Warren’s smile didn’t falter, but now it made him look frightening, not pleasant. What kind of man could hear someone yell at him like that and not change his expression? Aiden was starting to see the man clearly, and hopefully his parents were too. But if they weren’t, that was too bad. Aiden didn’t need their approval, not for this. “We’re done, Warren. You stay away from Cade, and you stay away fromme.” He turned to his mother. “I have to go. I need to get back to Indiana. If I change my flight, can you drive me to the airport?”
“Aiden. Slow down. You need to give us some context here. Some background. What are you so angry at Warren about?”
“We can talk about it later. I’m calling the airline.”
Aiden turned and headed for the door of the house. Then Warren said, “We should talk, Aiden. Before you go running off to be a hero? You should be sure you know the whole story.”
“I know all I need to.” Aiden had the door open when he felt strong fingers close around his shoulder.
“Don’t walk away from me, Aiden.” Warren still sounded friendly, if a little sad that Aiden wasn’t behaving properly, but underneath it there was a warning in his voice. A threat. And with that, Aiden’s rage returned.
He spun around, twisting out of Warren’s grip, and stepped forward until their faces were inches apart. “I know all I need to,” Aiden repeated, his voice more of a hiss. “All I could stand to hear. You need to stay away from Cade and stay away fromme.”
“You really want to play it this way, Aiden?” Warren was still smiling, but there was no hint of friendliness anymore. Now he looked excited, maybe almost turned on, and Aiden realized it was the threat of destruction that was making the man so happy. The adrenaline and the anger were like a drug for him, and he was high on the possibility of pain. Aiden couldn’t let himself think of Cade being under this man’s control, couldn’t let himself imagine what he might have gone through. No, this wasn’t a time for thinking about Cade. This was all about Warren.
“I’m notplayingit any way,” Aiden said. He kept his gaze as level as his voice. “I’m leaving. I’m not talking to you. And after Cade and I have figured things out, I’ll tell my parents as much as Cade will let me. You’re done here.”
A moment while Warren digested that information, and then Cade’s father stepped forward. He wasn’t quite between them, but he drew both of their attention with an authority Aiden rarely saw exercised around the house. “Okay, then. Aiden, you were going to call the airline? And, Warren, I’m not sure we need to hear details. Aiden knows our values, and if he feels that you’ve violated them… I’m sorry, but I’ll have to ask you to leave.”
“Andrew,” Aiden’s mother started, and Aiden braced himself. Was she really going to resist this? Had their relationship deteriorated to thepoint that she wouldn’t back him up? But she glided to her feet and said, “I’ll drive Aiden down to the airport once he’s got the flight figured out. Maybe you can help Warren get his things together?”
“Just like that?” Warren squinted at Aiden’s mother, then his father. “You don’t even want to know why? You don’t want to know about the littlewhoreyour son thinks he’s in love with?”
“Time to go, Warren.” Aiden’s father stepped a little closer, into Warren’s space.
So Warren turned to Aiden. “And you? You really think you’re going to be able to forget about it? You think you’ll be able to touch his sweet, hard body without remembering thatI was there first?”
“That’s enough,” Aiden’s father said, but Warren ignored him and kept staring at Aiden, a predatory smile twisting his face.
“Are you sure you don’t want to hear how much I paid him? Or how I made him beg? Made himcry?”
Warren’s mouth was open, about to spew more filth, when Aiden’s fist crashed into it. Warren fell backward and Aiden drove after him, only to find himself plowing into his father’s unyielding chest.
“Okay,” his father murmured. “You got one hit. That’s fair. Let it go now, son. Go on inside.”
Aiden peered over his father’s shoulder and saw his mother standing between Warren and her family. Warren was sprawled on the deck, his hand on his jaw, and he wasn’t smiling anymore. That was enough. Getting rid of that goddamn smile was enough.
Aiden didn’t avert his gaze, but he let his body relax and then stepped backward. Not far, just as much as was needed to let his father know he was disengaging.
“Good,” his father said quietly. “Good decision. Okay, keep going. I don’t want to leave your mom alone out here, so you go on in and figure out the flight. Get packed up, and we’ll drive you down to the airport.”
Aiden wanted to stay and fight. It would be so much easier to hate Warren than it would be to figure out what the hell he was feeling about Cade. But Warren wasn’t the important one, Cade was. So Aiden took another step backward, then another, and then he turned and jogged for the stairs. His phone was upstairs, so he could call the airline while hegot packed up, and then he could get the hell away from Warren and back to Cade.
And when he found Cade? He had no idea. He’d just have to hope the ideas came to him in the air.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“We’ll needto talk about this at some point,” Aiden’s mother said after they’d driven for a while. “If Cade was engaged in… well, you didn’t disagree with what Warren said, really. So it sounds like Cade was working as a prostitute.”
Aiden watched her fingers as they gripped the steering wheel, the knuckles growing whiter with every calm word that came from her mouth. “We don’t have to discuss it now, if you don’t want to. But, at some point. From what Warren said—”
“You don’t understand. Gramps and Grandma paid for everything you ever wanted. Cade’s parents didn’t even pay for what heneeded. He was working to pay forgroceries, Mom. Food his parents probably ate. They didn’t look after him at all. He—”
“It’s not a moral judgment.” She glanced over at him and made a rueful face. He noticed that her fingers relaxed when she did it. “I know I haven’t been exactly welcoming. But I’m not judging him, Aiden. Not now. But I’m also not worrying about him, becauseyou’remy son. You’re the one I need to protect. There are diseases—”
“He said he’s been tested a bunch of times—”
“And more than the physical, there’s the emotional. It’s not blame when I say that this must have been—for someone like Cade, so quiet and private—this must have been a decision that came from desperation. The kind of desperation that leaves marks that last forever. If Cade’s managed to get away without physical issues, that’s wonderful, but what about the psychological? From the factors that drove him to prostitution in the first place, from the things he went throughasa prostitute….” She sighed. “Do you know details? There was Warren. How did they connect? Was Cade working on the streets, or through a service?”
