Bad Things (22 page)

“Of course. Obviously. I’ve always known that. But I didn’t know about—”

“
The games,” Carson finally finished her thought for her.

She sat there staring into his eyes like she was looking for an answer to an important question. Like the answer could save her, or hurt her.

“It’s not that unusual, you know,” he said, trying not to think so much about what had gone on down there in Xavier’s basement. He thought about things he’d overheard at the club, stories guys would tell him about how they loved being tied up, gagged, flogged, humiliated, and a hundred weirder things by their “dates” as they euphemistically referred to the women they paid to fuck them.

“
I don’t want to talk about that.”

“
No problem.” Because he sure as fuck didn’t want to talk about it. “Want some tea?”

He made her tea, then checked the phone again. It had been almost ten minutes since he’d sent the message. The adrenaline was still gushing through him, making his guts roll and his hands shake.

“I wanted my shop vac,” she said.

“
Your shop vac?”

“
That’s why I came over. He borrowed it from me months ago and never returned it. He never returns the things he borrows. That’s why I came over. That’s why I went down there.” She glanced toward the door to the basement out of the corner of her eye, as if the stairway were a portal to her own personal hell, instead of his.

An unsettling new anxiety crept over Carson. “Did Xavier know you were coming over?”

She let out a weird, sad laugh. “No. No way.” The awful, half-formed doubt that maybe Xavier had let her find him in the basement, that he enjoyed being cruel to her, that she didn’t guarantee his safety after all, erased itself, and Carson’s sudden bout of nausea faded. “I texted him maybe half an hour before I came over. But he didn’t answer.”

“
I’ll go down and get it for you.”

She seemed relieved at the thought of him going away, however briefly. He went down the stairs, the strange feeling swelling up bigger and bigger until it pushed the woman in the living room almost completely away. The feeling of walking over Xavier’s footsteps, the steps he’d taken over and over on his way down to torment his hostage. Opening the door, the way Xavier had opened the door.

A now familiar, sickening surge of anxious repulsion tangled up in arousal when he looked at the empty spot on the floor where he’d sat, stood, knelt for three days. It already seemed impossible that he’d been that person tied up there. Pissing in that bottle. Doing everything Xavier told him to do. The memory of Xavier’s cock in his mouth, of Xavier fucking him barely grazed his conscious mind before he dodged it.

He knew exactly where the shop vac was. He’d memorized the order and location of every visible object on those shelves, in the corners. He grabbed it and headed for the stairs, a sudden anxiety at the idea of being trapped there again making him practically sprint toward the door and up the stairs.

But he froze before emerging into the hallway, arrested by the sound of the front door opening. Why was it so quiet? Had she left? Was Xavier up there looking for her?

There were no footfalls. No sound of movement.

Then the front door clicked closed.

“
Where is he?” Carson heard Xavier ask. So, what? They’d just been staring at each other in silence for that minute since the door had opened?

“
In the basement.”

Carson could picture Xavier’s eyes trying to mine Elena’s thoughts. “He’s still—”

“Jesus Christ, I did not leave that man shackled in your basement.” She sounded so angry. So wounded.

“
Are you okay?”

Carson almost smiled. It felt so horribly good, thinking Xavier might have been scared for her. Because of him.

“Why would I not be okay?”

“
Because you look upset.” A pause. Maybe footsteps. Then Xavier’s voice again. “Elena. Christ. You’re not actually scared of me?” He sounded strange. Nothing like himself. Hurt. Then he said, “What’s he doing down there?” Carson had never heard him sound so guarded. Cautious.

“
He went down to get the shop vac for me.”

Carson tried to convince himself it was Xavier who had the most to lose now that Elena was there to witness whatever would happen, but he was sick with fear. With regret. Why hadn’t he gotten the fuck out of there while Xavier was off at work, oblivious to his liberty?

“Elena, go home. I’ll bring the shop vac to you in an hour.”

Oh god. Carson’s chest collapsed in on his heart, squeezing it up toward his throat.

Please don’t leave. Please don’t leave.

Her voice tight, shivering, even, she said, “I don’t want to be rude. I’ll wait until he comes back so I can say good-bye.”

“Elena. Don’t put yourself in the middle of my personal business.” There. That sounded more like Xavier. Like an officer issuing an order to his troops.

Terrified his guarantee of safe passage was about to cave in to Xavier’s force of will, Carson emerged from the hallway. Xavier met his eyes. That look scared the shit out of Carson, but not because Xavier seemed angry. He didn’t. But there was a cold threat in his stare.

He didn’t know how, but somehow Carson managed to resist the overwhelming urge to neutralize that gaze, the whole situation. Say something light, something that would show Xavier that his dark secrets were still mostly safe from Elena, something banal, like, “Here’s the shop vac. No home should be without one.” Instead, he let the awful weight of the silence, of the unspoken truths weigh down on Xavier. Let him wonder what the hell Carson had told Elena about what he’d been doing to him.

But standing there, looking at him, something in Xavier’s gaze altered. Lightened or softened. As if he’d just read Carson’s mind, and knew that Elena didn’t have a clue what had been going on down in that basement. And then Xavier smiled. Carson had never seen that smile before. Wide. Warm. Friendly.

“How sweet. You two have been getting domestic. You going to make us dinner while you’re at it, Carson?”

Holy fuck. The gall. He wanted to shatter that fucking mask and expose Xavier’s real face, his sadism to Elena. Let her fear and wounded look crush Xavier’s heart. If he fucking had a heart. But Carson couldn’t. He couldn’t traumatize her. It didn’t matter if Xavier was playing his hand counting on exactly that.

“I don’t think Elena’s much in the mood for a family dinner, all things considered,” Carson said, deliberately being cryptic. He held Xavier’s gaze, trying to find a foothold on the narrow path between wounding Xavier—or at least knocking him off balance for fucking once—and sparing Elena any further hurt.

Not so much as a furtive glance toward Elena so Xavier could gauge the gravity of his crime in her eyes.

“Anyway,” Carson said. “I need to get going. I have an important phone call I need to make.”

He tried to find some sign of panic, at least fear in Xavier’s face, but not a single muscle twitched to alter his expression.

“Well,” Xavier said, coming a few steps toward him, but not, Carson noted, too quickly, or too close. He was being careful not to do anything to startle him. Nothing to provoke a reaction that would give Elena any more reason to suspect anything sinister between them. “See you soon.”

For one incredibly weird second, Carson thought Xavier was about to kiss him. But he didn’t. He didn’t even put his hand out, or give him a farewell pat on the shoulder, which would have been the very least someone might do with a lover or even a blind internet fuck date, after having them chained up naked in their basement. At least as a performance of some shade of decency for his sister. But no. So Carson left, feeling incredibly awkward, and like Xavier had wrung one last humiliation from him, even as he escaped, right there under the eyes of Elena, to whom he barely remembered to mumble a good-bye, he was so flustered.

Good. Much easier to control the situation, one of them at a time. Hard to ignore the danger of Carson calling the police, or saying something to Brian. But he was almost a hundred percent sure he wouldn’t do anything like that. Regardless, he’d have to worry about Carson later.

He hated how Elena was looking at him, eyes fixed and glassy. Like he scared her. Like she didn’t know him.

He gave her the grin. His mischievous, ’Yes, I know I’m a troublemaker’ grin that had charmed her out of her worst spates of anger after their countless petty arguments and mutual frustrations. “Guess we need a new policy about dropping in on each other unannounced.”

But she didn’t launch into a string of insults and criticisms. She held her tongue. Which meant this was bad.

“
Elena. I couldn’t have known you’d come over. I’m sorry seeing him upset you.”

“
You’re sorry it upset me?”

He made a calculation. “Yes.” He said it sternly. As if his limp, qualified apology had exhausted his store of patience, and she was on the verge of transgressing a line.

“What the fuck was that, Xavier?”

Better to stay on the offensive. Because he was never defensive. So it would only give her more ammo if he acted contrite, now.

“Elena. You’re in my home. I don’t have to defend my proclivities to you.”

“
Your proclivities?”

“
Yes.”

“
You’re telling me that was just…a date?”

“
Of a kind. Yes.”

“
Leaving him like that? For hours?” Her voice broke on that last word, and he was starting to feel anxious he was about to see something he’d never seen from his sister before. Not even in the early aftermath of her rape. Hysteria.

“
Elena. I understand why seeing that upsets you. And I don’t expect you to understand it. But a lot of people enjoy that kind of play.”

“
That man was not enjoying it.”

“
Some people enjoy suffering.”

“
And I guess you enjoy making them suffer, then?”

“
Elena, please don’t do this. I’m still the same guy you’ve known your whole life. There have always been sides of me that don’t have anything to do with me being your brother. So don’t dig into it now. Because I can see, it’s eating away at your idea of me. Don’t start poking holes in your love for me.”

She jumped up and charged toward the front door.

“Elena!”

He stopped himself just short of grabbing her arm. Willed himself away from his urge to block her from the door. He could convince her to forgive him for Carson. But not for that. Not for controlling her physically. Ever. For any reason.

She turned and hissed through clenched teeth, “Where do you work?”

So. Carson had told her. Bullshitting her about this would do nothing, except undermine his credibility.

“Gomorrah.”

“
What the fuck is that?” Tears streamed down her cheeks.

“
You’re going to be angry.”

“
I’m already angry!” She screamed it. He’d never heard her scream like that. Before that, she’d only raised her voice twice in his presence.

“
I know they have something to do with your investigation.”

He watched the rage and the horrible sadness that had been swelling and swelling in her drain away, like sand out of an upturned bottle.

“So I got a job there as a bouncer, thinking maybe I’d see something that would help you.”

“
Who the fuck do you think you are? Jake Gittes?”

When the fuck had she started watching classics like
Chinatown
?

“
Fuck! Xavi! This isn’t a fucking joke! Do you know who those people are? They will kill you. They will kill you in a horrible, cruel way. As in, cutting things off of you until you slowly bleed to death. As in, burning a warning message into your skin with a blowtorch. As in, making you go for a swim in a pool filled with acid.”

“
Fuck, Elena. What fucking movies have you been watching?”

“
Movies? You wish.
Puta idiota
! Try, reading autopsy reports on undercover agents these guys have caught. And a few guys who they just imagined were undercover agents. Promise me you’ll never go back there.”

“
And how will that look?”

“
Like you’re a flaky loser. If they’ve done their background check, they won’t be surprised. They’ll know that’s just your M.O.”

“
There’s my girl.” He gave her his warmest smile. “Now we’re back to the old us.”

“
I’m not fucking around, Xavi.”

“
I know.” This time when he reached for her, she let him put his arms around her, let him kiss the crown of her head.
Gracias a puto Dios
she didn’t know about Carson digging for the computer files Xavier had copied from her computer.

She pulled away and asked, “How did you know that club was part of our investigation?” as if she’d read his fucking mind.

“I saw something at your house.”

“
Saw what at my house?”

“
Something on your computer screen.”

“
You hacked into my computer?”

“
What? I can’t masquerade as a private dick for a couple weeks, but you think I’m Mark Zuckerberg?”

“
You can’t do that, Xavier. You can’t dig into my personal things.”

“
Your work things.”

“
Don’t play this game with me. You’re the only one I trust.” The corner of her mouth twitched. “Trusted.”

It was startling, the way that hurt him.

“Elena.”

“
Promise me you won’t go back. And don’t break that promise. Try to earn some of my trust back that way.”

He laughed, even though he shouldn’t have. Of course it pissed her off. Eyes hard. Lips compressed. Fuck. He’d gotten that look a thousand times. But never from her. He fucking hated it.

“How can you tell me to quit, saying it’s for my safety, when you’ve got the job you have?”

“
I don’t go creeping into their world, and get them to trust me, and then betray them. I’m a paper pusher in an office.”

“
Yeah. And you think if they figured out the FBI is hunting them, and those guys suddenly felt threatened, they wouldn’t go after someone like you to make a point? To try to scare people off the case?”

“
It’s not the same.”

He smiled. “Elena. Let me do one good thing. This thing.” He felt his smile fading, even though he didn’t mean to let it, and even though usually, mastering the mask he showed to the world was his forte, right up there with seeing past everyone else’s masks. “I can’t stop thinking about them. The women. The girls.”

Phone vibrating in his pocket. Carson? The police? He put in his code, suddenly circumspect about it, even in front of Elena. Brian. Some B.S. at the club, and a threat that if he didn’t get there within the hour, he could look for another job.

“
I have to go.”

Maybe there wasn’t any brawl or crisis of the kind Brian’s text had suggested. Maybe Carson had told him something. Maybe Brian would lure him into his office for a conversation, and four guys would be waiting for him. With guns. With knives. Maybe with rope or handcuffs and a toolkit full of pliers and wire cutters and cheese graters.

For once, Xavier defied his gut. Went to the club, thinking maybe he’d just seen Elena for the last time. A cold, reasoned determination that his flawed and solitary life had less value than the suffering of those enslaved girls ruthlessly exerting dominance over his soul, absolutely thrumming with his will to live. He was still so fucking thirsty, so fucking hungry for life’s delicious banquet.

Joey was manning the door, and before Xavier had even finished crossing the parking lot, he blurted out, “Hey man. Brian’s got his dick in a knot about something. Said to get your ass up to his office the second you got here.”

A good sign? Would Brian advertise their meeting if he was about to take part in his murder? Controlling his breathing, digging for his equilibrium, Xavier moved through the club with his usual confident stride. He made a point of saying hello to three of the girls on his way to the stairs, just so there would be witnesses who could say he’d been there, if the police came around asking questions after his disappearance. Because Elena would send them there.

Max standing next to Brian’s desk. Brian slouched in his armchair. Deep, slow, even breaths.

“
Sorry if I’m interrupting, Brian. Joey said you wanted me to come up.”

“
Xavier. My name is Max Ulianenko.”

Max stepped forward and proffered his hand. Xavier gave him a firm but not overdone handshake. It unsettled Xavier, seeing a mercurial glimmer deep down in the profound well of Max’s pale aqua eyes, something that made him feel like he was looking at his own slightly blurred and twisted reflection. A cold, sharp strength of will. And that incisive look. So few people truly looked at you, even when they met your eyes. But this man did. Max Ulianenko was trying to read his mind. Read his soul.

“Brian tells me you’re the best muscle he’s had on the floor in a year.”

“
Thank you.” He said it to Max, but then gave Brian a small nod of appreciation. Whatever way this was going, it was never smart to let an insecure power whore like Brian feel slighted, even while showing necessary deference to his alpha.

“
So. You like the club?” Max asked. Carefully articulated, grammatically perfect English delivered in a thick Ukrainian accent.

He reminded Xavier of the kind of actor who’d get cast in a Hollywood film about Nazis. Almost as tall as he was, but with a wiry frame. Almost perfect Aryan features, except for a slightly disconcerting angularity. He was sleek. Vaguely feline. If Xavier had met him in a bar, just a nameless stranger, he would have tried to fuck him.

“I do, yes.”

“
Brian tells me you’re a homosexual. Is that true?”

“
Yes, Sir.”

“
A gentleman’s club seems like an odd choice for a homosexual.”

Xavier allowed his mouth to bend in a slight grin.

“Don’t be shy, Xavier. Tell me what’s funny.”

“
You want me to be frank, Sir?”

Max gave him a surprisingly charming smile. “I absolutely insist you be frank.”

“I don’t notice the girls, so much. And there’s nothing unpleasant about being in a room full of horny men and their pheromones.”

Max’s charming smile brightened a couple degrees, then faded as he turned and looked at Brian. “Why don’t you go make a round or two of the bar?”

Predictably, Brian looked instantly put out at being dismissed from the meeting, but obediently got up and did as he was told, throwing Xavier a meaningless conspiratorial glance, as if they were in on some
puta secreto
together.

“
Now we can have a pleasant, intelligent conversation, you and I.”

“
Yes, Sir.” He suppressed a grin at the implication that such a conversation was impossible with Brian in the room.

“
That’s enough licking under my tail. Just Max will do.”

“
All right, Max.”

“
In my line of work, I deal with a lot of people. The human brain naturally yearns to sort people into categories. Gross categories, at first. I tend to think of my employees as the meat, and the minds. And what I like about you right away, is that you look like meat, until I look into your eyes. You’re brains in disguise. It’s nice. I’m so seldom surprised.”

Again, that icky feeling that they were blurred reflections of each other.
Que puta espejo horroroso
.

“
But I’m left with a small difficulty.”

“
What’s that?”

“
We’ll get to that in a minute.”

Xavier suppressed another grin. So familiar, the game of baiting the prey, then keeping them on the hook.

“You’re a rather inquisitive character, aren’t you?” From the tone of Max’s voice and the subtle narrowing of his eyes, it didn’t appear to be a compliment.

“
People have been known to say that about me.”

“
A man as clever as you, Xavier, I suppose it comes as no surprise that a man like me, running a somewhat precarious business, doesn’t always appreciate having employees who are too inquisitive.”

“
Too inquisitive?”