Saving Alexander (24 page)

This was the part that worried Melanie. Alex had certainly come a long way but Melanie was still concerned that if anything happened to affect his relationship with Sage, if the man decided he’d had enough, it would destroy Alex and put him back in a worse place than ever before.

“You sound as if you’re placing a lot of reliance in Sage, Alex.” Melanie’s voice was quiet as she tried to think how best to approach this. “I hate to be a party pooper but have you thought about what might happen if he ever used his safe word?”

Alex paled. “Of course I have.” He looked up at Melanie and the therapist could see the fear in his eyes. “I think about it all the time. I know what would happen if he did. I’d fall apart.” He smiled faintly. “I am so in love with the man. I never thought I’d be able to have this emotion in my life. I suppose I’m lucky to get this far. So I guess I’ll just have to hope he doesn’t go anywhere.” He looked at Melanie with a determined focus. “I was going to ask Sage if he wanted to move out of Dan’s and come stay with me. He spends so much time at my place anyway it makes sense. I was going to talk to him about it soon.”

Melanie nodded. “It sounds like that could work. As long as the two of you don’t get crowded working and living together.” Her tone was noncommittal but she wanted to make sure Alex knew what he was asking for.

Alex frowned. “I guess that’s true. I’ll mention it anyway. If he doesn’t want to, that will be fine. I’ll settle for whatever I can get from him."

“You’re allowed to have expectations, Alex.” Melanie looked at him carefully. “Just tell Sage how you feel and take it from there.” She didn’t want Alex believing he had to settle for anything less than what he wanted. He deserved much more. Alex’s progress in counselling was nothing short of miraculous.

Alex nodded, and there was a comfortable silence while Melanie updated her notes.

“I didn’t tell you before but I went to get tested.” Alex fidgeted and looked at his hands. “I wanted to stop using condoms and put Sage’s mind at rest. He never said anything but I knew it played on his mind.”

“And what was the result?” Melanie asked quietly.

“I’m fine, I’m all clean, which I knew anyway, but I needed to prove it to Sage. Not for him but for me. Sage insisted on having a test too, which was clear, but I knew that. He told me he was.”

“I’m really pleased for you, Alex. That’s excellent news. What about Eric? Have you told him you’re in love with Sage?” Melanie wasn’t sure why she thought this was a bad idea but she had an instinct it wasn’t the best thing to do. She’d been hearing about Alex and Eric for two years now and she thought she knew Eric as well as she could from afar. He sounded like a classic narcissist and that could be a problem.

“No. I won’t tell him that. He might guess but I can’t help that.” Alex shrugged.

Melanie smiled. “That’s pretty sensible, Alex. I’m really pleased things are good with Sage. That poor man has been exposed to more strange things since meeting you that I bet he’s ever seen in his life. But he sounds incredibly supportive.”

The session was soon over and Alex was on the tube on the way back to the studio. As he walked in he saw Sage standing talking to Luke. He waved and Alex smiled as he walked over. Sage leaned over and kissed Alex briefly, his hand brushing his cheek.

“Hey. Glad you decided to join us. Luke says the last scene shoots were incredible and he’s trying to threaten me with certain death if I don’t perform to the same standard today.”

“You’re always amazing, Sage.” Alex tousled Sage’s hair and the director groaned.

“God, Alex, don’t do that or he’ll have to go back and have it all fixed up. When will you two learn it’s time and money to keep redoing makeup and hair when the two of you just kiss it all off and spend your time touching each other?” His eyes twinkled as he regarded the couple out of the corner of his eye.

Sage flushed and Alex laughed. He turned as someone came up behind him.

“Mr. Montgomery? Someone left this for you at the front desk.” The young man handed Alex a brown envelope and he smiled his thanks as he took it.

“Sage, I’ll leave you and Luke to get on. I have some work to do myself.” Alex turned, going into his office, sitting down at the desk and picking up the letter opener to open the envelope. There were a number of newspaper clippings inside and he frowned as he picked them up. When he saw what they were, he dropped them onto the blotter as if they burning hot. He stood up and just made it to the bathroom outside before he was sick, vomiting into the toilet bowl with deep retches, bent over the bowl with eyes that streamed both from hot tears and the effort of being sick.

He heard a sound at the entrance and turned to see Sage standing there, his face anxious.

“Alex? What’s wrong? Here, take this.” He handed Alex a wad of tissue paper and Alex wiped his mouth, standing up unsteadily. He turned on the tap, running water over his face and drinking some to take the vile taste out of his mouth.

“What the hell happened?” Sage’s voice was quiet but firm.

Alex heaved a shuddering sigh, turning to face him. “It’s in my office,” he said weakly. “In the envelope I got.”

Sage turned tail and disappeared. Alex followed him into the room where Sage stood with the clippings in his hand.

He frowned as he came in. “These seem to be articles about some man called Evan Harding who went missing in 1999. What do they have to do with you?”

Alex looked at him, his eyes strained. “Look at the other clippings.”

Sage picked up the other ones on the desk and his face paled as he read them. “These are about a man called Evan who was found at some cult in Surrey in 2000.” His voice tailed off as he made the connection. “Is this about you, Alex?” His voice was flat.

Alex nodded. “My real name is Evan Harding. Alexander Montgomery is the name Cully’s team got for me when I was repatriated. I needed a new start. If I hadn’t changed my name the newspapers and the cult might have tried to find me and then it might all have started again. Cully thought it best.”

Sage was reading the articles, his face ashen. Alex imagined he was reading the sordid details of what had been done to him, the situation he’d been found in, the details the newspapers had been only to eager to print for their sensationalism. Alex waited for him to finish and for the inevitable questions that would come.

Sage finally laid them down quietly, looking at Alex. “It says here Rudy was killed in the shoot-out when Cully and his team surrounded the compound to get back the little boy they’d come for, Sammy Hinton. He’d been kidnapped from his home by his stepfather and brought to the cult. It says his real father organised his extraction. You were lucky he did.”

Alex nodded, his heart beating harder. “I saw them bring him in, this tiny six-year-old with the biggest eyes I’ve ever seen. He was petrified. Rudy was bragging about having another consort to train when he was a little older.” His voice caught and he swayed. Sage came over and held him, his eyes watchful. “About a month later they invaded the compound and rescued us all. You know what happened from there.”

“Well, I thought I did,” Sage said softly and Alex heard the edge in his voice. “But I had no idea that the man I love had another name. Is there anything else you’ve not told me?”

Alex swallowed, hoping that he wouldn’t be struck down by lightning at his next lie. “No. There’s nothing else you need to know. I don’t tell anyone about my real name. If it got out there’s no telling who might recognise me and come after me. It’s a remote possibility but I’d rather not force an issue.”

Sage scowled. “Well, firstly, I didn’t think I was just anyone and secondly someone obviously does know who you are—hence the clippings.”

Alex could tell his boyfriend was upset at the fact he hadn’t told him about this sooner

“Have you any idea who might have sent these?” Sage picked up the envelope, turning it over, trying to see where it had come from.

Alex shook his head. “I don’t know. I suppose someone might have recognised me from the TV and decided to remind me who I used to be. I’ve changed my looks but I can’t change my eye colour. In hindsight I should have worn contact lenses to hide my eyes.”

“There’s no postmark so someone must have dropped it off. Perhaps we can ask the desk to look at the CCTV footage.” Sage pulled out his mobile, speaking to someone quietly before cutting the call. “George will see if he can see anything on the footage. That might give us a clue as to who brought it in.”

“Do you think this is something to do with the person that hurt Dianne and hit Miles? Could it be the same person?”

Sage looked grim. “I don’t know. We need to tell the police about this. I don’t like it. What a bloody way to start a Monday morning.”

His face grew softer as Alex went even paler. “This is all getting a bit out of hand. We have to tell DS Doyle so I’ll give him a call and see if he can come over. Maybe they can do something with that.” He waved at the clippings as he disappeared out of the office.

* * *

Later that evening Sage sat in Dan’s apartment. DS Doyle had come to the film studio to take Alex’s statement and take the clippings away in the hope there might be fingerprints so he could trace the sender. The detective had told them that this case was outside his jurisdiction but that the Met was happy for him to take the lead for the short term. No one was particularly hopeful. There’d been nothing on the CCTV footage either that shed any light.

The DS had promised Sage he’d try and keep Alex’s identity a secret and not release any details about his past unless absolutely necessary and then only if he spoke to him first. He’d been very disturbed at the fact that the young man sitting in front of him called Alex Montgomery was actually Evan Harding, someone who had been the cause of a lot of newspaper and TV coverage all those years ago due his sensational rescue and horrifically abusive treatment.

Sage sat in front of his laptop with the words “Evan Harding+Bohemia” in the Google search box. He sat in indecision for a while as he deliberated whether to hit the search button. He’d been agonising over whether to do this search for days since finding out who Alex really was. Now his curiosity had finally gotten the better of him and with a determined gesture, he hit the button, sitting back as he waited for the results to be returned. He took a deep breath as he looked at the screen.

“Cult member finally released from living hell”

“Young man latest victim in self-professed ‘Prophet of Bohemia’s’ harem”

“Evan Harding found living with cult leader in Surrey”

“Young man found chained and sexually abused in basement. Cult leader shot and killed in rescue.”

“Too disturbing to publish in other newspapers—the pictures of young eighteen-year-old Evan Harding, recently rescued from cult in the South. Warning: these images are explicit and may offend sensitive viewers.”

He clicked on the articles, reading them one by one, growing paler at each entry. Finally he opened the last one and after seeing the awful images and article, Sage sat back, slamming down the lid to the laptop violently. His hands were shaking.

God, I should never have done this
.

He stood up, pacing around the lounge, staring out of the window into the Chelsea streets below. It was raining and the drizzle trickled down the windows, obscuring his vision and making the scenes outside fuzzy and distorted.

Dan came in behind him, two beers in hand. He passed one over to his friend. “Are you all right?” he asked quietly “You haven’t been yourself lately.”

Sage took the beer absently and opened it, taking a large gulp. “Not really. There’s a lot going on at the moment.”

“It’s Alex isn’t it? I’ve never seen you like this, Sage. That man has really gotten under your skin.”

Dan sat down, propping his socked feet up on the centre table. He observed his best friend closely. “You are
so
in love with him, aren’t you?” His face was serious.

Sage looked at him, his eyes hooded. “I do love him, Dan. A lot.”

Dan nodded his head. “I knew it. You’ve been mooning around like a puppy since you met this guy. I don’t know what it is about him, but there’s definitely something. I like him though. I think you’ve been really good for each other.”

Sage laughed harshly. “That’s putting it mildly. If you knew the full story about our ‘relationship’ you’d put me in a loony bin.”

“Then tell me. Share it. It’s driving you crazy having no one to talk to and share a secret. I know you, you’re a Sagittarius, curious as hell. I’m a Capricorn and we’re good at keeping secrets.”

Sage grinned despite how confused he was feeling. Dan’s proclivity towards managing his life with astrological signs was well known. It would be nice to talk to someone. He couldn’t talk to Miles about his relationship with Alex. He’d feel too sordid to do that. But Dan might understand and not judge. An hour later Dan was sitting in stunned silence as Sage finished his story and leant back in his chair with this third beer. He was feeling fairly mellow by this time and he knew sharing his burden had been a great idea.

Dan was still trying to get his head around it all. “So you have sex with Alex knowing he’s going to go out and have it off with another man at some stage? That he’s going to have this S-and-M episode and come back after being flogged and other stuff, and you’re okay with that? Jesus, that’s bloody harsh. How the hell do you do it?”

“With difficulty. But he’s worth it, he’s much better now than he was and he’s really trying to stop it altogether. When you see what he went through, it’s amazing he’s normal in any way at all. Alex is one of the toughest people I know.”

“You are definitely in love, my friend.” Dan swigged the dregs of his beer down and grimaced as he reached over to pick up another one. “It’s an incredible story. You must be a saint to do it. I couldn’t.” Dan peered at him. “What about all this malarkey at the studio, with Dianne and Miles and now Alex? What are you going to do about that? I thought it was all over but obviously not.”

Sage shrugged. “I can’t do anything. The police have all the facts. It’s up to them to find this sicko. I just hope it stays quiet, like it has been. We don’t need any more violent incidents.” He looked at Dan in apprehension. “You have to keep this all to yourself. You can’t tell anyone. I don’t want Alex compromised at all.”