18.

EIGHTEEN

Rafael

“So,” Noah says as he settles in his armchair with a beer, “you’re doing this. With Dominic.”

I pick at a loose thread on his couch. “You’re more concerned about that than the information I asked you for?”

“Nope. I’m just starting with that.”

“And I have to answer your questions before you’ll give me what I asked for? Do you even have anything?”

“Rafael.”

“Why does everyone say my name like that?”

Noah doesn’t take the argument bait. He knows me too well, knows I’m trying to distract him.

I look around the two-bedroom apartment that I sort of grew up in. Nothing’s changed since I was fifteen and Noah brought me here from the Island.

My aunt, my father’s sister, was actually my legal guardian, but I ran away so many times, came here so many times, that she stopped trying to get me back. I’m sure it was a relief to her. As soon as I turned eighteen, she moved back to Puerto Rico and I haven’t seen her since.

Until that day, however, she signed papers when necessary, even though Noah was the one who took care of me.

I know I was a shitty substitute for the son he lost, a boy who didn’t make it back from the Island.

I’ve caused Noah so much trouble, so much pain. It shows. He’s only 54, but he looks older. He’s still fit, his forearms all corded below the rolled-up sleeves of his flannel shirt, but his hair is mostly gray, his face weary.

“Did Dante call you?” I ask. I can’t keep the bitterness from my voice.

The thing is, I love Dante. I will never not love him.

We might only sort of be friends, but we are forever bound. By the Island. By Noah. By the the things we’ve done for each other over the years.

But even before we complicated our relationship by almost having sex, there were other problems. I’ve always been jealous of him. He’s everything Noah wanted me to be that I couldn’t be.

“Yes, Dante called me,” Noah acknowledges. “He seems to believe I have some control over you. But he ought to realize that no one has control over you.”

He’s joking, trying to lighten things, but my brain skips back to last night. How easily I obeyed Dominic. How much better I felt when I did.

Noah seems to read the thought on my face, something of it at least. He gets serious.

“I’m not sure it’s a good idea, Rafael. With Dominic. He’s dangerous.”

“You already told me that, and I already told you that I know.”

“I don’t mean just in the sense that he kills people.”

“I should hope not, because I kill people too.”

“Rafael, there’s a mark around your neck that looks like somebody choked you with a belt.”

That makes my lips quirk. “That’s a shockingly accurate guess.”

Noah rocks forward in his chair. “This isn’t a joke! He’s hurting you!”

“Which is exactly what I need.” My mood switches so fast it feels like a whip cracking inside me. I know it shows on my face because I read it in Noah’s.

“Rafael—”

“No, Noah. You don’t fucking get it. You never have, and I’m not going to try to explain it to you.”

Noah thrusts himself up from his chair and stalks across the small living room.

“Rafael, he’s not …”

When Noah trails off, I fill in the blanks. “Normal? Stable? No, he’s fucking not. He’s one of us.”

“That’s why I think it’s a bad idea, Rafael! You both need—”

“Each other. He understands me in a way that you never will. For as much as you know about me, for as much as you know about what happened on the Island, you will never understand.”

Noah goes to the window and plants his hands on the sill, leaning into it. His head is hanging. I don’t know if he’s thinking about me or about his son, but I’m sure he’s thinking about the past.

Working for the FBI, he was leading an investigation into the Society, tracking the international crime syndicate’s American members. He got too close. He caused too much trouble. So they took his son to the Island, where the members would come to discuss business and indulge in all the boys kept there. Me. Dante. Dominic. Noah’s son, Chance. So many others.

Chance died there. Plenty of boys did before Noah, working off the books and determined to destroy the Society’s island retreat, arrived with a team of mercenaries.

Noah has seen things that no one should ever have to see. He knows things that no one should have to know. But knowledge is not experience. He’ll always be on the outside of it, not the inside.

He sighs wearily and pushes away from the window. He’s not looking at me as he comes to sit on the beat-up coffee table in front of me. He’s not looking at me even when his hand reaches out.

I know why. He needs moments when he can pretend that I’m his son. I don’t mind, not much. Because I need moments like this too, when I can pretend he’s really my father.

So I lean forward and let Noah put his hand on my shoulder. I let him say, as he’s said a hundred times, “I’m sorry.”

Jesus, we’re so fucking broken.

“I’m okay,” I say, as I’ve said a hundred times, and he lets me say it even though we both know it’s a lie.

“I love you,” he says, and I wish I knew if he was really saying that to me—or to his dead son.

I swallow hard. I can never say it back. I feel it. I do love Noah. But I can never say it.

Noah doesn’t expect me to. He squeezes my shoulder and draws back.

“So do you have anything?” I ask.

“Silva is mafia, Rafael. Going after him is risky. Very risky.”

“Noah. Please.”

He sighs and gets up from the coffee table, giving up. I don’t know why he bothers fighting me on shit like this. We both know how it will end. Noah walks to the kitchen and snags a folder from the counter.

“He was a suspect in two different child murder cases. Pedophile cases. They couldn’t get him.”

I stand from the couch. “I can.”

Noah opens the folder. “The addresses look like bullshit.”

“I don’t need them. I found him already. I only needed to know if he was bad.”

Noah looks up. I can see in his eyes that he doesn’t want to say it, because he knows what I’ll do, but he confirms, “He’s bad.”

I close my eyes and draw in a breath, anticipating what I’m going to do tonight.

“Make him pay, Rafael.”

I smile. “Oh, I will.”

***

I’m in Silva’s bedroom by the time he gets home. It wasn’t easy to get past his security system, but a townhouse is definitely more accessible than a high rise. No wonder he keeps this address secret.

I’m shivering with anticipation as I hide under his bed like the boogeyman while he showers and shits. It’s fun to surprise people in the shower, but it’s noisy, and he has two guards in the house.

So I wait. He gets in bed. It’s late and he reeked of alcohol and smoke coming in, so I’m not surprised when he’s out quickly. Besides, I roofied his pitcher of filtered water in the bathroom.

The dose was low. I need to talk to him. But I need him secured first, and that’s easier with him mildly sedated.

I slide out from under the bed and nudge his arm. He doesn’t react, so I get to work. He doesn’t stir as I tie his limbs to the bedposts. I even get a rope around his cock and balls before he wakes groggily.

“Wh-wha …?”

With my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I can easily make out his soft, pale body spreadeagled on the bed. He looks like a snail out of its shell. They’re all like this when you strip away their power.

Anton blinks at me dumbly. My lip twitches back from my teeth as my body rocks with the urge to plunge my knife into that doughy belly.

“Hello, Anton. I have some questions for you.”

He’s waking up more. “Fuck, I know you. Costa. The sex club.” His voice rises. “What the—”

I clamp a gloved hand over his mouth. “Listen to me, you sack of shit. If you shout, if you scream, if you do anything other than answer my questions quietly , I will rip off your balls.” I give the rope a light yank, making his eyes bug out. God, he’s gross. “I know you have men downstairs. I’ll be gone before they reach you—but so will your balls. Are we clear?”

He nods frantically.

I settle on the edge of the bed, keeping a firm hold on the rope. He’s going to lose these anyway, but he doesn’t need to know that yet.

“You’re fucking dead,” Anton hisses when I lift my gloved hand. “Do you hear me, Costa? Dead . The Morettis won’t—”

I lunge up and clamp a hand over his mouth again, squeezing so hard I wonder if I’ll break his jaw or if my fingers will punch right through his cheek. I yank the rope, hard this time. He thrashes and squirms. Tears stream from his eyes.

It’s hard, so damn hard, to relent. Dante’s better at this than I am. He’s more controlled. I want to tear this shithead apart. I want to grab his lower jaw and rip until it unhinges. I want to cut and claw until he doesn’t even look human anymore—because he’s not.

But I have questions. So I make myself ease up. When Anton quiets, trembling, I settle back again.

“Where do you get them?” I ask.

“Get what ? I don’t know what you’re—”

“The kids.”

Anton freezes so abruptly that I instantly know I’m on the right track.

I say, “I can’t imagine that you hunt them down yourself. You’re too busy for that, and it seems like a lot of work for someone used to have others do all the heavy lifting. So. Who do you buy them from?”

My heart is racing. I’m daring to hope. I didn’t say it to Noah. He didn’t say it to me. But it’s the reason he was willing to give me the green light in spite of the risk.

Because, for the past two months, ever since we learned that the Collector is still working in New York, selling mostly to mafia, I’ve barely held it together.

I need this lead.

So I lay it out. “You bought from the Collector.”

Anton’s sound of surprise is all the answer I need. My leather gloves creak as my fists tighten. I want to hurt him this instant. But I have questions. I need answers more than I need to punish him. That can wait.

I ask, “How do you get a hold of him?”

In the faint ambient light, I watch Anton’s mind race. He licks his lips. “I can help you,” he tries. “If you want a boy—”

I don’t recall moving, but I’m in his face, yanking on the rope, clamping a hand over his mouth. It takes everything I have to make myself ease up.

“How do you contact him?” I manage to choke out as I shift my hand away from his mouth.

“You-you don’t. Not directly. You go to Little Tony’s Pizzeria in Hell’s Kitchen. Ask for the kid’s menu—”

The way I’m shaking is a warning, but I can’t do anything about it. I try to just keep listening.

Anton goes on hurriedly, “They’ll say they don’t have one but they’re thinking of starting one. They’ll tell you to leave your number for a discount code in case they start one.”

“He’s not there? The Collector?”

“No. Never. At least, I don’t think so.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’ve never seen him. It’s all done indirectly. I don’t know what he looks like.”

I don’t either, in spite of all the time I spent with him. I just can’t fucking see his face. I see flashes on moments, glimpses of his body. I can hear his voice.

Such a good boy.

Such a beautiful boy.

“He can find whatever you want—”

Anton’s words cut off in a gurgle of blood as I ram my knife into his throat.

Goddamn it. I didn’t mean to do that. I had more questions. Now I have to work fast if I want him to feel anything else before he dies.

I use the rope to pull his balls up and start sawing. Blood spills over my gloved hands. He gurgles and jerks. He stills all too soon.

I finish cutting off his slimy balls and cock and toss them on the blood-soaked bed. He deserved so much worse. I had to work too fast. I had to be too quiet.

This isn’t what I wanted.

I stand there staring at the mess, shaking so hard that waves of it are rocking my body. I hear myself gasping. My eyes are prickling. I feel all of that, but somehow I’m disconnected from it, partially outside myself.

I’m supposed to call Noah when this happens, but I don’t want to be around him right now. Noah understands my anger. That, he shares. But he doesn’t understand all the other shit tangled up with it. He doesn’t understand what I really need—because he’ll never hear the voice in my head right now.

What a good boy.

Just hold still. Relax. It only hurts for a little while.

Oh, what a good, good boy.

Tell me how good it feels, sweetheart. Tell me that you love me.