Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 79870 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79870 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
I fidgeted, worried that what I was about to say would make things worse. But really, it couldn’t get much worse, or so I thought.
“I want to call off this bullshit with Vanessa. I never should have gone along with any part of it. It’s dishonest. Jamie and I can be media darlings together. Times are changing. After the initial shock, I think people would be fine with it.”
“The change is superficial. People are still not ready to accept gay male athletes. Did you see what happened to that football player who came out recently? Everyone nodded and patted him on the back, and then he was quietly excluded from the sport. The same would happen to you, Michael. You’d be a joke. Is that what you want? No one would ever take you seriously again.”
“I don’t care. I want him.” My heart rate was ramping up. Things were getting too real, and I was saying shit I shouldn’t have been saying to my uncle. I knew better than to be honest with him— that he’d always find a way to use it against me— and yet I was powerless against my own impulses.
“I want you to marry Vanessa,” he said. “Not just play nice for the cameras. You’ll have a nice long engagement, lots of photo ops, and an island wedding with a guest list that would make the President jealous. It won’t be so bad. Of course you won’t be able to continue with those risky motel visits you think no one knows about. But for a price, we can make sure your baser needs are met. Powerful men don’t have to play by the rules, Michael. They just have to learn creative ways to get away with murder.” He smiled. “So to speak.”
“Don’t fuck with me!” I flew up off the sofa, my body vibrating from the inside out. If hatred could kill, then at least one us of would have been dead on the spot, because I was absolutely eaten up with it. Peter Santori was the closest thing to pure evil I’d ever known, with his intoxicating voice, and the way he told you exactly what to do and expected you to do it. He was a snake charmer, and he’d made me into a snake.
And he’d meant something by that last remark. Something ugly that I wasn’t quite ready to face yet. But part of me knew it. Part of me knew exactly what he’d meant, and that sleeping part of me wanted to kill him for saying it.
I leaned over him, white-knuckling the arms of his chair, itching to rip his goddamn tongue out of his mouth. If I’d had any balls, I’d have punched through his chest with my bare fist and squeezed his heart until the black blood poured through my fingers. Watching the life drain from that bastard’s eyes would be the sweetest relief imaginable, but I couldn’t touch him. He knew it, and I knew it, so I did the same thing he’d just done to me. I threatened him with innuendo that meant just as much as what he’d said to me. “I’m not a little boy, anymore, Mister Santori. Haven’t you noticed? I’m a trained killer. Thank you for that, by the way.”
“You’re threatening me,” he said, confirming that we were on the same page. That I was right about the ugly things that only recently had started to seep back into my consciousness.
“I only threaten in self-defense. You remember that. I fight for you, and I’ve always done what you wanted, but you can’t tell me who to love. You can’t take that away from me, too.”
Santori’s lips curled up at the edges just enough to suggest a smile, and his eyes got all hooded and lazy, like he’d just shot heroin. “He’s fucking someone else.”
And there it was. The takedown.
I let go of his chair arms like I’d been burned by them, spinning away to hide my reaction. Too late. Dammit, I couldn’t let the bastard see me break. It’s what he got off on.
Now I saw it clearly, the reason for his visit, the progression of the conversation. Ever since he’d walked through my door he’d been edging himself, doling out the discomfort in stages, just waiting for the right moment to throw the knockout punch. And it was a hell of a punch, aimed to take away the one thing I had that Santori hadn’t given me.
I paced to the window and stared out over the strobing lights, the flowing lava stream of cars. Vegas had never looked so bleak.
“Don’t you want to know who it is?” he asked calmly, as if we were discussing the weather.
“No. You’re probably just lying, anyway. You always lie.”
“I have pictures.”
For as long as I could remember, I’d been conditioning myself to absorb pain. Yet those three innocuous-sounding words had me on the verge of throwing up.