Whiskey and Wry (Sinners Series) (12 page)

“He’s not gone to his parents’ house. I’d have heard about that. My stupid sister-in-law would be holding press conferences and shit.” There was a tapping coming across the line, either a finger or a pen striking a table. “Or to that piece of trash he used to run around with. As far as I know, he didn’t have anyone he was close to. Has he told anyone he’s Mitchell?”

“He hasn’t spoken to anyone about it as far as I can tell.” Parker sat his espresso down and smiled at the waitress, who’d returned with a fresh loaf of bread. Testing the crust, he sighed at its hardness. “How much did his doctor at Skywood tell you?”

“As far as they were concerned, his delusions were getting stronger.”

“So that means he was well on his way to recovering the bulk of his memories, then.” Returning to the espresso, Parker contemplated his next move. “I say we take a more aggressive stance. Perhaps something to flush him out.”

“What did you have in mind?” his employer grumbled through the line. “I was going to have you go to Los Angeles and see if that bitch who managed their group knows anything. She’s been a fucking tick on my side.”

“Something more direct,” Parker replied smoothly. “It’s time for Mitchell to lose someone he’s close to… someone he loves. That will drive him out into the open.”

“Well then….” The man’s oily voice smeared and crackled over the phone. “I know just the person you can kill.”

T
HE
storm remained over them, hanging black and heavy enough to block out the stars. Below him, Chinatown stretched out on either side, a sea of
han zi
and neon. The rain wasn’t enough to thwart the more serious eaters. Small throngs of older Asians flurried in front of a seafood restaurant tucked between a sandwich shop and a jewelry discounter that had been going out of business for as long as Sionn could remember. Their chatter came up through the window he’d cracked open, a sparkling pop of Cantonese punching through the rumble of passing cars. His stomach gnawed on itself for a moment, but it seemed satisfied by a gulp of coffee as he finished off his cup.

The window seemed like a good place to rest his eyes. Actually, anywhere was good to stare at. Just so long as it wasn’t at the man he’d let into his loft and seemingly into his life.

Sionn didn’t want to look behind him. Not at the man sleeping on his couch, a boneless and erotic sprawl dressed in a T-shirt and a pair of sweats he’d borrowed from Sionn’s clean-clothes hamper. Certainly not at the bay beyond, the water he could see on a clear day now shrouded behind a blanket of fog.

The raindrops on his windows turned the streetlights into a
bokeh
fringe around the edges of the glass, and Sionn followed a heavy drape of water as it flowed down to the sash. There was too much to think about, and his stomach was sour from the gallon of coffee he’d drunk. Still, he poured himself another cup and went to stare out at a city halfway around the world from where he’d been born.

“You’re a fecking git, Murphy,” Sionn grumbled to himself. He’d forgotten to reboot the machine so the coffee was cold, but he took a drink anyway, needing what little jolt the brew could give him to keep him awake. “What’s going to happen when he goes back to being who he is? Where will you be then?”

No, he’d just get Damien back to his life and then walk away.

“
Stop
….”

Damien’s whisper was a ping of steel amid the slush of rainfall. Sionn stilled himself, holding his breath, unsure if he’d actually heard the man say anything, but in between the pock-pock sound of rain on window glass, Damien’s strident cries grew louder.

“Please, Dad… I didn’t….”

The rough-silken voice—Damie’s voice—Sionn heard in his dreams broke, shattering into whimpering cries. Somewhere between the window and the couch, he lost his coffee cup, either on the sill or fractured into pieces on the floor. Either way, Sionn wouldn’t mourn its loss. He couldn’t compete with the tragic devastation spooling through Damien’s exhausted mind.

Gripping Damien’s shoulder, he was shocked to feel how cold the man’s skin was beneath his shirt. Damien fought him, flailing out with uncoordinated limbs and loose fists. A stray elbow caught Sionn on the temple, and he blinked away the bursts of light dancing across his eyes as he pulled Damien into his arms.

“No, fucking… God, just let me fucking… go,” Damien whimpered. “God, please… stop hurting me…
please
.”

The fight became serious. Damien’s eyes were open, drowned in black and fear. Another hail of fists threatened Sionn’s face and shoulders. Then the man’s knee came up, striking between Sionn’s spread legs. Yelping, Sionn swallowed the nausea roiling from his clenched belly, grateful Damien caught only a glancing blow to his groin.

He shifted, straddling Damien’s thrashing legs. Sionn pulled the man by his upper arms and cradled Damien to his chest, taking the blows to his back. The slender man was stronger than he looked. He fought with a fury Sionn could only imagine. Even in the deepest recesses of his hatred following the Vienna disaster, Sionn’s rage lurked over him on black wings, more a symbol of his failures than anything else.

Damien’s anger… his fear… possessed him. A demon lived inside of the man. Something horrific called up by blood and pain to eat away at Damien’s already fractured mind. From the sound of Damien’s softened screams, it was a ravenous beast, tearing apart his insides only to vomit them back up so it could feast on them again.

Sionn took Damien’s face into his hands and stared down the phantoms lurking in the other’s gaze. “You’ve got me here with you now,
a rún
. I’ll help you get through this.”

It seemed like a tiny promise, but something shifted between them. Sionn could see it in the change in Damien’s expression. Whether he was exhausted from fighting or his nightmares had reached their saturation point, Damien stretched out his hand, touched Sionn’s shoulder, and skimmed down over the curve of his arm. Squeezing lightly, he nodded once, then bit his lip hard, nearly to the point of drawing blood.

And Sionn’s heart shattered as Damien finally gave in to the pressures built up inside of him.

The tears began, a soft wave of pain at first, then a churning tide of anguish as Damien’s walls broke open. Sionn caught the man up in his arms and laid him back on the sectional, searching to anchor Damien against something solid. He fought the embrace, a scared raptor beating its broken wings against its savior. Damien’s fists found their mark, scoring against Sionn’s cheek, then the curve of his lip. One of Damien’s punches to his mouth began to throb, and Sionn felt his lip beginning to swell, but he held on, all the while murmuring into Damien’s ear and rubbing his back.

It was something Sionn knew he shouldn’t have done. Touching Damien in any way was dangerous. The man set his skin to a crackle, and every ounce of his common sense was screaming in protest at the man lying in his arms. His heart, however, took over, and the man breaking apart in front of him needed comfort.

It was going to have to be enough, even though Sionn’s soul whimpered a bit at the thought of letting Damien go.

Their legs were tangled together, and Sionn’s body responded to the touch of Damien’s thigh on his cock, and it hardened, filling with its arousal. The rough denim on his dick’s velvety head was nearly too much to take, and the sweet, slightly ripe scent of Damien in his nose wasn’t helping matters.

They lay there in Chinatown’s flickering lights for God knew how long; then the storm outside hit with its full fury. Something nearby popped, a crackling sizzle ripping through the wind, and the loft went still, plunging them into a shadowy black. Sionn couldn’t tell how much time had passed since he’d wrapped himself around Damien’s slender body, but it was never going to be enough. He was almost convinced the other man had fallen asleep, every last bit of him wrung dry from his jag, but Damien shuddered, then rested his head against the crook of Sionn’s neck.

He was soon grateful for the shadows, because it seemed the dark was a safe place for Damien to talk.

“Tell me what you saw, boyo.” Sionn stroked Damie’s nape. The man’s heart beat so hard Sionn could feel his pulse rock the skin under Sionn’s fingers. “I’m here, love.”

“My father…. I can’t see his face, but I can
feel
how much he hated me. How they both hated me. I don’t know why my parents had me.” His whisper was nearly too soft to hear over the rain, so Sionn bent his head closer, tucking Damien against him. “And it’s not just me. They hated
each other
. Everything I remember about them is fucked up. I couldn’t wait to get out of there. I couldn’t wait to spend one fucking day without being hit or screamed at. Why the fuck can’t I see their
faces
? Shouldn’t I be able to
see
them?”

“What do you remember, D?” Sionn tightened his hold, unwilling to let the man go. “About your parents?”

“Maybe a bit more than before. I think. They have money. The house… it’s huge, and everything inside is so damned cold.” Damien trapped a sob in his throat. “I don’t understand why… nothing I remember about them is good. Everything’s wrapped up in some kind of pain or… hurt inside. Like nothing was good enough.
I
wasn’t good enough. Even before… he thought I was gay… am gay. Fuck, my head is pounding.”

“Take a deep breath. It’ll be okay, Damie boy.” Hearing his name on Sionn’s lips seemed to calm Damien down a bit, and he relaxed slightly in Sionn’s arms. “You don’t have to go back there.”

“They’re my damned parents.” The anger was back in Damien’s voice, crackling over his anguish. “They’re not supposed to try to hurt you, right? That’s just fucked in the head, but it’s like I can’t stop thinking…. I could have been better… done better. Then finally I just didn’t… care anymore.”

“Just because someone feeds you, doesn’t mean that they can hurt you. Parents are supposed to raise their children, not destroy them.”

“People don’t fucking
hear
that. I remember telling people. Or trying to.” His ire was visceral and intense. The rage he’d hidden behind a wall of forgetfulness was pouring out, too strong of a flow to be stopped. “I couldn’t take it anymore. I got tired of being sore all the time. That’s what Skywood felt like. Like I was a kid again, and I couldn’t figure it out, but now… I get it. ’Cause there was no one to stop those guys up there from beating the shit out of me. Not because I did anything wrong but because they could. Assholes. Just like my damned parents.”

“Then I’m glad it burnt to the ground or I would have done it myself.” That earned Sionn a wee chuckle. “Promise you that, D. That place went back to its hell.”

“Being in that place… in Skywood… I didn’t have any control. Over anything. I’d promised myself I’d never let anyone do that to me again, and there I was… trapped under someone’s thumb again.”

“Do you think they are the ones who put you in there?” It was a possibility, one Sionn pondered in his contemplation of the rain. “Your parents, I mean. Someone got you from your dying to the mountains. We’ll have to figure out who that was.”

A weighted silence stretched time out until Damien finally spoke. “I don’t know. I think… they’d have enough money to, but why? None of this makes sense.”

“How was it with you and them before the accident?”

“Shit, I haven’t seen them in… I don’t know. I think after I left, I closed the door on that crap and never looked back.” Damien’s face shifted, and he grimaced uncomfortably. “Dude, I’m sorry… can you let me go? I’ve got to go pee and maybe just go drown in the sink or something.”

“Okay, sure. Once again, a man’s bladder ruins the moment.” Sionn let him go. “Don’t drown, though. Maybe when you come back, we can get some food in you instead.”

Reluctantly, Damien pulled free and hobbled to the back of the loft. Sionn waited until he heard the bathroom door close, picked up his phone, and dialed a number he’d have to be dead to forget. It rang twice before it was answered by a gravelly voice with an accent steeped deeper in Irish than Sionn’s own.

“Hello, Uncle. It’s Sionn.” After taking a deep breath, he answered the querulous grumble. “No… no, everything’s all right. No, no bail money or anything. Look, I know it’s late and I’m sorry, but… can I bring someone over tomorrow? I think he needs your help.”

Chapter 7

Make mine a double,

And keep them coming, baby girl

Leave out the ice,

And drop off the bottle too

I’m drinking to forget

I’ll drink ’til I bleed

Tonight’s going to be long

That bottle’s all I need

—
Double Shot Dance

D
AMIEN
woke up alone on Sionn’s sectional, a blanket tucked around his legs and waist. A few feet away, Sionn snored softly on the other side of the L, one beefy arm flung over his eyes to block out the thin sunshine coming through the loft’s windows. Coughing lightly, Damie rubbed at his neck, working at the kink in his nape. His throat felt raw from the hours he’d spent talking, and again the press of his tiny bladder forced him to slide off the couch to the bathroom.