by SA Payne
“Very well. Best guess from what we’re seeing? The ID numbers on you changed and the pattern
matches Lerman employee codes. We believe that these children were raised as Lerman
property, isolated and trained for assignments. What we’ve figured out shows very focused
educational training, physical training.”
“That’s nothing new for Lerman though.” Will shook his head. “It’s been a quiet secret for years
that they’ll train agents from little up to be ideal employees. All the big security companies do
that with their elite. Don’t they?”
“So it’s been said, but those children are the offspring of other employees. They live with their
parents. These orphans? They went further. The training was stricter, the isolation more intense.
Add in the genetic modifications made and only half survived to what Lerman calls 'an applicable
age'.” Jake sighed and glanced to where Rye sat, staring at the screen with unblinking, empty
eyes. “Any of this ring bells, Rye?”
He just shook his head.
“How about any of these pictures?” Jake keyed in the pictures and images of other boys, all
about ten years of age, began to flick across the screen. “After this applicable age passed, the
survivors were grouped into units. These were the nine other boys in your unit.”
Rye watched the faces of the other boys flick across the screen and none of them looked like
anything but random strangers. Jake talked in the background about knowing that Rye’s first
assignment was at this applicable age, which was nine, ten or maybe eleven. The words meant
little to him, the facts were there, but none of them belonged to him. Until one face paused on
the screen and did more than just casually pass away.
“Wait!” Rye nearly stood up but the face flickered away. “Go back.”
The conversation around Rye stopped and the images on the screen froze. “This one?” Jake
asked, flipping back to the last photo displayed.
Rye shook his head. “One more.”
The boy’s picture returned and Rye stood up. The boy was Asian, with black hair, dark golden
skin and even as a child his face was squared off. There was none of the almost elegant beauty
that Ichi’s mixed bloodlines gave him to this boy. His eyes were as black as his hair and he
looked as stern and unhappy as all the other faces that had flicked across the screen.
“Who is that?” Rye’s heart pounded in fear or memory as he reacted as he hadn’t with seeing his
own face.
“All we have is an ID number. Here, I’ve other images, do you know him?”
Rye shook his head. “I don’t know.”
The pictures on the screen gradually aged. The childish roundness faded from the face and
sharp cheekbones emerged. The already squared face grew stronger and Rye watched the
changes as his stomach clamped up.
“He’s listed as killed in the line of duty at applicable age plus seven. Here, this is the last file image.”
“Rye?” Will spoke slowly. “I think we should stop for now.” He was starting to feel like a horrible weight was crushing him and that was never a good sign.
“No, I…” Rye shook his head as if trying to clear it. “I know him, I…” He looked to Ichi as if the
other man might be able to explain and, in a way, he did. Rye glanced back to the screen and
down to where Ichi sat, silent and waiting.
He saw it so clearly, the fear and nightmare that had chased him for so long, Ichi, laying with
open eyes in his own blood. Only, when Rye glanced between the picture and the flesh and
blood man, the eyes staring at him weren’t hazel. They were black and the face was square and
there was blood on his hands.
“Oh god, no.” He stumbled away, flinching from hands that touched him until he hit something
solid. That felt better, something real and tangible and he tucked himself down against it. It didn’t matter that voices were trying to be comforting were asking for his attention. It didn’t matter that hands stroked and soothed. All that mattered was that he remembered.
It started out with seeing the stern Asian boy laying in the pool of blood, his own blood, on the
smooth marble floor. It was Conti’s office, Rye knew it was. He remembered the boy had no
name, just like he had no name, but the others called him Jude and the dead boy was Mica.
They’d been called into Papa Conti’s office, which was never a good thing because missions
were delivered in a conference room. Rye had even more reason to detest Conti’s office, but his
mind shied away from that, unwilling and unable to remember yet.
He did remember Mica; proud, strong, beautiful. The other boy smiled a lot, which none of them
did often. That’s what Rye had first noticed about him, how easily a smile would brighten his
eyes even when there was little to smile about. It was when Mica started smiling at him, turning
that bright, cheerful grin on just for him, that Rye remembered his heart stopping.
It wasn’t like they were ignorant virgins. Rye remembered his first mission had been a blackmail
set up with a man that liked pale, young boys. He was pretty sure the others in his unit had
worked similar jobs over the years even though work was never discussed. They weren’t
supposed to be friendly with each other, just training. Nothing more than staying sharp and ready; Papa Conti’s daggers waiting to be used. Conversation was discouraged, friendliness
outright frowned upon, and only the loosest of bonds allowed. It was useful to know another’s
skills and limitations when paired for a job, that was all. Rye didn’t even feel a twinge when one
of the other’s failed to return.
He remembered training with Mica, besting the other boy as always but, unlike the others, there
was no anger. Mica had just smiled, bright and dazzling. “You’re really great, you know that?” he
said softly, fearful of being observed conversing.
Rye hadn’t answered.
It had taken weeks, months for him to understand what the uncomfortable unease he felt around
Mica really was. It was that smile, it made him feel things. And now when they trained the touch
of body to body stirred things. They’d jerked each other off in the locker room, quickly and
roughly but Mica had smiled again. It was a dangerous, addicting smile.
Things had lost control from there. Quick hand jobs had become quick blow jobs and then to
rough kisses which eventually lead to conversations. Rye had been surprised that Mica had
never been taken by a man before and oddly sick to his stomach to be the handsome boy’s first.
He’d worried so much that he barely enjoyed their first union, until Mica had tucked himself into
Rye’s arms and sighed.
“I love you.” he’d whispered, softly, shyly, into Rye’s ear.
The words had made him shiver, but he clung to them and believed. It had made life seem
easier. The normal sense of freedom being turned loose on a mission gave him was gone, his
thoughts stayed home, a place that had always felt like a cage before. For a while things were
good and, except having to deal with Conti, Rye had few complaints.
Until they were both summoned to Conti’s private office, a place that made Rye ill to even think
of. Only a handful had ever gone there, the very best or the very special or the ones soon to be
very dead. Rye had been sent there when he’d returned from his first mission, still injured in
more th
an just his body. He’d been sent in to find one of the older boys, one of the best of all the units, with his pants around his ankles. Conti was fucking him, right there over his desk.
Rye had frozen in place and stood at attention, waiting to be acknowledged, trying to pretend he
wasn’t there. It wasn’t enough, the older boy hung his head and his face went red. Rye
remembered the wicked, horrible way Conti had smiled and he’d known that this was a
punishment for the other boy, knowing someone else saw why Conti considered him special.
He’d be summoned back to the office again, years later. Conti informed him that of all the
remaining of his children, Rye was the best. It had made Rye feel so proud, like he’d mattered.
Papa Conti had then told Rye that the older boy that had been his special boy wouldn’t be
returning from his mission and Rye was now his special child. After that, Rye had gone to the
office far, far too often and never spoke a word of it to anyone, not even Mica.
So he knew it was bad, but Mica still admired their savior, their father. His faith was as bright as his smile, and Rye followed crisply but with sick dread. There was soon no doubt it was bad.
There was yelling and taped evidence of the two boys’ affair. Conti beat them both, but Rye
more than Mica. Both of them took the cursing and the blows without a word, there was no
excuse to be offered. They’d both known their contact was forbidden--and Rye had known doubly
so.
“I will not tolerate this!” Conti has screamed. “This ingratitude under my own roof! After all I’ve done for you boys! You were trash, filth, tossed aside to die and I took you and made you gods
among men and this is how you repay me? With betrayal?”
Conti had kicked them a couple of times more. “This ends.” He pulled a drawer open and retrieved a blade. “283,” the last three digit’s of Rye’s number, he remembered them, it was the
only way Conti ever addressed them. “Your scores and success is higher, you live. Dispose of
918.”
The two boys froze and their eyes met. There were no smiles now. This was the cold reality
they’d lied to themselves about. They’d both known that discovery would mean death, and some
small part of Rye’s mind had whispered that maybe that was why they’d grown careless. Never
had they dreamed that Conti would order only one death.
Mica nodded. Steady and prepared, not a glimpse of fear in his eyes. He’d often talk to Rye, in
stolen moments after their lovemaking, about wanting out, an idea that Rye couldn’t even begin
to conceive. He’d known there was nothing more, nothing beyond the blood and death and pain
of their lives, but Mica had dreamed of an escape, any escape. His eyes said it now: if Rye loved
him, he’d give him that escape.
When Rye took up the blade, Mica knelt and raised his chin. They’d been given an order and
there was no choice but to obey. Every moment of their lives had burned obedience into them
and even though Rye felt himself breaking apart, dying more fully than a physical death could
ever be, he obeyed.
The blood had been hot and the knife was sharp. Mica slipped into death quickly and far more
painlessly than either of them had ever hoped for. Mica had held his eyes until he was gone,
neither one looking away even as the blood dripped from Rye’s hands and the knife clattered to
the floor.
Conti was there, now alone in the room together. The older man beat Rye some more, cursed
him. Screamed at Rye for responding to a piece of filth boy, when even the smallest of response
had to be wrestled from him at Conti’s hands. Rye hadn’t fought, he never did. Conti had made
him, created him, was his father. Even when Conti had stripped him half naked and fucked him
over his desk, Rye still didn’t fight. There seemed no point to it, no point to anything anymore. As Conti took him with more anger and rage than real lust, Mica lay in his blood, watching. Rye
wished it was him on the ground but not if that meant Mica would have swapped places with him.
He cared for the other boy too much to wish Conti on him.
It was all there, in Rye’s head, a lifetime of memories that unlocked and opened one by one.
Every horrible thing he’d done or survived, the look on every face of every person he’d killed.
Men, women, children. He’d been a dog that if Conti said attack, he’d attacked. How many
people had he killed? Rye wasn’t sure he could count them, after a time it was just easier to say
a whole bunch. He’d ruined people’s lives, stolen their money, crushed their dreams and not
once had he felt a thing about it. The only thing he felt remorse or pain over was killing Mica, and that was a bittersweet pain.
Rye felt smothered, crushed under the weight of so much. It seemed impossible to balance what
he had been with anything remotely worthy of the life he’d found. He curled into a small ball, his
side pressed to whatever solid surface he’d stumbled against and sobbed. It was shock, some
part of his still functioning mind knew it was just shock, but he was hysterical and couldn’t stop.
When a stinging sharp feel of something being injected into his blood stream came, Rye
welcomed the darkness the drugs brought with it.
Chapter Thirty One:
The darkness cleared slowly, like veils being pulled back from his eyes one thin drape at a time.
Rye found his throat hurt, and his eyes, but he was curled up on something soft and felt generally
warm and safe. A feeling he'd recently taken for granted but suddenly found it to be almost
startling new. Even before he could get his eyes open a soothing hand stroked across his hair.
"Hey you, welcome back." Ichi spoke softly. "Amanda said you should burn off the sedative pretty
quickly but she gave you way too much."
Rye frowned to find Ichi sitting in a chair pulled close to the bed. It didn't seem right, but he was selfish enough to be almost desperate to have the man near. "I'm glad you're here." The words slipped out and Rye sighed, apparently remembering his past didn't end his stupid habit of
blurting truths out.
"Where else would I be?" Ichi smiled and slid a hand across the rumbled hair. "How're you feeling? I've some water here, thirsty?"
"Please." He pulled himself half way to sitting to accept the bottle. The water was mostly warm but still soothing. Ichi didn't push, didn't ask, didn't crowd him and he could have kissed the man for his quiet patience. "I remember." Rye said softly, licking a drop of water from his lips and lowering the bottle.
"Who that boy was?"
"That and more, all of it, his name was Mica. That was his real name, he told me. We didn't have names, just numbers. When we'd go on our first assignment, we took the first fake name we
used so we'd have something other than a name to call each other. Mica, he told me, he had
them use his real name, no one else knew it was the name his parents gave him."
"He was your friend?" Ichi asked carefully, unwilling to trigger another fit of hysterics but equally unwilling to not show concern.
"No, he was my lover." Rye forced a small smile. "Must have a thing for Asian men."
That made Ichi blush a little. "Must have."
"How long was I out?" He wasn't ready to tell Ichi he'd killed Mica, not sure he could yet.
Ichi had to glance at a clock. "Nearly three hours. We didn't want to sedate you but it had been over an hour and you were only getting worse. Amanda was afraid you'd hurt yourself."
"I was hysterical, it's okay." It was so odd to piece together what he had been wi
th who he was.
"Is Will okay?"
"He is now, Jake and Narin took him. They said something about communing would settle him
better than drugs. Apparently it worked but he's staying over in their rooms for now. He wanted to
give you the space to rant as much as you liked without worry." Amanda had stayed, she was out in the living room in case she was needed.
"I'm not a good man, Ichi, and I know I should disappear, get as far from you as I can but I'm too selfish. I can't stand the thought of leaving you. I love you too much to leave, even if you tell me to." That sounded a touch intense but he knew himself now and Rye knew he was, by nature, not
a man to give up. He drew a breath and braced himself. "So, think of the worse thing you can
imagine, the very worst, and double it."
"Rye..."
"Just do it."
"Okay."
"Now, I've done that, and more. I'm a killer, Ichi, I'm good at it."
"Doesn't matter now, you're a different person."
Rye thought about what it had felt like to kill those pirates. "Not too different. Ichi, I'm good at it and I enjoy it. I killed Mica, I took a knife and slit his throat."
Ichi saw no lie in Rye's voice or face, just open guilt. "But you said he was your lover?"
"He was and he loved me and I cared for him."
Ichi glanced down to study his own hands. "You would never hurt me." He believed that as sure as he believed anything.
"I would die before I allowed harm to come to you."
It wasn't a morality question he'd ever been presented with. "I've said it before, I don't care what you've been, or done, so long as you're here with me."
"I will kill again, Ichi. Can you love me knowing that?"
Logic said in a society murder was wrong. In Ichi's black and white world before he'd left his home he would have refused to speak to Rye, shunned him, no matter how deeply he made
have held emotions. Life wasn't so black and white any longer, there was no clear and easy
answers.
Will had taken human life as well, and Ichi knew his friend and brother was equally ready to kill
again should he have to. Should Ichi cut all emotional ties with Will, or brush it off as
circumstances? Was Rye's past and his threat of violence in the future such an insurmountable