14. Julian

Idon"t want Claire walking into a relationship with me wearing rose-colored glasses. I need her to understand the darkness inside of me is more than my fucked-up childhood. The pleasure I get from inflicting pain, sensual pain, and receiving it, comes from a place of desire.

Sometimes the line blurs between desire and hate. Hatred makes me take pain and turn it on myself. There"s never been anyone to fully understand the depths of my turmoil as it blends with joy, purpose, and focus to be the man my father never wanted me to become.

When Claire slides into the bed beside me, my mind doesn"t immediately go to sex. I pull her in close, wrapping my arm around her waist but quickly remember my promise. The swiftness of me removing it spurs her to turn over and face me.

"You can touch me, Julian. Just no sex, right?" she asks.

"No sex," I tell her as sleep slows my blinking. I don"t think I have enough energy for sex right now anyway. She turns back around to face away from me, letting me pull her into my body for us to finally let this day end.

The reins of my sanity are held tightly by my regimen of control. My routine is exacting, difficult, and thorough, because I have to restrain the monsters which scare the youngest parts of my inner child I still carry inside of me. However, the softness of Claire by my side lets me relax. She eases parts of me into feeling safe.

There lies the problem.

The pain erupts out of the darkness of my nightmares. It"s like someone holding a blowtorch to the tips of my fingers and toes. I can never truly sleep because he"d barrel into my room like a fucking tornado and then toss me around it like one, too. My body shakes and the fear swallows me to the point where I realize I"m big enough to fight back.

Sleep doesn"t allow my fucked-up brain to function or shut off. It stays in a state of purgatory, obligatory because my body needs rest, but my past won"t let it. My mind wants to convince the piece of eleven-year-old Julian cowering in the recesses of my mind that what"s happening isn"t real.

Blackwell Manor morphs into a torture chamber I can"t escape. Tears stream down my face as I catch a glimpse of the boy inside who barely survived.

The sound of his voice, Charleston"s, looms over me. Blow after bone breaking blow, he shouts in my dreams. "Get up, Julian! Fight me like a man. No son of mine…"

"Get up, Julian, please…" whimpers come from somewhere in the distance. I have to protect him.

"Eddie, leave… Don"t—" I cry out as the eleven-year-old version of me spurts into the sixteen-year-old Julian, still being belted by his old man, but now he can fight back.

"Julian, wake up." Another voice, unfamiliar to my past, but very much a part of my present.

"Don"t touch me!" I snap, sweating profusely with sleep holding firmly onto me like a bear trap. I turn toward the voice urging me to get up and see Dr. Malia Mescal. Her image fades as quickly as it appears, like a ghost haunting me to fall back on the work we"ve done to stop this from happening. But again, my brain won"t separate my night terror from reality. I shout at her. "You can"t fix me!"

I stumble out of bed. The alcohol doing little to ease my nerves. My nightmares only fuel my drunkenness. The room spins as I anchor my palm against the wall. I can smell her, the sweet aroma of her vanilla shampoo.

Flashes of her blonde hair float by me in a blur. My hand swats at her like a gnat.

I hear her pleas, but struggle to break free. Claire calls out to me. "Julian, you have to wake up. Please, open your eyes. It"s Claire."

"Get away from me! Get out of here! He"ll kill us both." I warn her. My nightmares drift into reality, desperately trying to release me from my mental prison.

She finally listens, getting away from me. The firm grip of massively strong hands takes me by the shoulders and holds me against the wall.

"Jules, it"s Eddie," his voice is like a dose of melatonin. It relaxes me because I don"t have to think about being safe with Edward. My body instantly knows he"s here to protect me. Everything relaxes as he moves me away from the wall and positions himself behind me to ease me onto the floor.

Finally awake, I hear her whimpers as she leaves the room.

"Claire," I whisper, knowing I fucked up. I wanted her to understand, but not like this, not when I can"t control the demon and fear raging inside of me. "Did I? Did I hurt her?"

"No," he says in a low tone, sitting beside me. Both of our heads tip upward and back. A gesture so inherent we don"t realize we mimic each other when it happens.

"This is why I stopped trying, way before Claire got here," I mumble in the silence of my bedroom. The lights in the room are still off. Beams of moonlight give me just enough light to see Edward burying his face in his hands.

"What"s going on with you, Julian?" Edward says. "This was a bad one."

"I got too comfortable. That"s what happens, remember?" I ask him, the tears unable to stop. I let them fall without a whimper, without a sniffle. The wetness marks the grief of young Julian who got too comfortable letting his homeless friend spend the night.

"Comfort means death, but only when Charleston Blackwell is Lord of the Manor." Edward sighs, elbowing me to get my shit together.

"Fuck. I just had the fucking conversation with Claire. Tonight we were just supposed to be fucking normal. Go to sleep. That was it."

"Listen, I"m not judging, but I also don"t want to know shit either. You two are going to be the death of me. She can"t sit in a car by herself without shivering and you can"t get a good night"s sleep without fighting your past. You shot him, Julian. You thought you killed him. He shouldn"t torment you like this after all these years."

My head moves side to side with the memories flooding in. "Every time that asshole pops up, at the office or at the front gates, he acts like that part of him doesn"t exist. Like me shooting him with his own gun wasn"t a direct result of a shitty ass misunderstanding."

Edward scoffs. "Misunderstanding? Charleston thought we were fucking. We were sixteen and he didn"t even bother asking why I was there. He just jumped to you sneaking me in the house for a booty call. Forget that I was homeless and had nowhere to go. That the home I was placed in was just as volatile as yours. A fucking booty call, like you could ever get a date with someone like me."

That gets a laugh out of me. "I love you like a brother and that"s it. I wish Charleston had stopped beating me long enough for me to tell him that. Honestly, I think he just wanted a reason to stop restraining himself."

Edward nods. "I never understood why he hated you so much. I mean, I"ve been through some shit, but your own father did fucking damage, bro."

I shrug. "Three broken ribs, one broken arm?—"

He cuts me off singing, "And a partridge in a pear tree."

I shove him. "Fuck off, man. And Derek? Bro was a maniac. "You gotta check the body! You gotta check the body!" was all he could say. Then that shit with the gun?"

Edward smiles, agreeing with me. "Dee was a stone-cold negotiator, even before his law degree. You shooting your father in the back with his own gun, the same gun he used to kill that prostitute and Derek thinking on the fly to use it as leverage? Stroke of genius for a sixteen-year-old kid. Imagine getting Charleston to stop beating the crap out of you by threatening to go to the press."

Memories of Claire"s father and everything he did for me, heat me from the inside out. "Yeah, and refusing to call an ambulance unless he meant it was pure genius. It definitely helped that he had the gun and I knew where the body was. If he was smart, he would have had Armande move that girl"s body a long time ago."

Edward disagrees. "Your Uncle Armande is a loose end he doesn"t have the heart to tie up. All of the people under his fists are smaller than him, younger than him, or both. Do you ever think about turning him in? No statute of limitations against murder."

I shake my head. "I have, but one, I have no idea what Derek did with the gun. Two, even if we found it, the last person to fire it was me. And three, I have no doubt that Charleston would use his influence to pin that woman"s murder on me if I ever went against our agreement. We agreed to bury the gun, the murder, the beatings, our violence and move forward like Blackwell Men of Honor."

Edward huffs. "Your Dad"s a real piece of work man. By the way, thank you, Julian, for what you did for me."

"For what? You"re the one who saved Claire from me tonight. You warned me, too."

"Warning you this could happen and it actually happening just means you need to take me seriously. And I"m thanking you because if you hadn"t put your body on the line, I know Charleston the Black would have killed me. You think that bullet gave him amnesia or something?" he asks.

"No. That sleaze bucket remembers everything. He"s probably proud I shot him with his own gun after he broke me into pieces. All these years later, I"m still fucking broken. Claire is never going to be with someone like me. She deserves better."

Edward shoves me lightly in the shoulder. "Claire deserves honesty and the right to choose what she wants to do on her own. Don"t answer the question before you even ask it. Instead of making choices for everyone else, how about you just take smaller steps? Try doing regular shit and give her spoonfuls of your crazy. Micro-dose her with your trauma."

I laugh loudly this time. "Fuck you. I am going to take a step back. I jumped into the deep end with her tonight. Shit, I even told her about Malia."

He slaps his forehead. "Why the fuck? You know what? Never mind. You don"t understand subtlety or women. You don"t lead with Malia."

"I like to be up front and honest out the gate. Sure, she"s probably traumatized right now, but at least I warned her first."

"No, Julian. There is no warning for tonight. At least she listened to me. I told her if it ever got too intense to come get me. Ease up on your expectations and yourself. Billionaire or not, perfection isn"t real. Go back to sleep. Alone is probably best for tonight. Let Claire sleep."