Page 29 of Compulsion

“What?”

“Did he have relatives? A family?”

I stared at Jack, aghast. “I… he told me he was on his own, apart from a couple of distant cousins he never saw.”

“But didn’t it cross your mind that someone might need to know what happened, what you saw?”

No, it didn’t. I buried my head in my hands. “And all I did was bring it back down here with me. Landed it all on you two. It’s my fault.”

Jack sighed. Louis leaped off the couch and came to kneel in front of me. He put a soothing hand on my neck. “You didn’t kill him, Max. You panicked and you ran, but it was a mugging—pure chance. Of course it wasn’t your fault.”

I lifted my head to stare at him, and from the way he flinched, I knew that my expression still reflected the slide back to that world. My voice sounded weird, like someone else’s. “You still don’t have the full truth, though. You see, I did recognize the attacker—I did know him.”

“What the hell?”

“It was Baz—Peck’s pathetic little shadow. I knew he was damaged, but I never knew he was that violent. We’d kept him out of trouble for a long time, taking him around with us, trying to keep him away from Peck’s shitty world. Not well enough, obviously.”

“But you couldn’t—”

“Haven’t you been listening to me?” Now my voice was loud and angry. “I helped him get like that! He had no damn money, of course, but I’d share my supplies with him when he was desperate. I was the one who got him drugs, fed his habit, pushed him further and further toward the edge of madness until one day he obviously snapped for some reason—and Stewart was in the way. I might as well have put the fucking knife in his hand!”

That was it—I’d had enough confession for the night. I threw off their touch and the cloying air of their concern, and I lurched toward the door, holding out my hands to keep them away from me. Jack and Louis—great guys. Guys who’d found out their best friend had been a dealer and the worst kind of parasite. Tomorrow I’d face them. Tomorrow they’d tell me to move out. But tonight I had demons to keep me company instead.

“Max, wait!”

I paused in the doorway, though I didn’t turn around.

“We’ll sort something out,” Jack urged. “You’re different now, right?”

But that was the problem, wasn’t it? I was trying to be… and I was failing.

“Have you spoken to Seve about this?” Louis asked quietly. “Told him what you know about the London club?”

“No,” I said. Fear prickled at the back of my neck. “No point. You heard me say all the clubs were in on it—the whole Medina Group is run that way. And Seve’s one of the family. He’s part of it all.”

“You don’t know that for sure!”

“He’s a Medina.” I could hear the cynicism in my voice. “Of course I know for sure. He does what he likes.” And I didn’t want to get drawn back into that world again just because I couldn’t keep my hands off him.

It was never going to be worth it.

Chapter Thirteen

IT WAS eating away at me. He was. Seve. Seve. I dreamed him. Breathed him, heard him, tasted him. I woke up nights holding myself so tightly it hurt, and begging for it to be his hand on my cock, his fingers up inside me—

With a guilty pleasure, I listened to Jack and Louis making love at night downstairs.

I masturbated to thoughts of Seve, silently—a little ashamedly—but always exquisitely.

I was stupid and helpless and plain fucking angry.

I had to see him again.

IT WAS a Friday, a couple of days after I’d spoken to Jack and Louis about Stewart and the past year, a couple of days when I avoided them like I had some strange form of plague and didn’t want them catching it off me. I came home from work about seven and went up to my room as usual to wash and change out of my overalls. But this time I took extra time in the shower and way too long wondering which polo shirt from my meager collection to put on. Then I grabbed a sandwich and left the house, all without catching sight of the others. All for the good, really. I had personal business to attend to.

I lingered for a long while outside Compulsion. There was a fine sheen of rain spattering on my shoulders and head, and I hadn’t bothered to grab a coat. Damn, but I hated the rain. To me, it was the epitome of misery in its physical symptoms of cold and wet. At this early evening hour and with the looming gray clouds, the club looked half-deserted and totally harmless. There was no security on the door, just a weedy little management type. Even so, my ribs ached in memory.

Enough!