Aiden’s laugh was bitter, his face twisted into a look of disbelief. “Save your insane double-speak for your children. That shit doesn’t work on me.”
Thomas fought the urge to scream or punch something. He couldn’t remember a time in his life he’d felt this impotent. At least, not as an adult. Not since he’d freed himself from the prison of his family. He shook the thought away.
“Can you just put yourself in my shoes for five minutes?” Thomas pleaded.
Aiden was in his face once more. “Which shoes? Be specific, Tommy. We’re standing in a really big fucking closet. Thomas Mulvaney, altruistic billionaire? Thomas Mulvaney, vigilante wrangler? Thomas Mulvaney, self-centered narcissist? Thomas Mulvaney…possible murderer?”
Thomas Mulvaney, the man who loves you.
Tommy. Nobody in the world had ever gotten away with calling him that. It started as a joke, something that was just for Aiden. But it had blossomed into something more. Until it wasn’t. Jesus. Maybe he was a fucking narcissist. Because even with their relationship in tatters, he heart still soared hearingTommyfall from Aiden’s lips. Because no matter how unfair it was to ask Aiden to wait for him to open up about his past, he still didn’t know how to tell him the truth. He’d guarded this secret for decades. He’d shoved it down and fed it a steady diet of lies and self-loathing, and now, it was so big inside him he was choking on it.
But Aiden deserved to know. They all did. They deserved to know what kind of man he really was. But he just couldn’t do it. Aiden was right. He was a coward. The irony was that his sons would all take it with a grain of salt. They’d explain it away, negate his guilt, but the others…Noah, especially…they wouldn’t be so easily swayed. And his relationship with Noah was already fragile. Almost as fragile as his relationship with Aiden.
No, not fragile. This thing between him and Aiden…it was brittle. Years of hot and cold had left what was between them rigid and unbending, straining under the weight of a lifetime of regret.
Aiden wouldn’t offer up platitudes when he learned the truth. If anything, he’d use it as further proof that Thomas was exactly the person Aiden made him out to be, and then, he’d put an end to Thomas, once and for all.
Thomas closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Okay. Fine. I’ll tell you. But for you to understand the whole thing, you have to know how it started…who I was…who my family was…”
“You’re just stalling,” Aiden snapped.
“Yes. I am. But that doesn’t make what I’m saying any less true. Telling you the whole thing in one sitting would take days. What happened to my family didn’t happen in a vacuum. There were circumstances, outside influences. Mistakes were made. By me and lots of others.”
Thomas forced himself to maintain eye contact with Aiden as he studied him. He knew it was a big ask. But it was no bigger than the things he’d been asking of Aiden since they’d first become trapped in this constant push and pull.
“Fine. But you’re not dragging this out for weeks. You’ve got the next seventy-two hours to get it all out,” he said. Thomas grimaced, but before he could agree, Aiden added, “And you can’t impede the investigation. If something comes up, then you need to fucking answer honestly. And I’m not calling off Lola. She’s going to keep digging. Discreetly,” he ground out. “Someone is threatening your family.”
“Our family,” Thomas said without thought.
“Do you agree or not?” Aiden asked, ignoring Thomas’s words.
Thomas’s eyes burned and he felt tired in his bones. It was a weariness that came from somewhere deep within. He sagged against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest and taking a deep breath. “Yeah. I agree.”
Aiden stalked back to the coffee pot, turning over two new mugs and filling them to the brim before carrying them to the table. He set the mugs down then sat. The chair diagonal to him shot out as he kicked it with his booted foot. “Good. Let’s get started.”
Thomas stared at the chair, his mind racing. “Can I shower first?”
“No.”
Thomas closed his eyes for a long moment, then nodded. “Fine. Let’s do this.”
Aiden’s lips still buzzed from their kiss and his thoughts tumbled around his skull with no cohesion, his entire body as turned on as he was furious and frustrated. Less than a day together and they’d fallen right back into each other. Aiden had given in so easily. Or maybe Thomas had.
Aiden didn’t know who’d moved first, but the second their lips met, all rational thought had abandoned him, leaving behind only thoughts likeyes,fuck, andmine. And he would have kept going…couldhave kept going until he’d buried himself inside Thomas.
Finally.
Or let Thomas bury himself inside him. It hadn’t really mattered then, and it didn’t now. When they touched, when their lips met, it triggered something deep within, and all sense of reason and logic just ceased to exist.
Aiden couldn’t explain the effect Thomas had on him, like he was a match and Aiden was gasoline. The moment they kissed, it was like they consumed each other, burning bright and hot until they ate up all the oxygen in the room and the flames died again. Then Thomas would pull away once more and make excuses until Aiden wanted to scream.
Christ.
He wrapped one hand around his coffee mug to quell the shaking, hiding the other in his lap. Thomas needed to talk, he had to. Aiden needed to find out who was responsible for this so he could kill them and retreat back to his cabin in the woods, back to peaceful isolation where nothing could hurt him. Where the world couldn’t disappoint him again.
Thomas sat diagonal to Aiden, this air of desolation swirling around him. He was lost in his thoughts or maybe dreading what was to come. He didn’t look good. He was pale and haggard and more broken than Aiden had ever seen him. Even now, it tugged at something deep within his chest. He wanted to be heartless about this, aboutthem. But he didn’t know how. How could he stop caring when Thomas had owned his heart his entire adult life?
Even mad—even furious—Aiden still hated seeing him suffer. That was what was so frustrating. How could he be so pissed and still feel so bad for Thomas at the same time? How could he care so much about the suffering of someone who didn’t seem to care that he suffered, too? Aiden killed people, tortured them, delighted in finding out exactly what made them tick so that he could disassemble them in the most horrifying way possible.
