Dominic’s impatience as Orwell’s footsteps sounded somewhere in the distance, crossing the tiled floor of the entrance hall. There was a brief exchange before the man in the coat returned to the car and drove away. A heartbeat later, there was a knock on the door of the sitting room, announcing Orwell’s entrance. He wore a soft smile as he greeted us and handed over a folder to Dominic. “Mr. Richardson has delivered the files you requested, sir.”

“Thank you,” Dominic said heartily as he took the folder. He waited for Orwell to step out before he opened the yellow folder, his eyes narrowing in focus and taking on that cold sheen that made me uneasy. In a feverish whisper, he uttered two words that chilled me instantly. “Got you.”

“What is it?” I asked. It excited him, but not at all in a good way. The man I saw before me was the very same man I had met in my father’s shop. “Dominic, what’s in there?”

Dominic lifted his wolfish stare to my face and thrust the folder toward me.

As I took it, I realized it was stamped with red letters declaring it confidential.

Inside, there was a stack of papers. The first one had a short profile of Julian Hale, his photo, basic information, and a brief description of his background. It was followed by pages of descriptions of his activities, invoices, and travel logs. There was information about Julian’s wife, Helen, and his daughter, May, although without their pictures. And, at the very end, there were photographs that made my heart sink into the pit of my stomach.

“No,” I whispered. It felt as though someone had ripped everything that was good right out of my soul. Dominic’s cruel delight and his clear intent made me grieve for something I hadn’t even lost. But I understood it. I understood what sort of victory these photographs were for Dominic.

In Boulder, Colorado, in a suburb with a lane of small houses with small front yards, there was a white-painted home with a tiny porch. The door was centered in the middle of the front of the house, just a few short feet away from the three little steps leading to it. And in the door stood a curly-haired blond man with an upturned nose and a Cupid’s bow, the corners of his lips lifted in a semi-permanent smile. His eyes were mossy green, and his limbs were long, but he was clearly fit even with the knitted sweater that was a size too big for him.

Photo after photo, I looked at the back of Julian Hale coming up to the porch and taking the man into his arms, pulling him into a passionate, hungry embrace, and kissing him on the lips.

Then, I realized that Dominic was speaking. “…after you found the trail, making it easier for Larry to focus on a place. It was just a matter of time before Hale went there again. A family man like that having a male lover? Oh, it’s perfect.”

“Dominic, you can’t,” I whispered hurriedly.

My lover went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “To cheat on your wife, however terrible, passes among these people just fine. There isn’t an investor in the city that hasn’t done it. But to lie and scheme and have a man you visit every three weeks? That’s some serious embarrassment.”

“You can’t,” I said louder.

Dominic stopped talking abruptly. “Why can’t I?”

“B-because,” I stammered.

“Because?” Dominic’s expression was heated, but it lacked all the warmth that had been drawing me in since our first trip to the city.

A shiver ran down my arms. “It’s wrong.”

Dominic measured me, his gaze softening only a little before he looked away, and warmth abandoned his eyes. “Right and wrong are hardly absolutes, Zain.” His voice was deep and dark. “And Julian Hale is a hypocrite who deserves every ounce of what he gets.”

“But you can’t out him,” I said. “You can’t do that.”

“What’s stopping me?” he demanded irritably, getting up and pacing to the fireplace and then returning to the window to stare out at the flurry of snowflakes. I had never seen him so upset, and the man who stood there with his muscles stiff and his back straight terrified me more than I cared to admit.

I got up a moment later and crossed only half the space between us, switching my tactic on the go. “You’re better than this,” I said. “I know you, Dominic. You’re not the kind of man who would do this and just go on living with yourself.”

“Do you really think so?” he asked, incredulous.

“I know so,” I said urgently. “You can act tough, but you’re not fooling me. You’re not a bad guy.”

His eyes flashed with cold fury. “How does it make me a bad guy to give Julian Hale the very thing he had been giving me for years, Zain?”

“You don’t know what’s making him hide,” I pleaded. Couldn’t he see? How could I trust a man so willing to leave one of his tribe to the wolves? Couldn’t he see that I struggled to come out just as much?

“Don’t try to stop me,” Dominic said flatly, although his voice quivered at the last word. He cleared his throat shortly. “Just this once, Zain, don’t meddle in the way I do business.”

“This isn’t business,” I protested loudly. “This is revenge, and it’s heartless, Dominic. It’s cruel.”

“So it is,” he said in a clipped voice. He turned on his heels to face me. “And I won’t let you stand in my way.”

“Don’t,” I warned him. “Because you won’t see me in the way if you try. I won’t be here for this.” It wasn’t a threat by the time I finished. It was a surrender in the face of mounting disappointment.

“You would leave over some pathetic hypocrite bully? Fine.” It was a hateful growl, the sort I had expected from him in our first encounter.

“I would leave over your choice of who you want to be,” I whispered, devastation taking hold of my soul. I could see no exit, no way to end this while saving both our faces and hearts.

“I am not a man who reacts well to ultimatums, Zain.” Dominic’s features tightened so much that his face displayed no human emotion whatsoever. “Not even from you.”

“It’s not an ultimatum,” I whispered over the knot that thickened in my throat. I stared at him in disbelief. How had it come to this so quickly and easily? “I’m asking you not to be cruel.”

“Call it what you will,” Dominic said. “It hardly matters to me.”

“I can’t be with someone who acts so tough that he’ll risk everything for the sake of revenge, Dominic,” I said.

“Then don’t,” he spat, blinking twice rapidly and turning away from me. “Nobody’s stopping you. Pick up your goddamn excuses and leave.”

I stood in total silence, my soul stunned out of my body. It took me what felt like an eternity to regain control over my feet, but only seconds had passed.

“Orwell!” Dominic’s shout startled me, and the faithful valet hurried into the room.

“Sir?” he answered.

Dominic stared out of the window, his back turned to us both. He blurred before my eyes, although I couldn’t tell if my tears came from anger or sadness. “Help Mr. Rashid pack. He will be leaving us. Today.”

Orwell gasped, although I couldn’t tear my gaze off the back of Dominic’s head to see the man’s expression. “Sir, I…”

“Do as you are told, dammit, or stay away together with the boy once you’ve driven him,” Dominic said. He didn’t need to raise his voice to make this an undebatable demand.

“Sir,” Orwell whispered, agreeing. I could feel the weight of his gaze on me as he lingered in the sitting room for a few moments longer. Orwell turned away and quietly left us.

“This isn’t you,” I whispered for the sake of something that was beyond my understanding, beyond my reach. “This isn’t the man I know.”

“No,” Dominic said flatly. “This isn’t what you imagined.”

The words stung me like acid. I stared at him, swiping the silent tears off my cheeks, and held my breath so I wouldn’t let a single sob out. I tried to be brave, but the truth was that the idea of leaving him terrified me. What would he do once I was gone? The damage would be irreparable if he outed Julian. He didn’t know it now, but he wouldn’t be able to live with this decision.

“Dominic,” I said, my voice small. “For the last time, I’m asking you not to go through with this.”

“I swore never to rest until I’ve destroyed all three of them,” Dominic said in a flat, emotionless tone that somehow chilled me to my bones more than a shout or a threat would have. “Everything I did brought me here. Every choice I made brought me closer to this. I will not stop. Not for ten of you.”

Although half a dozen paces separated us, he might as well have kicked me in the stomach. Like a wounded puppy, I cowered away from him, taking two swift steps backward before I turned around and hurried out of the room. It felt like toxins evaporated and made the air in there unbreathable. It felt like he had wielded a knife that slashed much more than flesh.

As I ran up the stairs toward my room, I swallowed bitter tears and knew that I was the stupidest guy who had ever lived.

Dominic

I stared into the flames, my armchair drawn close to the fireplace, but the real heat came from within. My flesh burned. My heart was like a dying star, the violent reactions making it hotter and hotter and hotter.

As I followed the sparks that rose from the crackling wood, my mind kept returning to the sight of him leaving the house. His small, slender back receding in the distance, his footsteps leaving marks in the snow as he walked toward the waiting car, and the fresh snowflakes erasing any proof that he had ever crossed the driveway.

Cruel. Heartless. Ruthless. He saw me for who I was, and he hated it.

Ah, but it didn’t matter. The opinion of an infatuated twenty-two-year-old, however irresistibly sweet in one moment, was still irrelevant in another. His affection couldn’t last. He was not the first person to teach me that lesson, but he was bound to be the last.

I had made all the mistakes of a lovesick teenager. I had handed him all the power over me. I had given him a bullet with which he could shoot me.

Enough was enough.

I was not na?ve anymore. I did not fool myself with the notion that the world was good so long as all the people in it were. People were rotten, and so was the world.

It didn’t matter at all. It didn’t. It made no difference in the grand scheme of things. And if enough time passed, the memories would fade, and I would remember just how right I was.

But when? Part of me screamed this question internally because it couldn’t withstand the bleeding of my heart. When will it stop?

I tensed all over, holding my breath, and found myself believing for one devastating moment that you could die of it. You could die of this pain.

It would pass.

It had to.

Zain

It was already dark outside by the time Orwell pulled over at the corner by my father’s shop.

The man had allowed me the silence I had needed for the last two hours. He had given me the space in which I could cry soundlessly and attempt to process what had happened. I cried, yes, but I hadn’t even begun to understand the events of this afternoon.

“What will you do?” I whispered when half a minute had passed and neither of us had left the car.

Orwell was solemnly silent. “I will return.”

I gritted my teeth.

Perhaps he’d heard it, or he simply understood the entire context of it. “He can’t be alone, Zain. He is his worst enemy when he is alone.”

“I don’t think Dominic Blackthorne has a shortage of enemies,” I said, surprising myself with how cruel this thought was.

Orwell seemed to sag back into his seat like strength was deserting him. “You know him. You know what he is like.”

Silence filled the car, disrupted only by the windshields swiping away the thick snowflakes and the vents pumping hot air. “I thought I did. I’m not sure anymore.”

“Yes, you are sure,” Orwell said kindly. “Few people know the man he is capable of being, Zain. You are one of them, and I have the privilege to be another.”

I let out a quiet scoff that made Orwell turn around and look at me more clearly.

“He lashes out when he’s uncertain of the intentions of those around him,” the loyal valet said softly and carefully. “He hurts first so he won’t have to feel pain, but it’s misguided. It hurts him just the same.”

“What are you trying to say?” I whispered, not daring to hope. I didn’t believe that I could just return there tonight and solve it all by showering Dominic with love. I didn’t believe he would feel it.

The corners of Orwell’s lips sagged as he considered this. “I have been with him since the time when he was just another upstart. I’ve seen him love and lose. I’ve seen him be the center of gossip, of vile fabrications, and I’ve seen the men of the upper echelon chip away everything that was good in him. Even after his parents had disowned him, he still clung to hope. That was when I met him. When he shined with it.” The man’s gaze grew distant as he returned to times long gone. “But they didn’t want him. He was smart and practical. He didn’t want to play by the rules that bound them all together. He didn’t want to rub elbows and buy favors when he was rich enough to be noticed. So, it offended them. All those Hales and Vosses and the rest of them. They couldn’t understand how someone could be as successful as them and not be flattered by their attention, you see. And when they realized they would never get the respect and gifts they demanded, they turned on him once again. The pervert, the sicko, there isn’t a slur they didn’t utter. They fabricate stories about the things that went on at Harringford when the truth was Dominic only wanted to be left alone. The boy in his couldn’t face the hatred, so Dominic trapped him somewhere nobody could find him.”

I realized then that I was holding my breath. I tried to look into Orwell’s eyes, although I couldn’t be certain the man even knew I was still there. He spoke distantly, and more than a few regrets added their weight to the sound of his voice.

“I didn’t think the boy was still alive, you see,” he said, his voice rising higher with emotions. His eyes were suddenly clear, gaze intensely locked onto my face. “You found him, Zain. Even I believed that Dominic had given himself to his worst impulses, but you found him.”

“I don’t know which one is real,” I whispered hopelessly.

“No,” Orwell agreed, to my surprise. I had expected him to convince me—or at least to try—to return to Dominic and search for the long-lost innocence in him. “No, I don’t think you could. It’s up to Dominic.”

My lower lip quivered of its own accord. “Then why are you telling me all this?” It wasn’t until I had flung those words at the wounded valet that I realized just how much I had hoped for some quick, magical fix to all these problems. I had hoped that he would take me back there and make me try harder. But his words didn’t entertain the possibility that I could do something anymore.

“I wanted you to know,” he said softly. “He was better with you.”

“No,” I whispered, shaking my head.

“But he was.” Orwell’s words were final. It was as though he had told me that the one chance of saving Dominic was now gone. It was up to Dominic himself to decide whether the person he had once been would live or die and who would take his place.

I feared that Dominic would surrender to the heartless monster he was capable of being.

It was a future I could see all too clearly.

“Thank you,” Orwell said. “For giving that young man a chance to shine again.”

Hot tears rolled silently down my cheeks as I nodded. There was nothing else to be said. And I had never felt more powerless than at the moment I opened the door of Dominic’s car and stepped out.