Seductive Truths (Seductive Trilogy)

by Becky Cairns

  Gareth eyes the destruction then turns on me. My eyes widen in fright as I take in his fury and his fast, stormy approach. Anger quickly turning into fear, I desperately search for an escape route.

  Just as he is about to pass the battered, leather sofa, I leg it to the front door and yank it open, but before I could make good on my escape, its slams shut, almost trapping my fingers.

  In quick succession he spins me around, grabs hold of my arms and throws me across the room with brute force. I scream then yelp as I come crashing to the floor.

  Looking up I see him making his way towards me, determination and blind rage in every step. Fists clenched and his nostrils flared. He looks like a bull ready to charge. I scuttle backwards only to come into contact with the wall.

  Looming over me, he takes a firm, tight grip of my top, forcing me down against the wall and raising his right fist. I squeeze my eyes shut and turn my face to the side, waiting for the inevitable.

  Nothing happens.

  Slowly his hold slackens, eventually letting go completely. I gradually peel my eyes open and turn to face him. Though slightly shadowed, I am able to see the anguish shining brightly in his eyes, as if the very thought of what he were about to do terrifies him.

  He looks towards his clenched fist then at my petrified expression. Turning on his heels, he stomps off towards the wooden coffee table and attacks it, chucking it against the wall. He then begins to lash out at anything in his firing line: bottle of whiskey, the other glass, television, the sofa, any means to release the pent up fury.

  Eventually, Gareth ends his tyranny with a punch against the wall, causing me to cringe as I hear bones crack and see blood splatter. Calmly I pull myself up off the floor, making my way to him. Something in his posture, maybe the way he’s cradling his damaged hand, leads me to believe it’s safe to approach.

  I whisper his name and he twists his body to face me, but doesn’t look up. His eyes remain fixated on his injury.

  ‘Gareth?’ I apprehensively reach out and touch his shoulder. Thankfully he doesn’t lash out, but neither does he react in any way. ‘Gareth.’

  ‘I…I…’ he stutters but never looks up. ‘I’m s-s-sorry. I’m sorry.’

  He’s chokes with emotion but no tears fall. ‘I hate him,’ he whispers harshly. ‘I hate him, I hate him, I hate him, I hate him,’ he spits out then collapses to the floor, head slumping back against the wall, eyes closed, defeated, battered and broken.

  I crouch down beside him.

  Intently gazing at his face, I notice for the first time how long his eyelashes are. How they delicately frame his eyes, accentuating his facial features. Then there are his lips, soft to the touch but fierce in their passion. His skin scarred from past wounds and adolescent period, but still remains deadly handsome in a roughish way. The stubble adds to this. His eyebrows form an intense frown, a clear indication of his troubled thoughts.

  ‘Who do you hate Gareth?’

  Nothing.

  Something inside tugs at my heart when I catch sight of the pain etched on his face. Caringly I reach out a hand to his cheek, my thumb slowly beginning to stroke the surprisingly soft skin beneath, moving in a circular motion.

  ‘Please, Gareth. Let me in.’

  His eyelashes flutter as he turns to stare at me and they are the openness I’ve seen them so far. So much intensity it hurts. I feel myself welling up because of what I’m seeing. I’m at a loss as to what to do, what to feel. Everything is raw.

  ‘Who do you hate?’ I manage to croak out.

  After a pause he replies, ‘My dad.’

  His dad? What happened to you Gareth? How dark is your past?

  The yearning to know drives me forward.

  ‘What happened?’

  Even as I ask the question I’m uneasy of the answer.

  Gareth looks away, staring to a random spot on the floor; his broken skin pushed to the back of his mind. Feeling the need to give him encouragement I move my hand from caressing his face to caressing his injured hand laying in his lap. The familiar shock tingles up my arm at the contact.

  Seconds tick by in the stifled air.

  Tick.

  Tock.

  Tick.

  Tock.

  Tick.

  ‘My…’ I startle at his voice. ‘My childhood was shit, Alex. It was a nightmare.’

  He stops to regain his emotion.

  ‘I lived with the most dysfunctional family ever. I had a mother who made a living lying on her back getting fucked by random strangers each night. I had a father who might as well have been one of those men for all the times I saw him. He was always off doing dodgy deals. Whenever he did decide to grace us with his presence he was either drunk or angry, or if we were lucky, both. The beatings I could take, eventually. It was the nightmares that hit me.

  ‘The constant thumping. The loneliness. The feeling of being lost and unable to break free of the maze I found myself in. I was pretty much left to defend for myself at the tender age of five.

  ‘Then there was Mark, my older brother by three years.’ Gareth withdraws further into himself and his face hardens, but the emotion remains. It’s there when he speaks.

  ‘I used to idolise him, worship the ground he walked on. He was my hero. He became a mother and father to me. Mark was far from perfect, but to me, he was someone to look up to, my role model.

  ‘He was the one that made sure I was fed, dressed, even educated as our parents couldn’t be bothered to send me to school. I don’t even think they cared whether I lived or died half the time. Mark, on the other hand, was their golden boy, couldn’t do anything wrong in their eyes. They even sent him to school, gave him a start in life and he excelled in everything he did. I wanted to be just like him. I wanted to be Mark. However, life took a turn for the worse and all that education became a waste.

  ‘It was the year I lost my virginity to a buxom brunette who certainly taught me a thing or two. That same year Mark was rushed to hospital due to a drug overdose. And it was also the year…’ Gareth closes his eyes, remembering. ‘It was also the year my mother disappeared from our lives altogether, never to be seen or heard from again. To this day, I still don’t know whether she is alive or dead and frankly, I don’t give a shit anymore. She could be sliced and diced into little pieces, boxed up and sent to the bottom of the Thames for all I care.’

  Christ! No wonder he’s so messed up.

  Feeling the knot in me tighten I bring my free hand to enclose round his. The torn flesh scratches against my smooth skin, but my attention is drawn to the slight quaking of his fingers.

  I’m here for you Gareth, God help me but I’m here.

  Taking a breath he continues.

  ‘Mark and I weren’t the best of brothers but we were close, as close as brothers could be in our situation, but that all changed with the disappearance of our mother. Dad and Mark grew closer, always going off and leaving me on my own for several hours at a time, even as long as a couple of days every few weeks or so. I didn’t have a clue what they were up to but I knew it wasn’t legal. Nothing my dad did ever was. It wasn’t until I turned eighteen did I realise how dangerous my dad had become, dragging my brother down with him and eventually…myself.’

  Pain fills every contour of his face. Everything comes rushing to the surface and I can see that he’s finding it difficult to control. All those memories, the suffering, he’s unable to let go, can’t let go. It’s eating away at him and I feel at loss how to stop it. I want to stop it. I don’t want him to hurt anymore.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers then abruptly stands and walks into the kitchen, returning with two clean glasses and a fresh bottle of whiskey, but instead of coming back to my side he makes his way over to the table by the window.

  Placing the glasses down, he swiftly fills them with the golden liquor then taking one with him he goes to stand gazing out onto the street below.

  Heaving myself from my position on the ground I walk over to the table.
Sitting down in a chair I snap up his offered drink.

  After taking a refreshing sip I peer up to see Gareth’s face bathed in the orange glow of the streetlight beaming in through the window, emphasising the haunted look in his eyes. Little by little his past is leaking out, giving more of an insight into how Gareth is the way he is and how he became the man I see standing in front.

  ‘I was unceremoniously dragged into a world of violence, contempt and deceit,’ Gareth abruptly carries on. ‘By the time I turned nineteen I had been taught to trust no one but my gun and myself. By the time I was twenty-one I had already been shot six times, hospitalised thirteen, had over £250,000 in the bank, killed twelve men of disreputable background and visited every whore house this side of London.

  ‘Over the coming years everything escalated. Not only was I shot; I was stabbed, electrocuted, beaten black and blue to within an inch of my life and tortured by any means possible. I was in and out of hospital more times than the bloody doctors!

  ‘Thankfully the police never got involved, my father made sure of that. How, I don’t know, but he did. Then there was the money. It seemed to be pouring into my bank account at an extortionate rate, so much so I hadn’t a clue what to do with it. My death toll was well into the fifties and my sexual preferences moved to screwing every wife of each criminal mastermind we dealt with.

  ‘By the time I was thirty I had gained a reputation amongst both the criminal circle and police force, but the beauty of it all is that no one knew who I was. Not what I looked like, my name, or my whereabouts. I became the guy they dreaded but never realised they met. I was at the top of my game. I was untouchable. Then it all came crashing down two years ago. My neatly laid out carpet was swept from my feet.’

  He takes a sip of his drink then reaches inside his trouser pocket for a cigarette. Lighting up and taking a lungful of nicotine, I watch the ringlets of smoke dispersing into the air as he continues.

  ‘We ended up taking on more than we could chew. There was this new criminal family on the scene, the Carters. Very wealthy and high up in the ranks apparently, so dad decided it was a great opportunity to get involved in their crowd, a chance to help our position. None of us betted on Mark and their daughter falling in love and becoming the Romeo and Juliet of the criminal world. But that wasn’t all. Not only did he fall in love with the enemy, but turned on us when the deal was about to take place.

  ‘Mark went behind our backs hatching a plan with the others to take everything, leaving dad and myself with nothing but the shirts on our backs.’ He knocks back the rest of his whiskey, closes his eyes and sighs. ‘On a cold, damp night, in the early hours of the morning, I lost what remained of my family. In the short space of five minutes I lost both my dad and brother. Once my dad realised what transpired all hell let loose.

  ‘Dragging his gun out from its hiding place, he fired two clean shots into the heads of my brother’s lover and her father. They were dead before they hit the ground. Crying out in anguish, Mark whipped out his own gun and before I had chance to react, our dad was lying dead in the murky mud between our feet.’ Gareth startles me as he sharply turns and pierces me with those soulful eyes. ‘I saw it, Alex. I saw the truth in his eyes. He was going to kill me. All the caring of our youth meant nothing to him. I went from family to enemy in a matter of seconds. If I didn’t act I wouldn’t be standing here today. I shot my brother in cold blood. I shot my brother, Alex! The last remnant of my family and I killed him.’

  Gareth turns to stare back out at the darkened sky, smoke drifting up into the atmosphere without a care in the world, a perfect match for his soul. ‘The way I held him as he drew his last breath will remain etched on my memory forever. Even now as I relay it to you, it’s as if it happened only yesterday.’

  He pauses in his monologue, filling his lungs up with oxygen and taking a puff of his cigarette before forging on.

  ‘Now, on my own and lonely, I tried to break free of the criminal limelight and forge a normal life, be my own person. You know, a nice steady job, everything above board and legal. Maybe meet someone special, get married, settle down, have kids, that sort of thing. But who was I kidding. That was never going to happen for someone like me - once a criminal always a criminal. It wasn’t as if I could get a job to be honest. How would I explain my lack of employment? “I don’t know how to write an article, tell the difference between a plant and a weed or hold a banquet for The Queen, but don’t worry, I can shoot a man directly between the eyes at a 200 yard distance using nothing but a Grande Puissance 35 with one bullet.” Yeah, I’m sure. They’re really crying out for killers.’ He inhales deeply on his cigarette. ‘Anyway, about a year ago, my life as I knew it changed once more, this time in a totally new way.’

  The erotic huskiness of Gareth’s voice stills and the atmosphere between us changes temperature. My heart becomes frozen as he draws near. What’s left of the whiskey in one hand, cigarette burning in the other, dropping ash onto the floor with each step. My breathing hitches. The now empty glass, containing nothing but residue of what it held, is forgotten. Everything is ignored but the man looming over me as he places his hands onto the table, his glass abandoned, cigarette crushed.

  Leaning over, face to face, eye to eye, he whispers, ‘I met a man like no other. This man led me to you.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  The way he’s staring at me, what is he trying to convey?

  What a past, no wonder he’s the way he is and I think there is more to come. This is the type of past you get in movies or books, I can’t comprehend it happening to someone in real life, but Gareth is living proof it does!

  And that’s another thing. Living. It’s a wonder he isn’t dead already. With that thought my heart stills.

  Gareth dead? No, no, it can’t happen, he can’t die. Dread for his life comes from nowhere. Where are these feelings coming from? Why am I having these feelings in the first place? This is not good, not good at all!

  ‘Now you know what type of man I am Alex. How there’s no changing what I’ve become, no matter how many times I desperately wish to. I’ve tried once with no success. I’ll always be running, hiding from someone.’

  I look down at my hands, frowning in thought, trying to sort out the whirlwind of my mind, while he carries on speaking.

  ‘I’m a dangerous man to be with and anyone remotely close, in any form, for any length of time, is at risk and yet, knowing this, I…I can’t force myself to let you go.’

  My head jerks up and I catch Gareth go to sit opposite me, eyes never leaving mine. The glimmer of despair clouding his irises cries out to be recognised, understood. But can this man ever be understood? Maybe that’s the reason I’m drawn to him.

  ‘I’ve got so much to tell. So much past that will have an impact on your future. But…the thing is, I need your trust, more like gain your trust and I know that’s not going to be an easy feat.’ You can say that again! ‘But I need it all the same.’ His eyes soften. ‘I want you to trust me.’

  Trust. Sounds easy enough but it’s the hardest thing to come by, even harder to retain. It’s the one component you need in any relationship for it to survive. You lose the trust you lose the bond. And here’s Gareth asking for it. It’s completely illogical for me to put my trust in man who kidnapped me and is willing to risk my life. So why is it you’re willing to do just that? Put your life in his hands? I should not be feeling this!

  ‘Alex?’

  My head snaps to attention to see Gareth staring…waiting.

  ‘Aren’t you going to say something?’ he asks. ‘Anything?’

  ‘I…I…’ I nibble on my lip, eyebrows crease into a frown. ‘I can’t…I just can’t get my head round it all. I can’t think straight. Nothing makes sense to me anymore. It’s just one big blur. It feels like a big chunk of my life is missing and I don’t know how to get it back.

  ‘Then there’s you. You are…you are…I don’t know what you are. I’m tired of trying to figure you out, o
f wanting to figure you out. When I think I’ve finally sussed you, you go and throw something like this in and I’m back at the start.

  ‘And here you are asking me to trust you. I can’t even trust myself anymore, how can I trust someone else? This is just one big mess. One big mess I can’t begin to explain.’

  ‘Alex…’

  ‘No, no, no, no, this is my time to speak. I need to get what’s in here,’ I tap my temple with my index finger, ‘out. I need…I need…oh God, I don’t know what I need!’

  Scraping the chair back I march over to the window, keeping my back to Gareth. I can’t look at him any longer. It’s too much.

  Leaning against the wall, I try distracting myself with the random objects and people milling around in the darkness below.

  ‘I still miss him you know,’ falls from my mouth, ‘my brother. We used to be inseparable. Wherever he went you’d always find me not far behind. His friends used to tease him but he’d just brush it off and say something comical. He’d always be on my side. I know he was the younger one but majority of the time it felt like the other way round. Thomas being taller may have prompted that feeling though, that and his overbearing protective attitude. However, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. He was still my baby brother in my eyes.

  ‘Even the day he married Maggie I still thought of him as such, but that was the turning point in our relationship. He no longer needed me like he used to. He was all grown up and ready to start a family of his own. It broke my heart knowing life would change, but at the same time it was the most joyful day of my life. Maggie was his perfect match. I knew they were “it” the first time I met her.

  ‘A year and a half later Bethany was born. Thomas couldn’t make it to the birth as he was away on business, but I remember the day he first set eyes on her - his daughter. Thomas was the proudest father I’d ever seen. Eyes lit up with joy and sparkled with pure love for the tiny creature nestled in his arms.’ My lips tug at the memory. ‘Seeing the three of them, all huddled together…I wanted that. Right then I hungered for a life like that. To feel the love of a man who you know will always be by your side. To hold a creation born from that love and to treasure, nurture and watch the child grow into the adult you know they could be. I wanted that life with every fibre of my being.