Gilded Agony

by K. A. Merikan

  Seth stood in the corner, hiding his nose as blood trickled through his fingers. “It’s not my fault!” His voice was nasal, his eyes red and tearing up, but why would Domenico feel sorry for him after hearing all this fresh bullshit?

  Domenico laughed, for a moment hiding his face in his hands when his eyes itched. “No? Whose fault is it then? I am Toro. Someone touches what’s mine, and you don’t care to mention it? Maybe you just wanted it?”

  Seth made a few quick steps toward the kitchen. “I’m not your property!”

  Domenico let his hands drop. In the midst of the storm raging in his body, his heart was slowly becoming a black hole. “You did want it, didn’t you? Someone new? Someone exciting?”

  Seth lowered his hands and uncovered the nose that was dripping blood to the floor. “No. I only ever want you.”

  Domenico swallowed and squeezed his fingers into fists, surprised when the skin on his right hand stung. There was blood on it from hitting the mirror, but that made hardly any difference, since all Dom saw now had a faint tinge of red. “Are you lying or telling me the truth this time?”

  The framed photos stared at him from the floor, the smiles in them seeming insincere.

  “Dom, I think I need to see Dr. Quincy,” Seth whined, suddenly grabbing the sofa.

  “Will you flirt with him next?” Domenico asked, drained.

  Seth rubbed his forehead, only spreading more blood all over. “Fuck you!”

  “Yeah, I might just masturbate in front of you. Would that be exciting? Maybe you want the old me back?”

  Even the hurt look in Seth’s eyes wasn’t able to cool off the searing heat inside of Dom’s guts. He wanted to rip, smash, and kill. He had to physically force himself a step back, because his fingers once more itched for Seth’s throat.

  “At least the old Domenico was there.”

  Domenico spun, staring at the perfect dining room. He went against the need of his body and forced himself to take deep, long breaths to chase away the heat burning inside. “Does Diego think you like him?”

  The prolonged silence already told Domenico what the answer was.

  “I guess. He probably has that idea in his head,” Seth muttered in the end.

  Domenico gave a slow nod, trying to appear as though he didn’t care. He knew Seth wasn’t telling him the whole story, because why else would he believe Diego had this kind of idea? Still, he could no longer think straight, and if the plan developing in his head was to succeed, they had no time to waste.

  “I know of a way you could make it up to Mark.”

  Mark had kept quiet all along, curled up under a blanket and thinking only God knew what, but he hadn’t been eager to ‘protect’ Seth this time, so something must have sunk in. “I just want him dead.”

  Seth took a desperate breath, turning to the bed. “I’m so sorry, Mark. This is a misund—”

  “I don’t care, Seth,” Mark interrupted. “I wanna see his eyeball on a stick. All this other shit here? You’ve gotta unpack that yourself.”

  Domenico sank all the way to the floor and sat right next to the frames with broken glass crisscrossing their happy family photos. Nothing corresponded so well to the way he felt.

  Chapter 16 - Seth

  Seth’s face was a world of pain, but events were unfolding too quickly for him to feel sorry for himself. So he did his best, washing it with cold water, and took some painkillers after Quincy had assured him that despite the swelling, his nose wasn’t broken. His whole being wished to down the pills with half a bottle of vodka, but he needed to be sober if he was to execute Domenico’s plan.

  He was bait.

  Even writing that text message to Diego had been excruciating, but reading the responses with Domenico hovering behind his back made ‘shame’ his second name, because Diego made it clear in no uncertain terms how much he wanted to fuck Seth.

  So with Domenico as the puppet master, Seth arranged that he would run away with Diego. To make the whole thing believable, Seth told Diego of the secret passage into their home, and how to enter it through the cemetery out of town. Domenico was confident about his scheme, but to minimize the chance of disruption, he’d given Mark strong painkillers before walking him to his room upstairs. Giulia had been advised to not leave the nursery under any circumstances and to lock all of the doors and windows. Still, despite all the precautions, Seth felt uneasy.

  “Are you sure it wouldn’t be better to have Miguel around for backup?” he asked quietly, without much hope, though he was secretly glad no one else would witness his shame.

  Domenico’s hum was likely meant to express amusement, but coming from behind Seth’s back it sounded anything but. Since the night Domenico had shed blood over Toro’s former estate and replaced the man at the top, the wine cellar had been used for the purpose it’s been named after. But now that Seth sat by the open trapdoor in the kitchen and watched the opened secret door below, he could only remember the stolen moments he and Dom had shared inside the hidden space under the kitchen. Back then, Domenico was a source of strength, but tonight the presence behind Seth’s back felt oppressive rather than soothing.

  “You think I can no longer take out a man by myself? That’s your conclusion after what happened in the past few weeks?” Domenico asked from his vantage point behind the fridge.

  Only a few seconds with Domenico’s garotte would leave Seth lying in a puddle of his own blood. He looked back to feel that tiny bit more comfortable talking. “No, but just in case something went south. You’ve got all this manpower at your disposal—”

  Domenico snarled, barely visible from behind the giant chrome appliance. “Two years ago I was a one-man army. I saved your life by myself. I don’t need any of those people. None of them has training or skill that’s even remotely close to mine.”

  Seth didn’t need to be reminded what Domenico had done for him, but the underlying message was clear to Seth anyway. Domenico wanted to kill Diego himself. Possibly take him alive for torture first. After what the fucker had done to Mark, Seth had no qualms about luring the bastard into a world of pain, but the plan still felt like unnecessary danger. “I know. If anything, you’re even stronger, and more experienced than you used to be.”

  Domenico stayed silent for several tense moments, and it gave Seth all the time in the world to study the uneven color of the kitchen floor tiles. His ears kept tricking him into hearing sounds from below, but every time so far, it had been a false alarm.

  Domenico exhaled. “I don’t even know anymore. There have been no challenges in those two years. Maybe my instincts dulled. I let myself stop being constantly alert, and this is the result. I missed the signs of you lying to me.”

  To that, Seth shut up. What was he to say? His life was going down the drain all too quickly, and the hate steaming off Domenico was scalding. He hadn’t meant for anything like this to happen, and coming clean about what had happened with Diego was an excruciating process, which had left him rattled, aching, and all too aware of his fragile position in his own home. With no money, and nowhere to go, what would he do if Domenico really decided he was of no use anymore? What if after all they’d been through, they had drifted apart, and this was the final straw?

  Seth checked the phone again. Diego was running late, yet had sent no message.

  [Are you coming? I’m scared. I want you with me.] Seth hated every word equally, and it made his throat clench to write these messages to the man who hurt Mark.

  The kitchen settled into silence after that, broken only by the sound of Seth typing more messages and his own breath. Domenico remained soundless, like a vengeful ghost waiting to push Seth to his death for a transgression made with no ill intent.

  The invisible knives Domenico kept stabbing into Seth’s back with his gaze alone hurt more than the very real pain in his nose. How would they come back from this? Once all was said and done, once Diego was a skin-less corpse cooling on the ground, how would Domenico look at Seth then? With resentm
ent? Could Seth live with that? This house was enough of a cage already. Invisible to Domenico, who’d also forgotten he’d left a cage on Seth’s dick, but all too real and uncomfortable for Seth.

  It was as if a shadow of suspicion warranted this complete rejection. Domenico hadn’t seemed even a bit regretful when Quincy had come over to take care of Seth. In fact, he’d acted as if Seth’s pain were an inconvenience to everyone, yet another blow to endure.

  The sound of the safety clicking behind Seth’s back was like a switch for the electricity that instantly tickled Seth’s body.

  What if there was a bullet for him in Domenico’s gun?

  He couldn’t breathe for a while, too afraid to turn around and check if the weapon was aimed at his head. If he truly were unfaithful, would Domenico have killed him? Was the distrust enough to trigger that instinct in Dom?

  Seth’s whole body was overheating to the point that his aching face started throbbing. All those years ago, Domenico had promised Seth that if he were to kill him, he would do so without causing him pain. Did he still remember that vow?

  The clock on the wall clicked away remaining seconds of Seth’s life, booming loudly, as if it were a time bomb about to explode. Tiny specks of dust tickled Seth’s throat. His T-shirt stuck to skin, the floor was cold and hard under him as he sat with his eyes still staring into the wine cellar and the opened passage inside.

  Domenico moved behind him, silent like a jaguar.

  Seth sucked in a breath but managed not to yelp when a figure in black stood next to him. How had Domenico gotten so close unnoticed? Then again, Seth hadn’t moved a muscle, so it wasn’t like he was looking around.

  Despite the pain in his face, despite the fear clutching at his insides, he craved Domenico’s touch. Dom’s arms curling around him and pulling him close would have meant he was safe and that everything would be fine as long as he was in the eye of the storm.

  That he was forgiven, even though Domenico had punched him again.

  How sick was that?

  But Domenico didn’t touch him. He scooted down next to Seth, exuding the aroma of fresh sweat, shampoo, and that wood-scented cologne he always used. It was like bait Seth wasn’t allowed to follow.

  “He’s not coming,” Dom decided in the end.

  Seth swallowed, with his throat clenched. “You think he suspects something?”

  “Don’t know. Maybe your ass wasn’t enough temptation after all.”

  Seth bit his lips and swallowed the insult. He didn’t want to argue right now.

  “Can you track his phone?” he whispered. Having to deal with the topic of Diego altogether was punishment in itself.

  Domenico shrugged. “He’d have to call us and talk for long enough, but he didn’t pick up whenever we tried. Should have bugged him. I used to bug everyone.”

  Seth wouldn’t dare to touch Domenico uninvited, but he glanced at him, hoping that maybe memories could bring back a fraction of the closeness they once shared. “I bet you got some juicy content when you bugged my apartment in New York…”

  Domenico’s face tensed, and he wouldn’t look back at Seth as he climbed into the wine cellar. “Oh, I remember. You used to cheat on your boyfriend all the time.”

  Seth, who was in the midst of rising to his feet, stumbled away from the trapdoor. Domenico’s words splashed onto him like acid, and the shame they caused only burned more with each second. Right. There was that.

  But what he’d had with Peter was nothing like the bond he shared with Domenico. His husband surely understood that much. Diego had been a bit of entertainment. Confident in the strength and prestige of the man always standing by him like an invisible shield, in contact with Diego Seth had felt like a cat playing with a mouse. A cat that had gotten too fat on delicious cream it was fed at home to actually eat the rodent.

  Domenico thoroughly locked the entrance to the tunnel before climbing back into the kitchen and closing the cellar in sharp movements that would have been called stress-induced if they were made by anyone else.

  He poured himself a glass of water and looked out the window, into the rapidly darkening sky. “I’m going to see what’s going on on the other side.”

  Seth followed, always a few steps away. “I’ll go with you.”

  Domenico turned so sharply Seth took a step back, unable to breathe when for the briefest moment their eyes met. “No. You stay here. I don’t need you making noise if he’s in the cemetery.”

  Seth nodded, completely disarmed in this fight. So many times before his unwanted attempts at helping Dom had ended in disaster. This time he would do as told. “Keep in touch. Please.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Domenico said and stormed off into the darkness outside, grabbing a small bottle of water and the keys to his favorite car on the way.

  Seth leaned against the kitchen counter and pressed his face to the cool marble. What if this was it? The prelude to them parting, or even the growing storm in which they would all perish eventually? He didn’t even know if Angelica’s future was secured in case they were all murdered, because it was Domenico who handled those issues.

  He took deep breaths, which only made him more aware of the passing time and his own aching body. Needing to occupy his hands, he walked over to the broken frames in the end, to see if he could salvage the photos.

  What if they had to leave quickly as the result of this mess? Diego was Moreno’s man, after all. If Domenico killed him, Moreno could retaliate.

  Seth carefully pulled the photos out of their frames, and stuffed them between the pages of his most prized possession, the cook book his mom had made for him before he left for the US. In case they needed to go, he’d be able to take those precious memories with him. He also made sure his leather jacket, the first garment he’d bought in New York City, was laid out on the bed and added his and Domenico’s oldest photos together to the collection.

  He had to sit down when he pulled that last keepsake out of a secret compartment in their bed frame. In the pictures he was lost in pleasure, with his eyes glazed-over, naked and shameless. At the time they’d been taken Seth had had no care in the world and was blissfully unaware that Domenico already knew of the target on Seth’s back. This had been the night Domenico had decided Seth might be worth saving, the night they’d taken new passport photos for fake documents that eventually enabled their escape.

  Had Domenico already loved him back then? Had he loved Domenico?

  He’d lusted for Domenico from the second he’d lain his eyes on his future husband, but love had crept up on him in the little moments they’d shared. When Domenico had sewn up his wound. When they’d danced in a barn. When they’d exchanged rings.

  But sentiments had little value when danger could be already lurking at their door, so he pulled himself together and prepared three backpacks—one each for them. Giulia kept an emergency getaway kit for herself and Angelica in the nursery, so that was sorted, but the three pieces of luggage were soon filled with food and other necessities, including underwear, socks, and phone chargers. He didn’t worry about money, since Dom kept it all anyway, and Seth was sure he’d taken the necessary precautions just like he had back in New York City. After a moment’s thought, he put Domenico’s engraved razor into the designated backpack and placed the new crossbow on top of his leather jacket, so that it didn’t end up forgotten.

  He was almost done with preparations, gathering bottles of water and snacks in the kitchen when the bell rang, pulling him out of his head.

  Domenico wouldn’t be calling. He’d have walked in soundlessly and scared Seth shitless.

  Could it be Miguel? He was unaware that Domenico was away, and it happened that he came over for instructions instead of using the phone. Then, a much grimmer thought settled in Seth’s stomach. What if Domenico was in danger? What if he never came back?

  Seth was going to be sick.

  He rushed to the door and switched on the little screen that showed the image from the camera outside t
he gate to their private garden. He blinked when instead of Miguel, Domenico, or any of the men or staff, he saw Lilli, the pool boy, the poor girl who Mark had had over on New Year’s Eve. Dressed in a simple T-shirt and with her hair up, she looked into the camera with a worried frown.

  Seth cleared his throat. “Hey, Lilli. What is it? Now’s not really a good time.”

  She chewed on her lip, and in the night vision mode, the camera made the dampness of her eyes stand out even more. “I-I’m sorry, but I just heard about Mark. Can I see him, please?”

  Seth stilled, torn between visions of Domenico’s rage over letting her in and the possibility of giving Mark that tiny bit of comfort he now deserved more than anything. He’d taken strong painkillers that would have made Mark doze off, but maybe he would appreciate the visit anyway. Plus, Seth still felt guilty over the way Dom had treated Lilli on New Year’s. He’d apparently given her some cash to cushion the blow, but still.

  “Okay, but you can’t stay long,” he said and turned off the camera. The lock needed to be opened manually, but as he rushed through the grass, he was getting goose bumps over revisiting the spot where he’d broken Domenico’s trust.

  It couldn’t be helped. And the worst thing was that while he did feel Domenico was being unfair and grossly overreacting, in hindsight he knew Diego didn’t deserve protection from Domenico’s wrath. He’d known from the start that Seth was taken, and yet he’d flown too close to the sun at his own risk. Even if Diego hadn’t ended up revealing himself as a piece of shit who played two men at once, his behavior still warranted punishment in the world they all lived in.

  Seth used the touchpad to put in the code that unlocked the bars and opened the inner door, revealing Lilli, who instantly looked up, hugging herself. There were streaks of tears on her face, and Seth felt his stomach plummeting with guilt.

  He pushed open the bars and stepped outside, reaching out to her shoulder. “Hey. Lilli, I’m so sorry about the last few days—”