by Onley James
Cal moaned, his arms and legs locking around Gideon as he rutted inside Cal frantically, desperate to leave some part of him behind, to mark Cal as his, to remind his fractured brain that Cal wasn’t gone, that Grant hadn’t managed to take his boy away. He kissed Cal, his tongue fucking into his mouth as he drove himself inside the tight wet heat of Cal’s body again and again.
Cal’s heels dug into Gideon’s ass, spurring him on, the blunt drag of his nails on Gideon’s back telling him that whatever this was, Cal was one hundred percent on board. Gideon wanted to worry about Cal’s needs, about his comfort or pleasure, but he was a man possessed. He couldn’t shake the gnawing empty feeling behind his ribcage or the monstrous version of Grant who’d taken Cal from him.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered over and over again against Cal’s ear as he fucked into him like some kind of mindless beast.
“Can I come, Leo? Please?” Cal begged. “I’m gonna come. Can I?”
It was the first time Gideon had ever heard his name fall from Cal’s lips during sex, and it triggered a near bestial response. He captured Cal’s legs, pushing them higher as he growled, “Yes. Come for me.”
Then he was driving himself impossibly deep, like each thrust could somehow drive his memories away. He heard Cal cry out, felt the wetness of his release between their stomachs, and that was all it took for him to let go, his orgasm slamming into him like hitting a brick wall. He gave a guttural shout as he sank his teeth into Cal’s shoulder, grinding their hips together, determined to leave every bit of himself inside Cal’s body.
He buried his face against Cal’s neck, panting hard. For his part, Cal didn’t seem all that desperate to move. The boy’s fingers traced patterns across Gideon’s sweaty shoulders, played with his hair, kissed the top of his head.
“Are you okay?” Cal finally asked after several minutes had ticked by.
“I woke up and you were gone,” Gideon mumbled against Cal’s skin.
Cal gave a soft snort. “That’s crazy. I’d never leave you, Leo.”
Gideon pushed himself up enough to look Cal in the eyes. “Promise me. Promise me you’ll never just disappear on me.”
Cal scanned Gideon’s face. “I promise, Daddy.”
Gideon shook his head. “Leo. Say I promise, Leo.”
Cal cupped his face in his hands, looking deep into his eyes. “I promise, Leo. I’ll never just disappear on you.”
Gideon examined his face, needing to see the truth in Cal’s words. Finally, Gideon nodded, pressing his forehead to Cal’s. “I’m sorry if I scared you.”
Cal scoffed, a smile spreading across his face. “Are you kidding? That was the single hottest thing we’ve ever done.”
Gideon smiled back, pressing a soft kiss to Cal’s lips. “You’re ridiculous.”
“But you love me,” Cal said, sounding more hopeful than convinced.
“I do. I love you…so much,” Gideon promised.
He would find a way to fix Cal’s problems. All of them. And then Gideon was going to find a way for them to build a life together. No matter what.
Gideon knew little about Douglas Shea. In fact, he had yet to see the proctor in the five weeks he’d been interim headmaster. He found that suspect. How did a thirty-year-old MIT grad end up as a school proctor, who never seemed to actually be at school, and, more importantly, why did Roosevelt pay upper six-figures to a college-prep company called Tri-State to proctor exams and tutor students at an elite prep school? Nothing about Shea or his job at Roosevelt made sense.
When Gideon had attempted to locate Douglas Shea on campus that morning to finally get answers to his many questions, a smug Abernathy had told Gideon that Shea was out of town on vacation. Gideon had no time or patience for Abernathy. He was sure she was behind all of this mayhem. He’d immediately gone to his office and pulled up Shea’s employee record, jotting down his address, before telling Abernathy he’d be out the rest of the day. Her mutinous glare was almost enough to lighten up his mood. Almost.
He texted Cal to let him know he had left campus and to take an Uber home at lunch. He wanted to be there since it was, technically, Cal’s last day of school, but if Gideon couldn’t get a confession and retraction out of Shea, Cal wouldn’t get to live the life he’d dreamed of since he was little—a chance to go to the same school as his mother. Gideon needed to be able to give that to him. Even if that meant Cal ended up miles away from him. An icy fear gripped him as the image of Cal plummeting off the building flooded his mind.
Gideon shook the thought away. He couldn’t think about that. Not now. He couldn’t think about how it felt like Cal had brought him back from the dead, how they fit together like puzzle pieces, how Cal had taken to submission so beautifully and it had made him stronger. Gideon never felt more himself than when he was with Callum. He loved waking up to him in the morning and having him fall asleep in his arms at night. He didn’t want to lose any of that, but he wasn’t selfish enough to hold Cal hostage.
Shea’s house was a large craftsman style home tucked away in a quiet suburb just outside of town. Gideon supposed Shea could come from money, perhaps inheriting the million dollar home and the cash needed to acquire the two matching Land Rover SUVs parked in the circular drive, but somehow, Gideon doubted it. He took a deep breath before unfolding himself from the car, prepared to do whatever it took to force Douglas Shea to tell the truth, even if that meant choking it out of him.
Gideon forced himself to maintain an outward semblance of calm as he rang the doorbell and waited. His eyes went wide as a pretty young brunette answered the door with a cherubic pink-cheeked baby on her hip. She gave a confused smile when she saw him. “Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Douglas.”
She glanced back over her shoulder before asking, “May I tell him who’s here?”
“Leopold Gideon. His boss.”
The girl seemed to collapse as if she’d been expecting hired killers and not her husband’s employer. “Oh, my goodness. I’m so sorry. Come on in. I didn’t think anybody from Tri-State would make a house call.”
Gideon’s face was a blank mask but his thoughts were churning. What had Shea’s wife so spooked about a company that specialized in college prep?
“Dougie, a Mr. Gideon’s here from the company,” she called, waving Gideon inside. “You can just go right on through. He’s out back having lunch on the patio. The kids are playing in the pool.”
Gideon made it to the patio just as Doug was attempting to frantically extricate himself from his chair. Gideon wasn’t sure exactly what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t the tall, lanky man with a weak chin, freckles, and carrot red hair. His eyes were a pale gray that seemed almost white in the sea of red. The man’s eyes were watery and bloodshot. Gideon’s gaze dropped to the highball glass sitting next to the man’s untouched sandwich.
Gideon glanced at the three children laughing and screaming in the pool, each of them as pale and ginger as their father. They paid neither men any attention as they chased each other before crashing into the deep end. The man clearly had a lot to lose. Gideon could use that to his advantage.
“Hello, Douglas. I’m not sure we’ve met. I’m Gideon. I think we need to talk.”
Doug’s head swung from his wife in the doorway to his children in the pool. “Can-Can we talk in my office?”
Gideon shrugged, a menacing smile on his face. “We can talk anywhere you like.”
“Watch the kids, Geneva,” Doug barked as he edged past his wife back into the big house with its spacious floor plan.
Once they’d crossed the house to the man’s office, Doug plopped into a large leather office chair behind his desk, nervously gesturing for Gideon to have a seat on the other side. He couldn’t help but notice how the man was already sweating. “You know, Doug. If you’re going to make your living doing something highly illegal, you should really learn to control your flop sweat. It’s a dead giveaway.”
“What?” Doug as
ked, face falling, as he wiped at his brow with the back of his palm.
“Look, I admire the hustle. I know how Roosevelt parents are, throwing money at you to get their spoiled, stupid brats into the best schools. I’m an alumnus myself. I remember all too well how the game is played. Here’s what I don’t understand. How did they get you to lie about Callum Whyte?”
“What?” Doug asked again, face turning an unflattering shade of pink.
“You heard me. I know Callum Whyte didn’t pay you to take his SATs, so I’m assuming somebody paid you to say that he did. I want to know who and I want to know why. Oh, and I want a written retraction that states you made the whole thing up.”
“I-You know I can’t do that,” he whispered.
“I know everything,” Gideon bluffed. “I know about the payments, about Tri-State…about how you afford a million dollar home and two fancy cars with all those kids you have playing out in your heated pool. It would be a shame if we were to get the cops involved.”
Doug frowned, and Gideon worried a bit for the man’s health as sweat dripped from his face to his desk. “Is… Is this a trick? A test? Are you trying to see if I’ll stay loyal?” he asked.
Well, that was an interesting question. “Loyal to whom, Doug?”
Douglas stared down at the plant on his desk for a full minute before leaning towards it. “Look, I said I would help you guys, but I didn’t sign on to be harassed. You hear me? I’m doing everything you wanted me to. What are you trying to prove?”
Had the man finally snapped? “Are you talking to your ficus, Doug? Because if you’re trying to convince me you’re crazy, we’re a bit past that point. Like I said, I don’t want to get the cops involved, but I will.”
“The cops are already involved, you moron. You’re going to fuck up everything,” Doug hissed.
Gideon processed that bit of information. The cops were already involved. Doug was talking to a houseplant. Shit. The place was bugged. But by who? “You should probably start talking to me…quickly.”
Once more, Doug looked to his ficus. “Help,” he whimpered.
A full thirty seconds ticked by with the man staring at his plant, like he expected it to morph into something that might help extricate him from the situation. A cell phone chirped from somewhere on Doug’s person, and he slipped it from his pocket, answering it with shaky hands.
“Hello,” he said timidly. “Yes. But I—How was I supposed to know that? No—That’s not fair. Yes. Yes, I’ll tell him.”
He disconnected, setting the phone down. He didn’t say a word as he scribbled something on a notepad and handed it to Gideon. “You need to go here. They’ll find you,” Doug said, sounding like Gideon had stumbled into a spy movie. Once more, he had to shove back images from his nightmare.
“What is this?” Gideon asked, looking at an address.
“Look, I can’t say anything else. They’ll explain everything. Just, please go. Go now, before my wife starts asking questions.”
Gideon reluctantly left, plugging the address into his GPS only to find himself parked in front of a diner in a sketchy part of town twenty minutes later. He exited, activating his alarm and saying goodbye to his brand new low profile tires, which likely wouldn’t be there when he returned.
Once inside, the smell of bacon and grease hit him with the force of a sledgehammer as he searched the room. It didn’t take long to suss out who exactly had invited him to the meeting. Two middle-aged men in dark colored suits and ties sat in a back corner of what Gideon assumed was supposed to be a fifties style diner. The two men blended in with the patrons about as well as Gideon did. The short pudgy one with the receding hairline waved him over like they knew exactly who he was. Maybe they did.
Gideon made his way to the back booth and sat across from the two men, waving off a frazzled waitress when she asked if he wanted anything to drink. The taller, better looking man with deep brown skin, a bald head, and a full beard that couldn’t possibly be regulation was the one who spoke first.
“Mr. Gideon, I really wish you’d have stayed out of this.”
“Are you Feds or locals?” Gideon asked, ignoring the man’s useless comment.
The pudgier one sighed. “I’m Langston. That’s Simmons. We’re FBI, and you’ve just stumbled into the middle of a huge operation.”
Gideon folded his hands in front of him. “Surrounding what’s going on at Roosevelt.” It wasn’t a question.
Langston scoffed. “This goes way beyond Roosevelt. This involves Radcliffe, Sutton, Great Falls, and several universities and colleges, including your own. Or maybe you already know that?”
Gideon tried to make the pieces fit together, but he just didn’t have enough information. “What’s happening here, gentlemen?”
Simmons took a sip of his coffee. “You tell us. What do you know about Tri-State?”
“I don’t know anything about it except Roosevelt seems to be paying them a ridiculous sum of money. I figured I could bluff my way into finding out why and use that to get Shea to retract some allegations he made against one of my students.”
“Callum Whyte?” Simmons asked with a smirk.
“Yes. How did you know that?” Gideon asked, the hairs on the back of his neck standing at attention.
Langston laughed before wiping a hand over his face, like he couldn’t believe his life had come to this. “God knows we wish we didn’t. I don’t know how to tell you this, but your office has been bugged for the past six months, which means you’ve made several federal agents very uncomfortable.”
Gideon’s heart pounded in his chest, and for the first time in a long time, his palms grew sweaty. “My…office at the school…” He trailed off as every filthy thing he’d done to Callum in that office came back to haunt him in a rush that made him dizzy.
“Relax, Mr. Gideon. Your…boyfriend?...is well above the age of consent, and we know he blackmailed you…or tried anyway. We truly have much bigger fish to fry. The real headmaster of Roosevelt is in this up to his eyeballs, and given how close he is with your mentor from the college, we thought you might be as well. But, from what we can tell, you seem to be uninvolved.”
Gideon shook his head. “Uninvolved in what? What’s happening here?”
The two agents looked at each other, and Gideon had the urge to knock their heads together. He just wanted some answers.
“What we’re going to tell you stays between us. You can’t tell anybody and that includes your co-ed boy toy,” Simmons said, pointing a pudgy finger in his direction.
“Alright,” Gideon agreed. Whatever it took to get answers.
Langston leaned back in his seat. “For the last several months, we’ve been tracking some high level targets who are participating in a scheme to place children of wealthy and influential parents into ivy league colleges.”
“Haven’t rich people been doing that for years?” Gideon quipped.
“This goes beyond donating a library. Parents are paying upwards of fifty to seventy-five thousand dollars to cheat the system. They’re paying to have their children declared special needs in order to allow these children to cheat the system. These proctors take tests for these children, convince teachers to change grades, and, in many cases, simply take their SATs and ACTs for them.”
“That would explain the abnormally high number of students with independent learning plans at Roosevelt,” Gideon said.
“So, you’ve noticed it as well?” Simmons asked.
Gideon shook his head. “I had not. At least, not until yesterday. My…co-ed boy toy…as you called him, noted it when he realized the school had just screwed him out of the admission and full-ride scholarship to Harvard he’d very much earned fair and square.”
“I understand you’re upset about Mr. Whyte, but this is much bigger than just one rich kid missing out on Harvard,” Langston said. “You have to see that.”
“What I see is that you have an operation you’d like to keep under wraps, and I have a boy who i
s at home heartbroken after having his future ripped away from him for being the only ‘rich kid’ who didn’t buy his grades.”
Simmons pointed a finger at him again. “Look, if you keep pushing this, you’re going to blow our entire operation.”
“What I want is very simple. Callum gets his Harvard admissions back and his full-ride scholarship with a written apology and it never goes further than this. Just get Shea to recant his statement and admit that he lied and I’ll pretend I don’t know anything at all.”
“We can’t risk an investigation this far-reaching over one kid’s future. That’s ludicrous,” Simmons said.
Gideon stared at both men for a long moment, an idea forming. “How about a little quid pro quo then? What if I can get you the records showing the number of children with independent learning plans and how many of them went on to ivy league schools as well as a confession from not only a member of Roosevelt’s board but, potentially, the dean of my college? Would that be worth one kid’s future?”
“Do you really think you can make that happen?” Langston asked, practically salivating.
Gideon nodded. “I do. But I’m going to need Cal’s admission and scholarship reinstated now. I’ll sign whatever paperwork you need me to sign to make that happen, confidential informant, covert op guy, whatever you need. Just fix what they did to Callum.”
“You’re willing to lose your job as a tenured professor at one of the most exclusive private colleges in the country over this kid?” Simmons asked, hooking an eyebrow.