For the first time, Thomas realized that was why he’d really called Aiden. That was what he needed from him most. Not comfort. Not a wake-up call. He needed a plan. He needed someone like Aiden. Someone who didn’t lack the capacity to feel, but someone who used those feelings to promote the suffering of those who deserved it. Aiden would find out who was behind this. Aiden would destroy that person. And when Aiden knew who Thomas really was, what he’d done, he’d destroy Thomas, too.
Thomas’s destruction at Aiden’s hands felt right. It felt just. And Aiden would make it hurt, make him suffer. But he’d do it quietly. He’d save the family the burden of bearing the weight of his sins. But not yet. Thomas wasn’t ready yet. He needed to see this through. He’d come clean to Aiden when it was necessary. But only then.
“What are you hiding?” Aiden pressed. “What did you do?”
This time, it was Thomas who went to his knees, shock rocketing through him as he took Aiden’s rough hands in his own much softer ones. He forced himself to look him in the eye. “Don’t ask me to tell you that. Not yet. Please. If you ever fucking loved me, just let me keep my sins to myself a little bit longer. Please, Aiden.”
Aiden thrust his jaw forward, clenching until the muscle there jumped, as he studied Thomas’s face with an anger and frustration he fully deserved.
“Please,” he said again.
“I hate you sometimes,” Aiden told him, voice raw. “So much I feel like I’m choking on it.”
Thomas nodded, trying to pretend Aiden’s words hadn’t just ripped through him like a bullet. “I know. I deserve that…but I’m asking just the same. Don’t make them suffer for my sins. I promise I’ll tell you before this is all over. And when you know the truth, I’ll accept the consequences. Just let me keep my secrets. I can’t deal with you hating me more than you already do. Not with this hanging over our heads.”
Aiden yanked his hands away from Thomas and jerked to his feet, grabbing Thomas’s laptop. “Pack a bag. We’re getting out of here.”
“What? Why?” Thomas asked, standing once more.
“Because whoever is doing this to you is clearly unstable. You want to keep the family out of it? Well, keep them out of it. All the way out. If they see me here, they’ll have questions, and once they smell blood in the water, they won’t let it go. If you want to keep your secrets, then you’ll come with me. That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”
Thomas’s head was spinning. Being alone with Aiden would be nothing short of torture. Just the two brief touches they’d shared had Thomas in pieces. He kept distance between them because when they were in the same room, they were magnets, drawn together by something impossible to fight. Except now, Aiden hated him. Thomas was many things, but he’d hardly force himself on someone who didn’t want him.
What the fuck was he even saying? Why was he thinking about touching Aiden when someone was threatening everything he loved? He knew the answer. He suspected Aiden did, too. Because he loved Aiden most. He loved Aiden above all others. And he didn’t even feel guilty about it. He couldn’t. Because he’d never loved Aiden as a son. Aiden had never been his child and was barely a child when they met. The love he felt for him was nothing like the love he had for his sons.
Because he didn’t just love Aiden. He wasinlove with him. Had been for longer than he’d ever admit to another soul, even himself.
“Thomas,” Aiden said sharply, pulling him from his spiraling thoughts. Why did the use of his own name feel like a punishment?
“Yeah. Yeah, okay. We’ll do it your way.”
For now.
Thomas slept the whole way out of town, slumped in the passenger seat of Aiden’s ‘95 Jeep Wrangler—a gift that had sat forgotten in the back of Thomas’s garage since their fight on the night of his college graduation. A night Aiden had analyzed a million times, in a million different ways, for almost two decades.
But, now, he had a new question to analyze. Why had Thomas kept the Jeep in working order and why had none of the others told him? Surely, they’d fucking noticed?
Stop overacting, Aiden. It’s not like Thomas takes care of the cars himself.
Hell, he had so many cars he likely forgot it was even in there. It was probably just the mechanic performing routine maintenance on all the vehicles in the garage. His gut twisted at the thought and that self-loathing he usually drank away at night started rearing its ugly head.
He hated how much the answer still mattered to him. He could torture a man for hours without so much as a drop of remorse, yet when it came to Thomas, he was so fucking weak. Even now, he was just sitting there, wallowing. Nobody else did this to him. Just Thomas. Always fucking Thomas.
He disappointed Aiden at every turn, but when he’d said, ‘I need you’, Aiden’s hopes had soared…until reality set in. He banged his hand on the steering wheel, feeling a modicum of satisfaction when Thomas stirred in his sleep. Why should he get to rest?
Aiden shook his head, forcing himself to focus on the task at hand: saving Thomas’s ass. He needed to call Lola. He had several open cases he needed covered. He scrubbed a hand over his eyes, then blinked as the world became blurry, making everything the headlights touched look warped like something out of a Dali painting.
Calling Lola would just open a whole other can of worms. She’d never let him just ask for help and go. She’d start prying. It was what she did. And he couldn’t afford to alienate her. She was a great detective, a better bounty hunter, and the only friend Aiden had.
He spared another glance at Thomas, noting the worry etched on the older man’s face even in sleep. Aiden pictured opening the door and letting Thomas roll on out, and he could even hear the satisfying clunk he’d make as he hit the ground. It was no less than he deserved. Aiden had punished people for lesser crimes—had tortured them until they were past the point of begging for the hurt they caused.
Yet, somehow, he could never punish Thomas. No matter how much he hated him. And he did. He fucking hated Thomas Mulvaney almost as much as he loved him. It was that hot and cold in near equal measure that combined inside him and created this tornado of emotion that made him want to destroy him, to tear at him until he was just as shredded as Aiden felt.
But what good would that fucking do?
He envied his brothers. Their relationship with Thomas had always been so clearly defined. They were brought in so young they’d only ever known Thomas as their father. But Aiden had a father. A shitty father but a father nonetheless. He’d never seen Thomas as anything paternal.
If anything, he was the only one to truly see the cracks in Thomas’s supposedly stable foundation. A foundation that was crumbling. Finally. Aiden had spent countless nights wondering what sins Thomas had committed that left him rejecting any amount of love in his life.
