Outcome (Aftermath #2) (7 page)

Scream at me, kick me, make me feel it.

All he had to do was push Chase's buttons…

But before he could even come up with a plan on how to enrage Chase to the point where he exploded, Chase pushed his chair back and left the cabin with Andy's forgotten smokes.

Chapter 9

Chase hadn't given the cigarettes a single thought when he'd stormed out of the cabin to cool off. Yet, they were in his hand. The lighter, too.

Standing near his bike, his hand shook as he lit a smoke and took a deep pull from it.
Too much
. Fuck, he almost choked. Instead, he coughed into a fist and screwed his eyes shut. They were fucking menthols,
and
it had been over a year since he'd smoked his last cigarette.

That’s how much that motherfucker pissed me off.

Chase was torn between ripping Remy a new one and just feeling sorry for him. It was hysterical—this whole situation. Chase wanted answers to his questions, but that was about it. He wasn’t here to make friends or explain why he didn’t blame Remy anymore. He sure as fuck wasn’t gonna coddle the little shit.

In the same breath, Chase also understood him, and he did have sympathy for Remy.

The guilt? It was there. Everywhere. It had been one of the first things Chase had seen. Remy was hanging on by a thread.

Looking down at the smoke between his fingers, Chase mulled over the latest events that had turned his life upside down, which wasn’t easy. Too much had happened in the last twenty-four hours, and being so used to having nothing happening at all, Chase couldn’t think straight. He didn’t even know what he was feeling. Each emotion was too fleeting. Nothing stuck, except for the question he couldn’t stop asking himself.

What the hell am I doing?

He took another pull from the smoke, this one smaller, and he chuckled humorlessly to himself. Didn’t work. He wanted that sweet fill any addiction gave when indulged, but it wasn’t there. All he tasted was charcoal, and every intake of air felt like ice.

Fucking menthol.

Chase dropped the smoke on the ground, stubbed it out with the toe of his boot, then trudged back inside.

The view that greeted him inside the cabin was both amusing and goddamn sad. Remy's head snapped up, his eyes wide—
caught ya, bastard
—and he was frozen in place, mid-tug. The little prick had been pulling at his restraint, and it was surprisingly easy to ignore the déjà vu-like moment.

A little over three years ago, Chase had been struggling fruitlessly against his own cuffs, although he hadn't been cuffed at the foot.

His ankle is red
.

"Stop that shit." Chase knew he sounded irritated, indicating that maybe he wasn’t so unaffected by the sight, after all.

"I thought you were leaving." Remy sat back on the bed, pulling up his knee.

Chase ignored that and returned to his seat, where his helmet and bag still were. Like he'd leave without that? Kid must be dense. "You asked me before why I'm here." He assessed Remy, annoyed by the fact that he was only wearing those basketball shorts. "I, uh…I have questions. About the investigation." He averted his eyes to the table and traced marks in the wood with the lighter, much like he'd done earlier.

Would it be so hard to put on a damn shirt? Or at least cover the barbells in his nipples. Chase didn’t wanna admit that he found Remy's body art sexy.

There were a lot of things he didn’t wanna admit to where Remy was concerned.

"I know as much as you do." Remy shifted and sat cross-legged instead but folded his arms across his ribcage. "Actually, you should know more. I only know what was in the papers. Sort of."

Sort of
. "Let's visit 'sort of,' then," Chase drawled. "We never learned why Ben kidnapped us."

That seemed to hit a nerve with Remy. "Because he was a sick fuck?" He glared. "Are you looking for a damn interview with me? Huh? You wanna learn the ins and outs of the Stahls?"

Chase shrugged. "Sure. Call it whatever the hell you want." He wanted his answers, and he had no doubt Remy was gonna give them to him. The kid had been obnoxious at best, but he could see through that bullshit façade without trouble. When push came to shove, Remy was scared. Any amount of cockiness… Well, Chase didn’t understand it, but it didn’t faze him, either.

Maybe Remy wanted to pretend he had big balls.

With an internal chuckle, Chase recalled Minna telling him that Remy lived mostly in LA now, and Chase hoped he wasn’t there to become an actor. The kid would suck at it.

"Too bad I'm not in the mood." Remy stared at him defiantly. "You could always track down Fred and Clarissa. They live in Milwaukee now." That would be Remy's other half brother and stepmother. Ben's mother. Chase knew they'd left the state. They'd taken Bill Stahl, the demented patriarch of the family, with them. "Maybe they can help."

Chase furrowed his brows, confused by Remy's behavior. "You never hesitated to share your family drama in one of those letters. Now you're saying you're over it?"

"Maybe." Remy scratched his eyebrow, the one that had another barbell through it. "Whatever. Go chase your Lifetime script somewhere else, dude."

What the fuck?

What was he pushing for? Remy had been a basket case in the letters—not to mention extremely apologetic and shameful—and now he was mouthing off like a fucking douchebag? It made no sense.

"Are you comparing my time in captivity to a Lifetime movie?" Chase asked in an eerily calm tone.

There was no way Remy could hide the way his face turned ashen, but he did try. Instead of looking stricken, like he'd done last time he put his foot in his mouth, he shot Chase a quick, dismissive smirk and looked out the window.

Chase had been thrown for a loop, and he actually looked over his shoulder to see if anyone else was here. Someone who deserved to be mocked. But no…of course it was only Chase and Remy here.

"So…I think I'm gonna go to bed." Remy faked a yawn and grabbed a bundle of linens off the nightstand. Chase narrowed his eyes on the ink adorning Remy's ribcage and wondered why the hell he had a Joshua tree tattooed there. The view was gone the second Remy fanned out the sheet to use as a blanket. There already was a sheet covering the mattress, but it was too hot out here for blankets and covers.

Chase shook his head quickly, dazed. "Are…"
Are you serious? You're brushing me off, you little pissant? And what's with the goddamn tree?
Chase was unfairly possessive of that tree, and it was infuriating to see an image of one on Remy's pale torso. Remy's behavior didn’t make shit better.

Chase had to be missing something. Was all that crap in the letters an act?

"Are, what?" Remy was on his back now, the white sheet covering his body up to his collarbone. One knee up, tenting the fabric. One cuffed foot dangling over the edge of the bed. His arm, slim but tightly muscled, folded under his head.

Chase's eyes followed Remy's bicep, the ink there, passing the dark patch of hair under his armpit. There wasn’t much of it; was it soft or coarse?
Then he stopped at Remy's face. He was a young man of so many contrasts, and Chase loathed the attraction he felt. Once again, it reminded him of the last time he'd caved.

He knew all his contempt was visible in his glare, but it only seemed to amuse Remy.

Was it real, though? Was Remy having fun with this? Did he think this was some kinda joke? The way Remy worried his lip ring with his teeth and tapped his foot rapidly against the bed frame suggested otherwise. It reminded him of a nervous tick, but Chase didn’t know this guy.

"Are you a mute now?" Remy grinned.

The tapping of his foot increased.

Chase tilted his head, studying the kid. It would be incredibly easy to shut Remy up with a threat, but Chase had already warned him once. It would seem empty if nothing came of it. Next time Chase threatened Remy, it would be the last chance before he resorted to violence.

I'm not a saint.

He wasn’t stupid, either. Something was up.

"I thought you were gonna sleep." Chase decided right then and there not to let Remy get to him.

*

Obviously Remy wasn’t falling asleep. Silence overtook the small cabin, but the tension didn’t lift.

Keeping his eyes closed, he tried to summon the courage to carry out the plan that had formed in his head, but he wasn’t there yet.

Come on, you coward.

He let out a breath as he heard Chase rummaging around in the fridge. A moment later, a soda can was opened with a pop and a fizz, and the chair creaked as the bad-boy biker sat down again.

A bead of sweat trickled down Remy's temple. His hand shaking, he slowly moved it down his body.

"I want to get off." It was a damn struggle to get the words out. "You d-don’t mind, do you?"

The soda can—or something else—thumped down on the table, but that was the only sound. Chase said nothing.

Remy swallowed against the dryness in his throat. Torn between hysteria and despair. He was close to his breaking point, but he needed Chase to do the breaking.

"You're hot as fuck," Remy went on, a slight rasp in his voice. His cheeks heated up with the humiliation he was putting himself through. "If it's all right, I'll picture you sucking me off." He grasped his cock underneath the fabric of his shorts, but there was no way he'd get hard. He was too close to having a full-blown panic attack. "Or you fucking my mouth? Shit. I'd love that."

Still no response.

It was now or never, so Remy sucked in a breath and opened his eyes. He forced himself to sit up and lean back against the wall, facing Chase dead-on.

Chase was…murderous, no doubt. There was barely any blue left in his eyes, taken over by dark fury. Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his knees and clenched and unclenched his jaw. A heavy sigh.

Remy saw a flicker of pity.

It was the last fucking thing he wanted to see.

Where was the violence? Where were the fists? Why was he still breathing? Instead he sat there on the bed like the world's biggest failure and jacked his soft dick under the sheet that pooled around his middle.

"Come on, Chase." Remy plastered a grin on his face, his throat closing up and the edges of his vision blurring. "You want a blow job?"

To Remy's surprise, Chase didn’t grow angrier. If anything, dim light swept over the darkness in his eyes. More pity, or whatever it was. Replacing the rage Remy was counting on.

Chase shook his head slowly. "What happened to you, Remy?"

"Oh, fuck you." Remy bit off a choked-up laugh. He wasn’t going to last much longer. "I'm disappointed." Unable to go on, his hand fell to his side. "You're supposed to…" He couldn’t look Chase in the eye anymore. "I don’t know, beat the shit out of me? Don’t tell me it's not tempting." With a small tilt of his head, he saw Chase's frown in his periphery. "I'm right here, the little fag who had you kidnapped—"

"Ben kidnapped me," Chase corrected impatiently.

If that’s how it's gonna be
. Remy only had one more card to play, and he smiled as a traitorous tear rolled down his cheek. "But I funded him. If it wasn’t for my money, he wouldn’t have been able to afford it." Nausea grew like a cancer in his gut as he watched all the color drain from Chase's face. "Yeah, I bet that changes everything." He wondered morbidly which bones Chase was going to break. His nose? Ribs? Arms, legs? "See, I was so caught up in my little fantasy. I wanted Ben and Fred to include me in the family, so I did everything they asked. Fred wanted me to pick up his car and have it cleaned? I was there. Ben wanted money? I gave it to him."

*

For one second, Chase had feared the worst—that Remy had actually been involved in the kidnapping. But then as the kid had continued his sudden verbal vomit, Chase understood it wasn’t like that at all. Like the scratching sound of a record coming to an abrupt stop, time slowed or maybe even restarted, and everything became clear.

Remy was trembling, sick with the guilt he carried. Chase saw it.

Averting his eyes to the floor, Chase tuned Remy out and tried to come to grips with what he'd heard, but it was close to impossible. Too many what-ifs that could make any man lose his mind. What if Remy hadn't given a shit about Ben? What if he hadn't done everything in his power to earn the approval from the other Stahls? What if Remy hadn't been fucking loaded?

What if Ben hadn't been insane?

"It—" That came out too raspy, so Chase cleared his throat and tried again, but he kept his gaze downcast. "It still wasn’t your fault." The words tasted like acid, regardless of how true they were.

He found himself in a downward spiral, the emotions rolling around inside him making him dizzy. Anger came at him from every direction. Injustice was everywhere, and it never did anyone any good to get stuck in that bottomless pit, but it was hard to stop. With the maniac that was Ben Stahl dead and turned into charcoal, there was no one to attack. Instead the fury grew and grew, and it wasn’t enough to just say,
"I'm angry at the whole situation."

Chase didn’t know what to do with all his rage.

"Say that one more time and I'll…" Remy's voice, devoid of any emotion, trailed off into nothing.

"You'll what?" Chase lifted his gaze, his head feeling heavier than ever. "I'm just telling you how it is. You wanted his approval, so you gave him money." Even to his own ears, it sounded hollow. He felt the goddamn truth, but he needed to process it before he could stand by his statement fully. And that…that wasn’t right, either. He
did
stand by his words, yet…