TAKING OVER TROFIM (Dominion of Brothers series Book 4) (36 page)

—TXT- T. Leos: You weren’t supposed to know.—

—TXT– Mouse: You can’t shelter me from all the bad news of the world.—

Trenton sucked in deep breath and sighed heavily
. But he wished he could.

—TXT- T. Leos: I’ll see you tonight. Wear something nice for me for when I get in. Love you.—

—TXT– Mouse: Yes, Dominus. I love you too.—

“Trenton.”

Trenton glanced up to see Harper walking up. He looked to be bearing grim news as he came up and passed a leather overnight travel bag over to him.

“The stuff you asked for, plus a few others just in case. I wasn’t sure what this was for so I kind of went overboard.”

Trenton dropped the bag at his feet and motioned Harper to join him.

“What are they saying about his condition?” Harper asked quietly as he leaned back against the same table.

“He’s still in critical condition. Collection kit came up positive for semen from two different men.”

“Any chance that’s just one assault and one from Shay from an earlier—” his words drooped off when Trenton shook his head.

“Shay went straight up to his father’s place after work. They never saw each other.”

“Where’s Shay now?”

Trenton motioned towards the doors. “Deez and I were at the apartment when he was dumped off there. Deez went after them but I haven’t heard back yet.”

“He’s on his way here.”

“He call you?”

“No, but there was a call for a black and white on a hit and run. Turned out to be him, said a large white SUV hit his truck then took off.”

Trenton chuckled, “Good work.”

“You said Shay was dumped. He in ICU as well?”

“No, but he probably should be in a hospital bed. Someone messed him up pretty bad.”

Harper started to sweat and he scrubbed his hands over his face. “His father.”

“No doubt, but unless Shay comes out about it, we can’t say anything either. We can only try to steer the detectives towards the evidence.”

“Well, I did what I could in that part.”

“Any other DNA evidence?”

“Yes, but they’re not talking.”

“Political money has been passed across the hands already?”

Harper squirmed and scratched at his neck. “I don’t know. This whole thing has been keeping me up late at night. We’re missing something here. This isn’t about just one gay son or a washed up politician.”

“Agreed.” Trenton stared at the floor, seeing the stray pieces of their own investigation, but none seemed to match up. “Maxum found a list of debts from Wilks. But so far no one is making him pay up.” Harper glanced at him questioningly, “The favors haven’t stopped either.”

“What are they waiting on? For him to win the lottery?”

Trenton straightened and glanced at Harper, “Money is the only thing these people care about.”

“Okay, so who has it?”

“Good question.” Trenton let his mind wander. His fingers sliding over his lips in half circles in slow movements.
Who had the money?
Every line he tried to draw went back to Shay. Shay was the common denominator in this
. “There’s an old saying: All roads lead to Rome.”

“Shay is our Rome.” Harper answered.

“Call your friends. Tell them Shay is ready to talk. Have them come here.” Trenton leaned over and grabbed the dark leather overnight bag Harper had brought and stood.

Harper nodded and pulled out his phone, but paused looking at Trenton.

“When in Rome.” Trenton said flatly and disappeared through the doors into ICU.

He walked past the station and down to Trofim’s room and stepped in. Shay sat on one side and Pyotr on the other. Neither sleeping, just staring into a void that hovered somewhere in the dim corners of the room.

Pyotr glanced at him, expecting something. Shay however didn’t budge from the chair he had pulled against the hospital bed and leaned against the bed mattress to be as close to Trofim without touching.

“Pyotr, step out will you?”

Pyotr’s brows furrowed and he shook his head. “I’m not leaving my brother’s side.”

“It’s actually not a request. Step out.” Trenton gave him a purposeful glance, keeping his breathing strong and level. Pyotr was no man to be bossed around. A quiet man, but piss him off and Trenton had no doubts Pyotr was every bit the challenger he saw burning in the man’s eyes just now. But Trenton needed time with Shay— alone. So he remained rigid on his order.

Pyotr’s breath became elevated and it hissed from his nose. He clearly didn’t like it, but he slowly rose to his feet and stepped out.

“Shay, is it safe for you to sit here at the end of the bed?”

Shay didn’t move.

“Shay!”

He flinched then turned, seeing Trenton for the first time. He blinked several times then noticed Pyotr was gone and the puzzlement reflected in his expression.

“Come sit here at the end of the bed with your back to me, please.” Trenton waved him over before Shay could slip away again.

He shook his head, “Why?”

“Shay, I know what your father has done to you. If you’re to be here for Trofim, you’re going to have to trust in at least one person to take care of you.”

~  *  ~

Shay looked at the man.
Trenton exuded strength where Shay feared he’d lost all of his. Maybe he never even had it. Not like Trenton did
.

Trust.

It was a hard thing to give because no one had earned it from him. Except for Trofim
. Shay looked at his love. Black and blue eyes slept under the bandages that wrapped his head. Lips swollen were taped around the respirator tube. Shay felt numb except for the pain in his heart— and the burning on his back.

“Let me help you.”

Shay snapped back around to Trenton, “With what?” The words exhaled from Shay’s lungs, “You’re just some guy who teaches kink.”

“No, Shay. I am far more than that.”

Shay was about to ask, but the cold calculated eyes that stared back at him told him things he knew people don’t ask about. Trenton’s gaze spoke volumes of shit Shay had often wished upon his father and the men who served him.

“I don’t know what to do.” Shay’s whisper pleaded and he wasn’t sure Trenton ever heard him.

“I do. And it starts with you.”

Shay nodded, pushed up, and walked around the chair, then as Trenton’s hand motioned him to sit on the bed, he did.

“Take the shirt off.” The man instructed calmly. For the first time, Shay removed his shirt and exposed his dark life to anyone other than Trofim. He expected to hear a gasp of some kind, but there was none. Not a sound from him, no surprise, nor gawking. He heard Trenton moving then felt the contact of a cloth on his skin. It stung at first and Shay winced. But then it became cool to the touch as a cloth gently blotted something against his skin.

“What is that?” shay asked.

“A homeopathic astringent and analgesic combination. We recommend it to partners who enjoy certain kinds of pain play as part of their post care to ease the sting and help speed up the healing process to the skin.”

“I could have had the nurses here do that for me.”

“Yet, you didn’t.”

Shay stared straight ahead, he couldn’t even bring himself to look at Trofim now. “I’m no longer a man. I’ve let my father beat me like this for over ten years.  A real man wouldn’t have stood for it.”

“A real man would never judge another for the suffering he’s gone through to survive and protect the ones he loves. Do you think a prisoner of war comes home thinking he is less of a man for enduring the punishment of a foreign prison in order to survive?”

“He’s a soldier, he was trained for that.”

“No man is trained for that. He survives so he can come home. He survives for a chance to be with the one he loves.”

“I’m not in a prison.”

“Are you not?” The man behind him asked, still washing Shay’s back and finally the feverish burn began to dissipate.

“Shay, you’re not broken, just locked in survival mode. But now it’s time to come out of your hiding and fight.”

Shay half way glanced back, then stopped, “I can’t fight my father. I don’t know how. He has those judges on me, they’ll lock me away like some drug cartel kingpin.”

“Except now you have back-up. Your father has made too many mistakes now. We can get him and lock him away for good, but we can’t do it for you. You have to lead the battle.”

Shay finally looked and Trenton met him with a look of strength, not judgment or disappointment. “I can’t allow him to ever harm Trofim again.”

“Then now is the time.”

Shay sucked in a deep breath and nodded, “What do I need to do?”

Trenton nodded and went back to treating his back, “There will be some detectives here in a bit. They’re going to want to question you. They will no less start with interrogating you. Where you’ve been, if you and Trofim had a fight, those sorts of things. Answer their questions, not just what they want to hear, but what they need to know. Don’t mention my name or my involvement and don’t give them everything, just enough so they do their own investigation. Bait them. Make them go find the evidence. It’s there, all of it waiting for them, but if you hesitate they won’t find it in time.”

Shay nodded, but kept silent. His thoughts were anything but. He breathed in deeply, drawing strength from Trenton from the very air, as Shay laid out his thoughts in his head of all that was about to be shared.

“I’ll come for you when they get here.”

~  *  ~

Trenton dropped everything back into the bag and closed it up, and started to walk out.

“Mr. Leos?”

Trenton turned and glanced at Shay, now standing at the foot of the bed. Like Jovan, Shay stood taller than Trenton remembered him. For the first time since they’d met they stood eye to eye.

“Thank you.” Shay whispered.

Feeling a restored confidence that Shay was the type of man who knew how to get his feet back under him, he just needed the right kind of push, Trenton nodded, and walked out.

He hadn’t even cleared the room before Pyotr had him by the shirt and slammed Trenton against the wall.

“What is going on?” Pyotr glared with an intense expressions Trenton had never seen in the man before. “Why are you involved?”

Trenton took Pyotr’s hands in his own and eased the man’s grip from his shirt, and eased him to back off, as their gazes met, “Trofim came to me asking me to look into the issues surrounding Shay and his father: Ben Wilks.”

“I want that man brought in and thrown behind bars. If you have anything to put him there then tell me now.”

“I can’t.” Trenton gave a slight shake of his head, “I can’t tell you anything. Trofim didn’t make it official. Nothing we found can be used against Ben Wilks.”

Pyotr surged forward and slammed Trenton back against the wall again in a burst of rage “Then make it official!”

Trenton kept calm. He knew the pain that was clamping on the bits of vengeance in the man. Trenton had felt them himself, but even he had to allow the feds someone to lock away when he was chomping on his own rage.

Pyotr was no different. Someone with a lot of money and power had stalked and tried to kill someone he loved. Vengeance was human nature.

“Are you finished?” Trenton waited with a deep calm breath. When Pyotr let go he slunk before him. “Go watch over Trofim and trust me to take care of this. I can hand everything over, but attorneys, especially ones backed by political money, have a way of making these things get tossed out of court. So I have to steer the detectives to find their own evidence. And they will. We’ll see to it they do.”

“I’ve never lost one before.” Pyotr lamented under his breath.

“And you still haven’t.”

Pyotr raised his head only this time the face Trenton saw was pain and fear.

“Please. Those two deserve a life of happiness after everything they’ve endured to be with each other. I don’t know how to protect them but you do.”

“You just have to trust me to do my job. While you do yours.”

~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~

Shay came out of the doctor’s lounge where he’d cleaned up a bit and put on a fresh pair of scrubs and a lab coat. It might have seemed all for show, but even playing the part helped give him back some inner security.

Two detectives arrived about an hour after Trenton had left him. And he found them some privacy in the next room over. He stood next to the window glancing out at the setting sun a moment, refusing to sit while the questioning began. He’d sat down for too long. It was time he took a stand and starting right now.

“You’re full name is Shay Benjamin Wilks?”

Shay turned and looked at them, “Yes.”

“You, uh, have a fight with someone?” One of the detectives pointed at Shay’s face.

“I had a coming out engagement with my father. He didn’t take it too well.”

“Your father didn’t know you were gay?”

“He knew, but has been trying to suppress it in me for some time now.”

“That his way of suppressing?”

Shay nodded.

“So can you tell us where you were last night?”

“At my father’s house.”

“What time did you get back?”

Shay paused a moment, his eyes dropping to the floor.

“You don’t know when you got back?”

“I don’t even know what day it is.”

“Come again?”

Shay sucked in a deep breath and drew his shoulders up. Like Trenton said it was time to man up and be strong for Trofim. “I drove up early Thursday morning. He wasn’t in when I got there so I crashed for a bit. We had dinner, then the fight. Next I was locked in his basement. I suffered a few minor contusions and possibly a concussion. So I lost track of time. I was escorted back to my apartment by two men who work for my father.”

“Know their names?”

“No.”

“Can you tell us anything about the men?”

“Both white with brown hair. Big, heavy set, gym type guys. Almost always dressed in black t-shirts and fatigues. Maybe ex-cops or military.”