Antidote (Don't) (13 page)

“Smart-mouth fuck.” Cutter slapped at Jack’s cheek, but Jack only grinned a little more. It won him a harder slap. “What you got for me now, boy?”

Jack nipped at Cutter’s jaw, feeding it.

Another slap, this last one was hard enough to snap Jack’s head to the side and leave a stinging redness to his cheek. “Oooh,” groaned Cutter, “like it, don’t you, boy?” His hand crushed between Jack’s thighs, making him groan. “Yeah, like it rough alright, don’t you, Jack?”

Even his name hadn’t been cut from public viewing.

Shifting back, Cutter grabbed Jack’s ankles, then pressed them together before forcing him to bend at the knees. Feet now flat against Cutter’s chest as though he wanted Jack to push him away, he grabbed Jack’s wrists and locked them behind Jack’s knees with a huge hand. “Got something to fuck that mouth out of you, boy.”

Cutter leaned all of his weight over Jack, trapping Jack’s hands with the pressure he put on Jack’s legs, a reverse of the position that Gray had used when he’d bound him on the floor, only with Cutter using his whole body to swamp Jack and keep him still. Two more slaps cut his lip, to which Cutter wiped at Jack’s mouth, then forced his thumb into Jack’s mouth to take the taste of blood; then Cutter rubbed his dick against Jack’s ass and the cameraman made damn sure he focused in on exactly where Cutter was going to claim, pre-come crying a line of desperation over the tanned smoothness of Jack’s cheek. “C’mon, tough kid. C
ry for me
. Fucking c’mon.”

A wide-angle view saw one hard fuck into Jack that only had Jack arching his back, crying out, then... then he was writhing beneath Cutter, calling him out with each hard fuck up him, biting at Cutter’s lip, his jaw, his—

Every ounce of fire there, only now with Cutter.

Unable to watch anymore, I turned away and headed back to Jack. He wasn’t in Gray’s study, and Ed looked up from tidying up the mess and shifted his head out towards the conservatory. “There,” he said quietly. By now, Gray was with me, and I followed him towards the patio doors and saw Jack sitting with his back to us, on top of the white stairs outside, staring past the pool, the summerhouses, off into the trees opposite.

Gray had held the door for me, and I went and stood a few stairs down from Jack. I was taken back to the day when Gray had whipped him in front of the Masters, to when he’d taken a beating for me. Afterwards, he’d looked so ghost-like, his face ashen, hurt, and he’d had this damn silence that had driven me to dark acts. I went to call his name, break the silence, but someone beat me to it.

“Jack.”

I glanced up to see a woman standing over by Ed. The likeness was striking; there was no mistaking who this woman was. Dark hair, tanned, tall, yet slim, the suit she wore tailoring her body well. Strikingly handsome came to mind with both of them but for different reasons. “Elena Fortello,” said Ed, as Gray straightened. Elena must have taken her maiden name after the divorce. “She followed Jack in. I thought—”

Gray nodded, and something seemed to stir Jack as he looked back and groaned. “Mom, has Dad seen that too? Does he know?”

Elena took a few steps forward, stopped, and looked torn with not knowing what to do. “No. I thought....” She looked at Gray, me. “I thought—”

“Don’t tell him.” Jack frowned. “Please, Mom. Don’t tell him, ’kay?”

Christ. I went and knelt by him. “Jack.” He needed to hear it was okay, only I fell quiet. How he felt about the Internet, about being naked and there for thousands to see, this was one of his worst fears. I’d heard his comments over the webcam when the cameras had been installed at mine. It had messed with his head back then, now this just finished the job.

“You received a website address too?” Gray was talking to Elena.

“On a music CD this afternoon that Gregory ordered for me. It came in the second post, but Jack—” She stopped herself, her gaze flitting to Jack.

“But Jack, what?” said Gray.

“He wrecked the computer in the office. I—”

Gray’s jaw tensed. “Do you have the CD?”

“Of course.”

“Why?”

We all looked at Jack when he spoke.

“Why do you need to see any more of that?” he said as anger crept into his eyes.

I stroked at his cheek but he wasn’t quite with me when he looked back. “Jack, he needs to trace the source, to try and find out who sent it, he needs to see how many—”

“There’s more? Not just the one in the woods?”

“You saw one of you in the woods?” said Gray.

“You didn’t?” A glance back, Jack then buried his head in the arms across his knees. “Fuck. Oh fuck—”

“Jack.” Elena took a few tentative steps closer, but seemed to fall to the wayside.

“I’m going to need the packaging, if you please,” Gray said to her. “All of these have come inside ordered packages; they’ve been intercepted at some stage. I’ll need to run checks on postal areas and prints.” A look down at Jack, he came over and crouched by us. “Have you received anything, Jack?” he said quietly.

Jack shook his head, face still buried, hidden. Gray stroked at his head and the contact made Jack look up, but it was directly into the trees, away from everyone.

“I told you Mark’s footage had been destroyed, and I’m sorry. In all honesty, we simply hadn’t been able to trace it,” said Gray, which wasn’t entirely accurate. It wasn’t just Gray who had lied to Jack; I had too. “I—” started Gray, but Jack shook his head.

“It’s all right.” He gave a sniff, then wiped at his nose. “I’m not seventeen, Gray. I knew there was a possibility something would turn up.” He gave a cold snort. “I knew you both were talking bullshit back then. I just didn’t...” he shrugged. “I’ve just had enough of this bollocks and....” He looked at Elena. “Not her, not them, not home for Godssake.”

Gray leant forward and kissed Jack on the head. “I’ll sort it.” As he pulled back, I glanced at Elena. Maybe Gray had forgotten himself for a moment, maybe he was past caring, but that was a pure and open display of feeling on his part. Jack hadn’t told his parents about Gray yet, Gray preferred his privacy. And Jack? For all the chaos he seemed to bring to the table, he tried to keep waters as calm as possible for those he kept close.

Jack offered a short, sharp laugh. “Don’t you ever get sick of sorting my shit?”

Gray pulled him in close. “No.” He let go, his gaze a little too deep into Jack’s, like he knew what he was going to say now would tear him up. “Jack. I’ve got to get in touch with a friend, and then a colleague who deals with child protection over the Internet—”

“What?” said Jack, sharply. “Why the hell would—?”

“That link I’ve just seen, there’s two videos of you on there. In the second one,” Gray looked at me, “you were barely seventeen.”

“So? Sixteen’s this country’s green-light fucking limit,” he snarled. “And I fucking loved that shit, right?”

“But it’s been posted on the internet with an international market whose minimum age limit for this material is eighteen years.”

Jack groaned heavily.

“That makes it an illegal upload,” Gray said quietly. “I can get the sites shut down almost immediately via Child Protection and CEOP, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, but I also need to talk to a friend about finding the location of the uploader, first.”

“Mark did it,” snapped Jack, forcing Gray to ease back.

“The date of the upload was after Mark had died and mail has been intercepted since then,” said Gray.

That earned a second glance from me. I hadn’t even paid attention to those details. Even if Mark had uploaded them himself, it still meant someone else was playing head games now. Mark was dead. Like Jack needed that shit; like we all needed this shit now.

Gray let his hand find Jack’s neck. “I need to know you’re okay with me doing this. You’ll have to talk to no one but me, if that makes it easier, but I need to trace that link and the people in it.”

Jack looked away, his lips thinning.

“There are few people I trust when it comes to these issues, Jack, barely any when it comes to you,” said Gray. “We’ll ensure no one else sees this footage that doesn’t need to, but that means finding out how many sites these videos have been uploaded to, and how many videos there are.”

Jack stiffened slightly. “Can they trace where the upload came from?”

Gray sighed heavily. “Most of these kinds of uploads are done from a public source, like library computers. But sometimes a basic location is all we need to trigger other leads.”

“The site wasn’t British,” I said quietly and Gray nodded at me.

“American.”

“But the upload could come from anywhere?” I added.

Gray confirmed that with a nod as he stood. “I need to get Child Protection and CEOP in on this and make a few calls, track the IP address of the uploader.” He mouthed a
look after him
towards me. I gave Gray a nod and watched him head back up the steps, phone in hand. He went over to Elena and they seemed to watch each other for a moment before Gray gently took her arm and led her back into the mansion, no doubt needing information on the how, why, and where behind her CD.

Looking down at Jack, I sat next to him on the step, eventually following his gaze into the trees. After a moment, I nudged his shoulder with mine. “Love the bones off you, martial arts guy.” Jack looked at me. His hands were crossed over his knees, close enough for me to reach up and brush his fingers with mine. “We both do,” I said quietly.

Jack glanced down, avoiding my gaze, but his fingers caught mine on a second swipe, and he held on to them. “Don’t know the fuck why, at times.”

I pulled free of his hand, gripped under his jaw, and pulled him in for a hard kiss, startling him a touch. “Then you’re a fucking idiot, Harrison.”

He sighed and rested his head against mine. “Didn’t want you to see that,” he said quietly, and then he brushed his lips against mine. The kiss heated up, Jack giving everything—maybe needing everything back in return, needing to know everything was okay.

I let him know it was, biting at his lip, diving back in with clashes of tongue. Just a kid. He’d just been one fucked-up and complicated kid back then, and I growled against his need to feel that everything was okay.

He pushed me down, my back now against the steps, and brought his body on top of mine. “Love the bones off you, Richards,” he breathed in between tonguing me deep. “Don’t ever forget that, okay? Please. No matter what you might see.” Jack let out a sigh, but it sounded unsteady as he nuzzled into the curve of my neck, now letting his hands trace my arms, then sneak around to cuddle me tightly. “Can’t have my old man seeing that, Jan...” he whispered. “It’s bad enough with you, Gray... my mother. But my old man?”

He seemed to grip on a little tighter, and I returned it, adding a gentle kiss to the side of his head. “He won’t, Jack. Gray will make sure he won’t.”

I felt him nod, and then he pulled away, gripping my arms and pulling me up with him, only to pull me close again. After a moment of just holding on, he went to start toward the manor but paused, looking a little unsure, looking as though he was trying to listen out for voices and hear what was being said. How much of his youth had been spent like that? Listening to whispered voices? Taking his wrist, I tugged him forward, and we headed on into the house to see Gray come off the phone. He looked at me as Jack went over to Elena.

He spoke something, some whispered Italian that, from the drop of shoulders and inability to look at her, spoke a thousand apologies. Fantasies were now given a firm reality check seeing it. Elena pulled him into a cuddle. “Don’t be stupid, luv. You’ve got nothing to apologise for.” She pulled away to hold Jack at arm’s length. Giving him a kiss, she pushed away and went over to Gray. “I don’t know how or why Jack came to you, I don’t really care. But you look after him now. You know where I am if you need me.” She held out a hand, which Gray looked down at. “Take care of him, Mr. Raoul,” she said as he shook it. “You find who’s sent these and you make them stop.” Elena glanced back at Jack, at me. “I’ll make sure Greg hasn’t received anything like this. I’ll check the post again and our computer system.”

Jack seemed to tense.

“Discreetly,” she said back to him with a smile. “You...” She frowned. “You just keep safe, honey. This...” Elena swept a hand towards what Gray held. “It means nothing. It changes nothing.”

Jack looked away. He seemed unable to speak and I went over to him, then thought
fuck it
and pulled him in for a cuddle.

Elena nodded, perhaps content in the knowledge Jack would be all right. We’d all be all right. As she left, Gray’s phone interrupted us and I glanced over to see his frown as he listened, not even acknowledging the caller by name. After only a few moments, he put down the phone and came over.

“Pack enough for a week, Jack, you’re having a break.”

“What?” Jack was already shaking his head, looking at me.

“Don’t piss me about. Jan’s coming too.”

“I am?”

“You are,” said Gray and I scratched at my head.

“Gray, I’m in the middle of a week’s holiday from work, and I was hoping to book Christmas off too. They won’t allow—”

“It’s already sorted. Get your passport.”

I stared at him. “What do you mean sorted? You’ve been in here for twenty minutes.”

“It’s sorted,” said Gray, a little harder.

“Gray, I have the garage to look after too,” said Jack, adding his own protests, “I can’t drop everything.”

“I’ve arranged for one of the MC’s top mechanics to take over with the aid of Steve. And Jan—” I didn’t like being Gray’s focus, or the half-smile he offered. “You’re under investigation by MI5.”

“I’m
what
?”

“Helping.” He was actually smiling. “I meant you’re helping MI5 with their enquiries.”

“Tell me,” life just drained through my feet into a puddle on the floor, “please tell me you didn’t say anything like that to my boss? That’s my accounting career up the chute.”

Gray’s smile was a little wicked, but damn Jack, it infected him, and that was damn good to see.

“Consulting,” Gray added finally. “You’re consulting on an overseas account that you’ve highlighted as a concern to G-Branch counter-terrorism due to the substantial amounts of money you’ve witnessed changing hands on paper. You will be unavailable for a week starting tomorrow, and, of course, the trip is fully funded by MI5.”