The Bruise_Black Sky (31 page)

“Downstairs.”

“I—What’s going on, Ben? If you don’t want to fuck, undo me. I have a lot to get through today. Much I need to do.”

“Such as?”

“What?”

“Tell me. What do you have to do today?”

“Since when are you ever interested in what I do?”

“Since now.”

“Well, it’s all boring stuff you wouldn’t—”

“Leaving me isn’t boring. Leaving me is actually very interesting. Tell me all about it.”

Nikolas chuckled and patted the bed next to him. “Good. You play this game quite—”

“I’m not playing.” He got up and walked out.

§§§

Ben pretty much knew all Nikolas’s Danish swear words, because he lived with them being muttered daily at frequent intervals, but he heard many more in other languages he didn’t know over the rest of the morning. He couldn’t vouch for them all being curses, of course, but he was pretty sure they were. He didn’t care. He shut the door to the sitting room and watched the rest of
After the Wars
Season One. With the sound turned up.

At lunchtime, he took up some sandwiches and another cup of tea.

Nikolas was so furious he was speechless—actually not talking to him like a normal person does the not talking thing.

His only comment was to say icily, “I need to piss,” to which Ben replied, “That’s what the empty bottle is for.”

That brought on more swearing and Season Two until teatime.

When Ben took Nikolas up a cup, he was quiet again, but it was a thoughtful silence. He said, “Tomorrow’s the funeral.”

“We’re not going.”

“To Kate’s funeral? You’re not going to Kate’s—?”

“This is more important.”

“What
is
this, Ben?”

Ben sat down on the bed. Nikolas could reach him, but what was he going to do? “You’re staying there until you tell me what’s going on. I couldn’t think of anything else to do.”

“There’s nothing going on! This is rid—Ben!”

Season Two concluded with a cliffhanger at just before midnight. He hated cliffhangers and was tempted to start Season Three, but he reckoned Nikolas was hungry enough to eat now and not waste the food, so he took him up a tray of something nice. Nikolas had his arms crossed behind his head and seemed calm. He glanced at the meal but ignored it. “You know what is going to happen. I will go along with this just enough to convince you of my sincerity. I will then lie to you, and you will believe me. When you release me, I will do whatever it is you accuse me of planning to do anyway. You are completely wasting your time and mine.”

“Nothing to do with keeping you safe is a waste of time.”

Nikolas sat up, clearly incredulous. “Keeping me safe?”

Ben sat once more on the edge of the bed and took Nikolas’s free hand. It was allowed, which surprised him. If Nikolas had done this to him, he’d be far angrier. “Safe maybe isn’t the right word. Something happened in America, and I’m not sure what it was. I think it’s tied up with Kate, maybe? Whatever it is, you feel guilty, which must be frightening. You’re frightened, and you think that what you’re doing is for me, but it’s not.”

“Good God, pop psychology from watching Dr Phil. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Ben chuckled. “Exactly. That’s why you’re tied up here until you tell me.”

“I will never tell you.”

“Well, you’re going to have a very boring life then. Messy too, ’cus you can’t shit in a bottle, can you?”

§§§

By the following morning, Nikolas surrendered enough to eat the eggs and bacon that Ben brought up and drink the tea. It didn’t look as if he’d slept much. He didn’t seem to know whether to be pleased or not with the books Ben produced. Yes, reading material was always welcome to someone who otherwise had white walls to stare at, but it implied longevity of sentence. He clearly expected Ben to have relented by now.

Ben left him to it and removed the tray.

He had Season Three to enjoy.

Lunchtime, he noticed that Nikolas had not opened the paperbacks. When he commented on this, Nikolas told him he was busy. Ben sat down once more and studied the still figure. “Do you want anything?”

“No.”

This interaction was it for the rest of that day, but by the next morning, Nikolas was looking pained. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

Ben nodded. He’d actually thought about this after his initial threat to leave Nik in bed until he was forced to cave, because, obviously, he wasn’t going to actually do that. Despite what Nikolas might think about what was happening, Ben loved him more than he loved himself, would lay down his life for Nikolas in a heartbeat, so making him lie in shit was not on his agenda.

He produced a roll of Harry Black. His old favourite. If it was good enough for Nikolas’s phone, it was good enough for him. Nikolas’s eyes widened. “You would not dare.”

Ben did dare. By kneeling on Nikolas, he was able to strap his good arm to his side, round and round his lean waist with the tape, and only then did he undo the handcuff. He expected Nikolas to fight, but it was a foregone conclusion who would win.

He let Nikolas go into the bathroom by himself.

He knew what Nikolas expected to find—razors, scissors, even a mirror he could smash. He hadn’t forgotten who Nikolas Mikkelsen —Aleksey Primakov—was. Not at all.

Nikolas would find nothing except soap.

Even so, Nikolas managed to free his arm.

When he emerged he was rubbing his handcuffed wrist, and Ben had no doubt that this was one of the few times in his life that he was meeting Aleksey and not Nikolas.

But he’d anticipated this as well.

He pepper sprayed him.

Nikolas howled. It was more outrage than pain, for it was a very light mist and quite diluted. Ben loved Nikolas. Would lay down his life for him. He had no intention of hurting him if it could be avoided.

Within a few moments, Nikolas was back on the bed and handcuffed.

But he wasn’t stupid. He allowed Ben to treat his eyes.

§§§

The resistance Ben had expected from Nikolas didn’t emerge until Sunday, four days into his incarceration. Nikolas went on a hunger strike. This was tricky. Ben couldn’t, wouldn’t, force-feed him, because it was impractical and messy. Nikolas, he knew, could not eat for a very long time. He’d worked out a strategy for this as well. He bribed him. He offered him cigarettes and alcohol. If he ate, he got to smoke and have some vodka. It didn’t work until the following Wednesday, and Ben reckoned the capitulation was as much to do with starving as the need to relieve stress with nicotine and booze.

Nikolas was very stressed. He’d gone past the calm acceptance that he would eventually wear Ben down and into complete fury that Ben dared do this to him. Ben heard a lot of things he wished he didn’t, but not what he wanted to hear, so he put up with the terrible insults.

Nikolas was having to endure being pepper sprayed every day or so, so he reckoned they were even.

§§§

At the end of the first two weeks, Ben allowed Nikolas to take a shower—which wasn’t much different to letting him use the bathroom for other things, except he allowed him more time and a towel.

When Nikolas emerged, Ben had changed all the sheets on the bed.

Nikolas stood with the towel around his waist, his hair and beard dripping water. He studied the bed, and what clean linen represented, for some very considerable time. “What do you want to know, Ben?”

Ben didn’t take the breath of relief he wanted to. He indicated to the handcuffs. Nikolas returned to his imprisonment for the first time without being sprayed into submission first. Ben clipped him in. “Tell me what happened in America.”

“This has nothing to do with America.”

“Tell me.”

“It’s to do with what I was doing in Scotland with Miles Toogood.”

Ben frowned.

Nikolas paused then continued, “I had some dealings with a man called Ion Boc—he was a friend of Miles Toogood’s grandmother. A Romanian. I saw an opportunity to diversify some of my holdings—being in armaments may not be so profitable in the next decade. Ion Boc runs one of the largest mobile technology companies in the ex-Soviet bloc region, and I liked his ideas. I am setting up a subsidiary in Romania, but I knew you would not like me going there often. That is why I have not told you. Now, I have told you everything. Please let me go. I will forget—Ben! Fucking come back! Ben—!”

§§§

Ben had never felt so alone in his life.

He’d thought Nikolas would give in after a week.

He had nothing left to offer now.

He was all tapped out with the horror and stress of what he was doing to the thing he loved most in the world. If he went up and offered to cut his right hand off, would that make Nikolas take him seriously? Nothing else seemed to work.

He took Nikolas up a glass of wine.

It was thrown in his face, and he had to wrestle the glass off him in case Nikolas smashed it and used the shards for God-knows what.

Ben had finally had enough.

He punched him.

Nikolas hit him back, as best he could, and they were then at something of an impasse.

Ben suddenly wrestled him down, pining his arms. Nikolas fought more like a man possessed than one restrained. And then Ben flipped him over.

Nikolas gasped in incredulity, “No! Don’t you fucking dare!”

Ben felt tears running down his face. “Don’t make me do this.”

“I’m not fucking making you do anything!”

“Yeah, you
are
! You
won’t
break. I
can’t
break you. You’re stronger than me, because I love you too much. Please, tell me.”

“Get off me! Fucking get off!”

Ben didn’t.

He did what Nikolas had once given him permission to do, so it wasn’t rape.

It
wasn’t
.

Whatever it was, it broke Nikolas.

It was the one thing Ben had promised he would never do—hurt Nikolas—and he did.

In some twisted, sick corner of Nikolas’s mind, Ben saw a realisation forming that he’d underestimated him. Nikolas had always taken that promise not to harm him as a sign that fundamentally Ben was weak. Nikolas used pain and betrayal as currency, and that Ben wouldn’t hurt him had marked him as someone who would allow themselves to be owned, manipulated and controlled.

Ben now changed the very basis of their relationship, and when he was done, Nikolas shattered beneath him.

§§§

Nikolas had nothing left.

How could he have been so arrogant as to think he needed to keep Ben safe by running away?

He curled up, covering his face.

When he felt a hand on his shoulder, he turned into the offered embrace, and Ben held him so tight that the imprisonment by metal no longer mattered. Nikolas was freed by Ben’s love for him, always had been, but now saw this fully for the first time.

He told Ben about the salt mine and the nightmares he had about the drowning couple he’d condemned to slow, lingering, and terrifying deaths on nothing but a bruise on a face and a mistaken belief in their complicity in Oliver’s death.

He told Ben that Kate had been murdered by their ex-colleagues in the department and that by concealing her knowledge of his past, he’d made that cover up appear sinister and thus turned her into a threat to be eliminated.

He told Ben that he’d planned to disappear, because if they knew he’d lied about Kate, it cast suspicion upon his motives, and therefore a spotlight of doubt to shine upon Ben.

And then Nikolas confessed almost his last secret. He loved Ben enough to leave him, even though by leaving Ben, any life he had, as Nikolas Mikkelsen or otherwise, would effectively be over.

He loved Ben more than he loved himself.

Ben was the only person in his whole life who Nikolas would not sacrifice to the altar of his own survival.

§§§

Ben couldn’t see this as much of a
confession
—being told that he was the centre of someone’s universe and more important than life itself—but he gave Nikolas the benefit of the doubt that the circumstances were a little unusual.

They had always done things a little differently.

It was kind of their default setting.

He undid the handcuffs, but didn’t slacken his tight hold. He needed to be crushed by Nikolas, held so tight that remembrance of what he’d done would be squeezed out and dissipate.

He only relented when he heard a soft, “I can’t breathe, Benjamin,” from below and let his arms fall slack as he rolled onto his back. Nothing had evaporated. It was all still there—his painful lump of guilt.

Nikolas rubbed his beard thoughtfully as they moved to lie side by side on the bed. Ben needed to say something. He felt an overwhelming urge to bring words into the room to explain, soften, carry away his remorse, but none powerful enough came to mind.

Nikolas cleared his throat, seeming to test his voice after the stress of the last hour and said remarkably calmly, “I will never forgive you. You know that, yes?”

The shock of this after Nikolas’s intense confession along with his own shame made Ben’s pulse flutter. A flood of heat infused his face, which prevented him from replying before Nikolas carried on in the same even tone, “A whole study full of thought-provoking journals. Two new books on the First World War. But no, what does Ben Rider-Mikkelsen bring me to read? Three zombie books. Cannibalistic, reanimated dead people. No forgiveness is possible.”

Ben closed his eyes on a relief so overwhelming he thought tears might fall. He actually felt his jaw wobble and clenched it tight.

Nikolas chuckled against his ear, apparently watching the clampdown and whispered, “So it is just as well that no forgiveness is necessary,” and Ben knew he wasn’t talking about reading material any more, but what was fundamental and terrible between them. Nikolas took hold of his fingers, just playing idly with them, and he added in the same soft voice, “I am bound to you,
min skat
. Permission was given.” When he didn’t respond, Nikolas shifted position, levering up and lying on him. In the privacy of darkness, Ben felt lips brush his and opened his eyes to find a very familiar amber gaze fixed intently on him. “We are one body now, Ben. Permission could not be withdrawn.”