“You have become vital in my life. Nothing changes, Ezra.”
His throat bobs, and his bottom lip trembles. “I wasn’t supposed to get out. He wasn’t ever going to let me go.”
My jaw clenches hard enough to ache down through my neck, but I wait for him to continue. “He… I… I was his pet, Cain. He kept melocked up in his basement. If I was good… if I didn’t fight back, he… he let me wander in that space. But if I wasn’t good, if my panic took over, sometimes he’d chain me up.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.” My hands slid down to his hip bones, fingertips pressing in tight to hold him upright. Anger rears up inside of me, aching to rip something apart.
Ezra shudders before he forces a deep breath. I fight the urge to crush him against me, knowing he needs to get all of this out.
“Sometimes he’d take my clothes. Make me… eat without my hands. Sometimes, he convinced me that I deserved to be there.” He squeezes his eyes shut. “Sometimes the memories get a bit weird and I question what was real. It was sowrong, Cain. I know that now. So very evil.”
“Did he…” I can’t finish the question. I don’t really want to know the answer. But Ezra shouldn’t have to carry the burden of his horrors alone.
Ezra’s silence is enough of an admission. He starts to pick at his chipped fingernails. I capture his hands in mine to stop him.
“He came down to fix a broken fixture. He dropped the screwdriver and I just… lurched for it. I stabbed it into his neck. Stole the key for my restraints and never looked back. I should have checked that he was dead.”
Ezra shifts positions, hauling one leg over my lap so he’s straddling me. He rests his forehead on my collarbone, and I stroke a hand along the back of his neck.
“Don’t make me talk about it anymore,” he whispers.
“Ezra,” I say, my voice thick with emotion. “I would never make you do anything you didn’t want to do.”
“Okay.” After a pause, he adds, “I should have shot them all.”
The mercenary in me wants to agree. To drill him for information on this man so we can track him down, and I can rip him into pieces. There’s a solid chance he’s the one who hired Gabriel.
He’s a fucking dead man walking.
Too many unfinished tasks swirl in my head. Discussions I need to have with my teams. With Alaric and Rev and Isaac. But I shove all of that aside for now.
Swallowing, I rest my chin on top of his head. “What do you need from me, beautiful boy?”
“To not feel so pathetic. I fucked up. Everyone’s going to be disappointed in me. They were right there in front of me, and I couldn’t keep my head on straight.”
“Fucking hell. You can’t say shit like that, okay?” I snap back.
Ezra pulls away to meet my eyes, fear swirling in their mesmerizing depths. “I… I’m sorry.”
I groan at my loss of temper and press a kiss to his forehead. “No, it’s just… that kind of talk is like a razor blade to my fucking heart. No one is disappointed in you. Did Forest tell you he puked on his first mission?”
Brows furrowing, he gives a weak nod.
“He probably didn’t tell you that he pissed himself, too. And Rev shot one of his superiors in the ass cheek on his first operation. We’re all human, despite the fact that we try not to act like it, because humanity is messy. You experienced completely valid emotions tonight.”
“Okay.” Ezra deflates against me. “I think I’m hungry. Too much sugar. Rev fed me candy.”
Sighing, I pick him up and carry him to the kitchen island. I set him down in his favorite spot while I retrieve ingredients to make him homemade alfredo.
After dinner, I run a shower for him and help strip him down, my gaze never leaving his, always assessing his reactions. I hate the dark circles under his eyes. The heaviness to his shoulders. I know that defeat. I’ve gone to war against it countless times. The fucking effort it took to get out of bed some days, with the weight of what I’d witnessed, what I’d done, pressing me down into the mattress…
It’s nothing in comparison to what Ezra must have suffered. Treated worse than an animal. Degraded and tortured and forced to submit to a monster of a human being.
When I angle his body toward the shower door, I growl at the sight of the broken skin along his spine. Three quarter-sized wounds along his vertebrae have crusted over with blood.
Invisible hands throttle my insides. I have to step back from him to suck in a big gulp of air so I don’t punch a fist through something.
Once I’m level enough, I strip down, too. I help him into the shower, washing every part of him carefully as he just stands there with his head bowed and eyes closed.
