And now he was here, saving me again.
Vaughn led me to his car and got me settled in the passenger seat. He walked around the front of the car and climbed into the driver’s seat. I turned and held out my hands as I said, “Can you… can you take me home, please? I don’t want to wait for the police. Dante will be worried… he’ll… he’ll help us explain what happened to the police.”
Vaughn got the car started, then turned to look at me. There was enough light from the touchscreen in the dashboard to see his face.
And I didn’t like what I saw.
In fact, it had fear skating through me.
Fear that turned to a sensation that I could only describe as agony as a sense of betrayal hit hard and fast.
“Vaughn,” I whispered as I jutted my hands toward him a bit, desperately hoping I was wrong. “Please untie me and take me home.”
Tears began flowing down my cheeks long before he turned away from me and put the car in gear. Long before he set his eyes on the road ahead of us. And long before he confirmed my worst fear with seven little words that cut through me like the sharpest of blades.
“I’m sorry, Aleks, I can’t do that.”
Chapter 1
Vaughn
It’d takenme nearly two months to earn enough of his trust to get him to talk to me.
I doubted I’d ever be able to get that back after this.
Even when he’d been a prisoner in the Parks mansion, he hadn’t ever flinched away from me or any of the other guards. He’d mostly just been emotionless… a breathing, walking, silent robot who’d done as he was told. I’d never once seen him cry or beg or argue.
Young Aleks, who hadn’t even been allowed to possess a last name, had been the epitome of obedience.
It had made me sick.
Not because of him, though… he’d had no choice. He’d already known what I’d had yet to learn… that Marcus Parks was a twisted, cruel master who’d found as much, if not more, pleasure in mental torture than sexual gratification.
I had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t a lesson Aleks had necessarily first learned when Marcus had purchased him like he was nothing more than a prized animal at an auction, but I had no doubt that after years as Marcus’s possession, Aleks had become more than adept at doing what needed to be done to survive his master’s cruel whims.
The day I’d met Aleks was still seared into my brain, no matter how many times I’d tried to will it away. I’d been sitting in Marcus’s lavish study, an expensive glass of scotch in hand as Marcus had sat behind his big desk and pinned me with what probably was supposed to have been an intimidating look. I’d wanted to laugh because the man had had no clue that he was about as threatening as a kitten compared to the man who’d ruled my entire world as a child. I’d also really wanted to put a bullet through the sick fuck’s brain then and there, but I’d had to remember the end game… the reason I was there.
My disinterest had probably ended up working in my favor, but hell if my mask of indifference hadn’t slipped just a little when the man had summoned his “pet” into the office. Marcus had languidly gotten up from behind his desk as a teenage boy had silently entered the study, escorted by a large man in a slick-looking suit.
The boy had remained by the door, eyes downcast and hands carefully folded in front of him until Marcus had motioned to him. By the time Marcus had been sitting in the opulent armchair across from me, his own scotch in hand, the boy had been standing next to him.
I could still remember every detail about Aleks as he’d stood there as still and silent as a statue. He’d been about average height with a boyishly skinny body and naturally bronzed skin that hinted at a mixed heritage. His chocolate-brown hair had been short but there’d been just a bit of curl to it. He’d been wearing clean, pressed khaki pants and a thin shirt that had appeared a little big on him… he’d looked like the countless private-academy-attending rich kids I’d always been secretly jealous of as a teenager. I hadn’t known how old Aleks had been at the time, but he easily could have passed for Marcus’s son.
But there’d been nothing fatherly about the way Marcus had treated the young man. With the wave of one finger, Aleks had dropped to his knees in front of Marcus, opened his pants, and sucked his cock to the back of his throat in one well-practiced move. It was like I hadn’t even been in the room.
And as far as Aleks had been concerned, I hadn’t been.
He hadn’t once looked at me.
Not before he’d serviced Marcus and not afterwards as he’d obediently sat at Marcus’s feet while a trail of cum had dripped down his chin as Marcus had tucked his sated dick back into his pants. I’d somehow managed to not react to the whole thing, but if the glass in my hand hadn’t been made of expensive crystal, I surely would have broken it with the grip I’d had on it. And no doubt if that had happened, I would have used the jagged edge that remained of the biggest chunk of glass to slice open the throat of the man in front of me.
I’d seen a lot of depraved shit in the nearly eight years since I’d first entered the underworld of trafficking kids for sex, but for some reason the sight of Aleks on his knees staring blankly at the floor as semen ran down his chin had broken something inside of me. I’d had no choice but to put up a wall between me and all the kids I’d had to ignore over the years in order to try and save one. Yes, I’d done everything in my power to eventually get those kids out, but there’d been no way to save them all and I couldn’t deny the horrible things that had happened to them in the days and weeks until I’d been able to send someone in to get them out.
So that wall had been very necessary.
It’d been the only thing keeping me from killing every single man I encountered who used kids for their own pleasure. Fucks like Marcus Parks were the hardest not to kill the second I met them. Because not hours after he was using Aleks like he was nothing, he’d likely been in his downtown Chicago loft with his wife and children, listening to whatever it was the privileged family members had done with their day. Then he’d probably waved off his own supposed boring day of running his multi-million-dollar empire and advocating for less fortunate kids through his handful of charities that had made him a beloved social figure in the Windy City. What his family and closest friends hadn’t known as he’d gotten up in front of large crowds of the most socially elite and convinced them to donate to his various fundraising efforts, was exactly what he did in his freetime and how many men in his own social circle shared his twisted depravities.
It had taken me years to get into that inner circle of powerful men, and garnering an interview with Marcus Parks for the coveted role of protecting his dirty little secret had been the coup in my illustrious climb to the top. Every degenerate I’d served over the years had pulled me deeper and deeper into the underbelly of a culture that most were afraid to acknowledge existed. But I’d eagerly walked into that very world because it had taken one of my own and I’d quickly erected a barrier between who I’d once been and who I’d had to become.
