TAKING OVER TROFIM (Dominion of Brothers series Book 4) (31 page)

“What happened to the Mercedes?”

“You forgot to send me some money. I had to make my loan payments. The bank is funny like that. Oh yes, and there is this need for food.”

“Don’t mouth off at me, boy. That was a fifty thousand dollar car, and you just up and pawned it off to some Italian Jew?”

“He was Jewish?
Hmm
, must have missed that part. I thought maybe he was Roman Catholic. Or perhaps just your typical run of the mill New Yorker.”

Ben stopped eating and glared at him. “You think that’s funny? Tossing a good car away for peanuts.”

“That car was ten years old, depreciation had long since set in. It was best to offload it while it still had some value. Besides you didn’t buy it. I did.”

“And what of your phone? You pawn it too? I’ve been trying to call you for three weeks now.”

“What about?”

“Got a call from Merle Londonaire, he says Sarah called and was very upset. I gathered it was your fault.” Shay’s father narrowed his eyes at Shay suspiciously, “You have anything to say about that?”

“Why, what’d he say?” Shay kept his eyes down, pretending he was still interested in the meatloaf on his plate.
Had she said she caught him and Trofim together, his father wouldn’t be fishing like this. He’d be bellowing outrage and throwing fists at him. However Sarah must have said something
.

“Only that she was upset, but wouldn’t talk about it. He just figured it was a matter of your premarital rules. Of course I’m not as foolish as Merle is. No young man turns away free pussy.”

Shay sucked in a deep breath and let it go, “I broke off the engagement.” Shay practically spit the words out before he lost his bravado.

Ben tossed his fork down on his plate and looked at him with a hard glare. He dropped his elbow down on the table like it was the hammer of Thor. “Care to explain that one.”

Shay chewed on the inside of his cheek, grasping for any last resolve. He knew coming up here, this wasn’t going to be some pleasure cruise carnival.

“Trofim and I are back together and I didn’t see any point in playing fiancé to a woman I don’t love.” There. He’d said it and somehow it was freeing. He didn’t care that his father wouldn’t approve. It was merely about coming out and not letting the man shove him back in.

“Oh, you can’t be serious?” Eloise gawked at him.

Shay grinned “I am very serious.”

“Eloise, get out.” Benjamin gritted his teeth together, holding back the rest of what was to come with a dam of will that was sure to burst anyway.

“I want to hear the rest of this.” She protected.

“I said, get out!”

Eloise reluctantly got up from the table and left them alone. Benjamin also rose from his seat. He crossed to the bar and poured a scotch, downed it, and immediately refilled his glass. He turned glaring at Shay and took another swig of his drink. “I’ll talk to Merle in the morning. I’ll get everything worked out.”

“Don’t bother. I told you I’m not marrying her. I’m with Trofim.”

“No son of mine is going to marry a man!”

“According to the state of New York, I can.” Shay held his calm and kept his tongue somewhat in check. He’d already lit the match, but didn’t want to douse it with gasoline right away.

Ben downed the last of his second glass and turned, grabbing up the bottle, “Damn faggot loving politicians are ruining this country, I tell you! Ruining it!”

“And may it continue. Maybe a better country will rise up from its ashes.”

Benjamin spun jabbing his finger out at him, “You watch your mouth, boy. This country will be on its ear if we keep letting the sissy boys and the tree huggers and Muslim lovers run it.

“I’m a sissy boy.” Shay answered flatly, harboring no shame for what he was.

“NEVER say that again! You hear me! Never again. No son of mine is a sissy boy. No son of mine will ever be known as a faggot!” Ben flipped his glass up, finding it empty and quickly turned back to the bar to remedy it, then downed the whole thing in one long gulp. Dumping yet a third shot of fire water into his belly.

“You mean you don’t want to be known as the faggot’s father. Fine, then publicly disown me. But gay, I am staying.” Shay turned and headed out.

“Don’t you walk away from me!” His father called out after him, but Shay didn’t bother to stop or answer. He was done here. Time to go, but he no sooner had the door open he found his car blocked. It wasn’t just his father’s car that sat behind his. But the same white Escalade his two goons had been in the other day when they paid him a visit at the hospital. The vehicle’s interior goon accessories glanced at him and one even gave him a wave to mock him before flicking his cigarette out on the lawn.

Shay sucked in a deep breath, not wanting to go back in, but what other choice did he have until his father ordered the dogs to stand down?

He closed the door and went back to the den where his father stood waiting at the bar. A hard expression like he had the upper hand then turned to grab the scotch bottle.

Shay swallowed hard watching as his father refilled his glass. His father could handle his drink, but if he downed any more at the rate he was going, this night was going to be a lot uglier than Shay prepared for. “Tell your guys to take a walk. I need to head back for the city. I have to work tonight.”

“We’re not done here.” Benjamin sneered and began to pace, ranting as he did so. “I worked my ass off as Senator to keep this state and our country in a higher morality.”

The ranting went on to how
he
, Benjamin Wilks, had gone to such great lengths to protect Shay from the scourge of immoral brandishing had he been falsely accused of being a lowlife homosexual. How his father had even donated money to the hospital, despite its advanced HIV center, so that his son would receive favoritism.

“It all started at that damn special boy’s academy your mother sent you to. I told her before, you put boys with nothing but more boys and somebody is going to go monkey ass on them. It’s just an open invitation for a faggot to come and start playing with them.”

Shay just shook his head. Hell, he didn’t even know what to say on this. It was an all new twist on his father’s ranting. Especially since Shay recalled his father having once praised the academy before. It kept boys out of trouble, raised good morals, and prevented them from knocking girls up, and finding themselves fathers before they had a chance to make something of themselves. For Shay, it had put him two years ahead in his schooling. By the time he graduated from high school he already had nearly two years of college credits under his belt.

Shay decided he could use a drink himself and went over to the bar to pour one. He knew all too well that once his father was on his soap box he could be there for a long time.

“Then you went to college.” Ben snatched the bottle from Shay’s hands and filled his own glass then went back to his habitual pacing as he carried on, “I know what those frat boys do. Making you suck their dicks as part of their hazing ritual just to get in. Next thing you know they just wanna fuck each other rather than go out and actually find a girl.” He downed his glass once more but kept up his ranting. “I know what it is, it was that damned rowing team.” Ben stopped to point at Shay. “All those scullers are fags now. But just because you were on the team didn’t mean you had to go rooting for the other side.”

“I was already on the other side.” Shay muttered and downed the small amount of alcohol he’d managed into his glass before his father had confiscated the bottle.

“What was that?” His father turned on him.

Shay dropped his glass to the bar contemplating if he should have another himself, but decided against it. One drunk Wilks in the house was enough.

“Should have put you in a different sport. Like football or wrestling, even soccer would have been a better sport. Designed to turn boys into men. You won’t ever find any fags playing any of those types of sports that’s for sure.”

“Well, I don’t know, dad, you might be right. Wrestling does sound kind of interesting. Wrestling another guy down while pressing my cock against his ass, it sounds like some of the best foreplay for ass fucking to me.”

Shay should have known better to raise his father’s temper, but the flash of white that blinded him along with the pain that struck his face in the shape of his father’s fist came faster than he was capable of blocking.

Shay went stumbling back, his legs catching on one of the dining room chairs, and down he went, cracking his head on the marble floor.

His father’s thick body eclipsed the room as he hovered over Shay, shaking his fist at him. Shay could only see a blur of the man’s hand. He blinked hard several times to clear his vision.

“Don’t you ever talk to me like that, boy. Never again! Your affair with that faggot rower is over! You hear me? Over!”

“It’s not over.” Shay fought to clear his head to argue back but he stayed on the floor, no sense in going down twice in the same argument. Boxing was a sport he’d never got any good at.

“Oh yes it is or you’ll never see another damn penny of your mother’s money. Try paying off your college debts without it.”

“I don’t need it anymore, why do you think I came here? You go ahead and keep the money, it’s my parting gift to you. Because I’m keeping Trofim!”

His father straightened and turned away, “Get out of my house!” A second later a glass was heard shattering across the room and he stormed out.

“Well that went better than expected.” Shay mumbled to himself, his fingers touching lightly to the spot on his cheek bone were his father’s ring had caught him. He pushed up from the floor and padded down the hall, and ducked into the bathroom quickly to access the red knot on his face. It didn’t look too bad this time.
Still hurt like hell. Damn, that fuckin ox had a fist on him
. Shay leaned in noticing an indentation in the skin from his father’s college ring, in the shape of an overlapping Capital U with a Capital A.
University at Albany
.

He glanced at himself in the mirror a moment. He’d endured so much over the course of his life and worse still in just the last few years. But coming out felt good. It was empowering, knowing he’d never have to return to this house ever again. The punch was a small price to pay for happiness. But his payments were complete and I was time to go join his husband to be.

He glanced at his phone a moment. It was almost out of battery life, but enough to make one more call to Trofim right then and there. The call went straight to voice mail, but then Trofim had said he was more likely to be rowing. “Hey babe, just called to say I am on my way home.” He sighed contently, so complete and happy. “I can’t wait to hold you. God, I love you. Hope you had a good row out there. See you in a few.”

Shay dropped the phone in his pocket and headed out, walking straight into his father’s fist just outside his bathroom door.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

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Trofim headed out to the end of the dock, pushing the cradle with the single rowing shell. He’d come by earlier only to find all the boats out already with one team practicing and a new youth team using up the singles. He practiced on one of the rowing machines for a bit then left to get some dinner before coming back for a chance to go out and get some water time in. It was getting close to evening, Shay would likely be eating or arguing with his father right about now and that was enough to send Trofim’s nerves into a tumbling storm of weeds, so some hard core rowing would be good for him right now.

A few men from the other teams that also used the boathouse were just finishing putting their shells away. Trofim pulled out one of the pelican gear cases from the lock up cage and carried it out on the dock. Inside was a mariner’s light kit, specially designed for the sculls, to keep the rowers safe when one of them was being foolish enough to row at night. But night traffic was rare at this hour, in this neck of the river, and the solitude of it was well worth the small risk. Two white beacons attached to the shell. One for the bow tip, the other on the stern. Then a T shaped post mounted just behind his seat with a green light on one end and a red on the other. The attachment clipped in just right so that another boater could distinguish the scull’s port and starboard position but out of the way of the rower’s arms or oar sticks. The light kits weren’t a cheap item to have, but thanks went to Darko’s boyfriend, who’d sponsored two of the kits for the team just for those odd late night practice runs.

Trofim finished setting up his shell, but paused glancing over his shoulder up at the boathouse. He felt like his skin was crawling. Like something was terribly wrong. “Shit— shit— shit—” he chewed at his lip a moment. Then sucked in a deep breath, “You’re just being nervous because you know they’ll fight, but Shay will be home later. And it will all be over.”

Trofim stepped into his shell and shoved off the dock.  Upstairs in locker number 74, Trofim’s phone rang where he never heard it.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

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Shay felt every bump and slam of the stairs on his body as he went crashing down them in a head over heel tumble, but none gripped him with as much pain as the very last hit, when he landed with the full weight of his body on the concrete platform at the bottom of the stairs.

The hard concrete landing caught him in a kidney rib punch, and Shay wondered if the rough edge had chewed through his shirt just enough to scrape skin.

He blinked and tried to clear his vision but it was of little use. It was pitch black down in the basement, once the door above him was slammed shut. The only light was a sliver that seeped from under the door at the top of the stairs. He shifted painfully to dislodge the concrete step from his back, but not enough to sit up just yet. There didn’t seem to be any rush on it either. He was well aware of where he was and knew the only way out was for his father to come release him.