Bad Things (26 page)

Carson took a swig of whiskey, but it was like his throat had closed. He held it in his mouth, letting it burn his tongue.

“When Elena got you out of your restraints, why’d you stay?”

One of a dozen questions Carson had been asking himself over and over, his brain stuck in a maddening loop.

“If I was hurting you, if I was doing things you didn’t want while I had you tied up in my basement, why’d you hang around when you finally got the chance to get away?”

“
She was upset.”

“
That’s crap. You knew what you were risking. I could have as easily put you back in that basement as let you go, when I got home. But you stayed.”

A seething, ugly heat in his chest.

“Why did you tell me, ’yes,’ tonight?”

Even in his own mind, even drunk off his ass, another ’fuck you’ retort sounded idiotic. But he couldn’t come up with anything else to say.

“You wanted me to fuck you.”

Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.

“You wanted me to fuck you. And you damn well fucking enjoyed it when I fucked you. And I damn well fucking enjoyed fucking you, too. I’d like to fuck you again. But only if you get over being squicked about being gay or bi or whatever you are, and only if you can face me, and tell me you want it.”

“
You know why I said yes to you tonight? Why I let you fuck me?”

Xavier waited.

Carson let all his hurt and anger harden his voice, hoping it would poison Xavier, make him hurt as much and feel as sick as him. “Because I thought if I let you hurt me that horribly, it would feel better than living with my guilt about being blind to what Brian and Max were really doing.” He took a deep breath and seethed, “I let you fuck me because I hate myself for that.”

That fucking smirk. Carson had never wanted to hit someone so badly in his whole life. “You tell yourself that, if it makes you feel better.”

“Makes me feel better?” he practically screamed. “Letting you bend me over that table and use me, the way Max and his customers use those girls? You think that made me feel better? Treating myself like a worthless, disposable hole?”

Xavier stood and Carson flinched as if he was about to grab him, punch him, throw him down on the floor and mount him again. But he just stood there, looming over him.

“You know that isn’t true. Not true for me. And not true for you. You know, and I know, that saying yes to me tonight, that giving yourself to me today in the basement, was the first time you were ever brave enough to love yourself. The first time in your whole life you asked for the one thing you’ve always known you wanted. Always known you needed.”

Jesus fucking Christ, the man’s ego. Voice bumping and jolting over his frustration, Carson said, “Can’t you say it? Just once?”

“Say what?”

“
That you’re sorry.” He practically sobbed it.

There. Fucking finally. Xavier looked…maybe not sad, but at least not so damned smug.

“Do you want me to admit I hurt you? Yes. I know. I hurt you. I can even admit that maybe I lied to myself. Rationalizing that my cruelties were calculated to manipulate you, so I could use you to wreck Max’s operation. I think the truth is that part of me was desperate to hurt someone I could blame for what I saw in that video. So I blamed you. Hurt you.

“
But did you get hurt because we were both playing a dangerous game? The kind of game where we both knew we were risking getting hurt? Or did I snatch you out of your naïve existence—I’m sorry, I won’t say innocent existence—and commit an unforgivable transgression?

“
I can say I’m sorry. But if I have something to be truly sorry for, it’s something so terrible, it will be the whole definition of whatever this is,” Xavier said, gesturing between them. “Think it over. You can have an apology. And it will be sincere. Or we can have something. But not both.”

Xavier reached into his pocket. The gesture drove another spear of fear through Carson’s whiskey-muddled brain. But when Xavier put an SD card on the table, that fear sloshing around inside of him turned to confusion.

“The footage from the basement. Your evidence. Maybe it’s a pleasant idea for you, sending me to prison. The things that might happen to me, there. Depending on how you look at it, this gives you more power over me than a ball gag and a pair of restraints.”

Xavier went to the door.

“Tomorrow, when you’re sober, or the next day, when you’ve recovered from your hangover, if you decide I raped you in my basement, if you’re brave enough to go to the cops and have me arrested, I’ll confess everything I did to you.”

If Brian grinned at him like that one more time, Carson was going to puke right there in his office. Fucking Xavier. He’d thought maybe he’d been bluffing. Fucking with his head. But he’d really emailed those photos. He knew it, the second he came face to face with Brian. Saw it in his barf-inducing grin. And now Brian was sitting there mentally masturbating to those images, and all the other dirty ideas they’d put into his head.

“Well, seems like you underestimated yourself. You’re a natural born spy. Got the shit installed on his computer no problem. And, if I’m not mistaken, you two are bosom buddies, now.”

“
What makes you think that?”

Why was he playing that game? He sure as fuck didn’t want Brian to answer that question.

“He mentioned you in a couple emails. I got the impression the two of you were…”

Fucking asshole. He was torturing him on purpose.

“…hitting it off.”

“
It’s going fine.”

Brian frowned. What a fucking relief. Like someone had opened a window and aired out a room that stank of rotten eggs. But he knew he was fucking this up. If he was really going to go through with this insanity, he needed to swallow his fucking self-esteem, and play the game.

“I didn’t think it would be so easy,” Carson said, trying to get the anger out of his tone. “I don’t know if he doesn’t have any friends, or what. But he pretty much wants to hang out all the time.”

Brian laughed, his horrible smile gaping wide open again. “I fucking bet.”

“So, did you get anything useful off his computer?”

“
That’s our end of the job. You just worry about your end of the job.”

“
Yeah, sure. I don’t know how useful it is, me staying at his place. He never does anything other than work out, go to work at his tattoo shop, and come here.”

“
No one comes over?”

Elena had come over.

“No.”

“
Nobody?”

Fuck. Did they have cameras set up in his place? Or maybe they’d had somebody staked out, watching the house. Crazy, paranoid thoughts, but paranoia seemed perfectly fucking appropriate at this point.

“No. No one.”

“
Well, keep staying there. The closer the two of you get, the more careless he’ll be. Meanwhile, I have another errand for you to run.”

Brian went to the safe, carefully blocking the dial with his body while he worked the combination. He dropped a packet in Carson’s lap, then plopped back down in his chair and scrawled an address on a piece of paper.

“Guess Max likes you, kid. Probably appreciates the, uh, sacrifices you’re making to help us out.” That shitty, pervy grin again. “You don’t put this address in your phone. No GPS shit. Remember where it is, then burn this and flush it down the toilet. Capiece?”

Did he really just say capiece?

“Yeah. Got it.”

“
Anyone else gets their hands on this, you won’t be getting any more invitations to Max’s place. Only invitation you’ll be getting then, is to the coma ward at Cedars-Sinai.”

Was this seriously his fucking life, now?

“I got it. Fire. Flush.”

“
So get going.”

“
Now? What about my shift?”

“
You want to be a fucking bartender? Or you want to get rich working for some of the most important men in Los Angeles? I’m going to call Max and tell him you’re on your way. He’ll expect you within the hour.”

Carson got in his car and drove toward the freeway. But half a mile from the onramp he pulled into a strip mall parking lot. The package looked just like the others, but the envelope was a little heavier. Stuffed a little more full. The ends were sealed. It didn’t look like it would be possible to open it without ruining the envelope.

He felt the package. It didn’t feel like bricks of bills. He didn’t know what the hell it felt like. Maybe he should call Xavier.

The thought nauseated him.

If he opened it, if it was something important—like a hundred thousand dollars, for example—maybe that plus the address would be enough evidence so the police could do something. And he’d be out of this fucked up mess. But what if he opened it, and it was nothing important? What if they were testing him? Then he’d have ruined everything. Because he’d have to cut himself loose of Brain and Max before they…yeah, actually. They really might kill him.

Fuck, if he didn’t get back on the road soon, he’d be late. Max would wonder where he’d been. Somehow he got the feeling complaining about traffic wasn’t going to cut it with Max. So he’d be fucked, even if he hadn’t messed with the package.

What if this was the last chance? Brian was an idiot. But not Max. If Max asked him anything about Xavier, he’d probably see in two seconds that Carson hated the guy. Loathed him. Kept fantasizing about killing him. And that would make him suspicious. Because what reason would a man who was spying on another man have to hate his victim?

This was ridiculous. Completely insane. Carson heard a weird, fucked up laugh leak out of his lungs. Tearing open the envelope felt like playing Russian roulette. Pointing the gun right at his temple. At the temple of that screaming girl in the video.

Passports. Mostly blue, with gold Russian lettering, some with a line-drawn abstract symbol, others with a round image, like a coin or a seal.

Sickening elation. That was something. Something big. Real evidence. It had to be. Nineteen passports. Nineteen screaming, crying, begging women.

He opened one. A girl. Long blonde hair. Blue, slightly Asiatic eyes. Incredible cheekbones. Her date of birth made her fourteen. The next one was fifteen. Another was seventeen. The next one, twelve.

Twelve
.

Just in time he opened the door and vomited on the asphalt.

Suddenly he had the paranoid feeling he was being watched. He slammed the door and pulled onto the road, and flipped a U turn at the light. As soon as he was late, Max would do something. Maybe disappear. Maybe something much, much worse. His hands were shaking so spastically he could hardly get the hands-free set up. But fuck if he was going to fuck everything up getting pulled over for a cell phone violation.

Why the fuck wasn’t Xavier answering? Where was he supposed to go? Not home. Fuck that. Not Xavier’s either. Double fuck that.

He tried Xavier again.
Please. Please. Please
. With each ring, Carson’s hope shrank. He wouldn’t pick up. He didn’t realize anyone was calling. Or he was there, looking at the incoming call, and wouldn’t answer because he was fed up.

The horrifying image of Max coolly executing nineteen girls with a bullet to the back of the head to silence his accusers kept playing through his mind over and over.

His phone vibrated and Xavier’s name popped up on his screen.

“
Xavier?”

“
Carson.”

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

“I did something. You have to tell me what to do.”

“
What’s going on?”

“
Brian sent me on another errand. With a package. I opened it.”

In the back of his mind, under his terror, he was afraid Xavier was going to chastise him.

“What is it?”

“
Passports. Nineteen passports. All teenage girls.”