Fix It Up (Torus Intercession 3)

“My father slapped me around a bit as soon as Evans showed him the tape.”

Of course he had.

“Why did you care about the video of you being hurt by those guys getting out?”

“Oh, I didn’t, just the one of me having sex. Evans thought I cared, made a big deal about me looking weak, calling me a pussy, and I never corrected him because, what was the point? He thought it mattered to me that I was crying and begging for them to stop, but I had nothing to be embarrassed about. There were three of them, all full-grown men, and I was just a kid.”

Yes, he had been. Just a slight, gangly, sixteen-year-old boy being knocked around by three men who had height and muscles and meanness on him.

Nick cared only about the boys he’d had sex with. He wanted that video to protect them, just as he wanted the videos of his father hurting the horses to protect the animals. How he looked when he had his arm broken was of no importance to him.

“Evans never understood that the video of me getting the shit kicked out of me would play perfectly well in the media,” he quipped. “Everyone would feel so fuckin’ sorry for me. I mean, imagine the outpouring of sympathy for poor Nick Madison. No wonder I’m tortured, right? My father didn’t care if those guys killed me or not. I could milk that shit for years of endorsements.”

But I already knew he wouldn’t have. If that video had ever found its way into his possession, he would have destroyed it in a heartbeat. The bravado he was showing me at the moment was easy to see through.

“Did you watch them beat me up?”

“Only to the point where your father left and then again, briefly, when they grabbed your arm before they broke it. I couldn’t listen to the screaming.”

His eyes filled then, and he glanced away.

We were quiet, and my mother rose from her seat, picked up the guitar, and carried it to the open case on the kitchen table. When she returned, she took a seat beside Nick, bringing a box of tissue with her.

“You know,” my mother said gently, “you’re one of the bravest people I’ve ever met.”

He turned to look at her.

“I hear what you’re trying to do, push away your own pain, both the physical and emotional, as inconsequential, but, darling, it’s anything but.”

He was working very hard not to fall apart. I could see the strain on him.

“You’ve been so strong,” she said, her voice breaking. “Your mother would be so proud.”

“No,” he countered. “I lost myself and––”

“You lived,” she corrected him implacably, “and you triumphed. You had the resilience to get out in the first place, and then beat your vices.”

His gaze remained locked on her.

“How glorious you are.”

Her words, the strength in them, the certainty, girded him, and after several minutes, he wiped his tears away and returned his focus to me.

“Did you see the horse video?”

I shook my head.

“What if my father talks and tells people about me fucking those guys?”

“He won’t. He’ll be under a gag order, but beyond that, I suspect his lawyers are going to advise him to plead no contest in court, hoping they can get the charges against him reduced. He’s going to cooperate and be on his best behavior to make sure of that outcome, which means shutting his mouth and playing the game.”

“It’s only my word against his.”

“No, honey,” I said, my voice going out on me, ending in a whisper. “There’s a video. The authorities can see what he let happen to you. He says why he not only allowed it but ordered it to happen. He talks about seeing the footage of you having sex and wanting to teach you a lesson.”

“That’s right,” he concurred with a deep sigh. “It was so long ago, and I’ve worked so hard to forget it that I realize sometimes that pieces of it are actually gone from my memory.”

“Just so you know,” I stated, reaching for him but stopping myself before my hand grazed him, “two of the men who beat you are dead, the third is in prison for life for killing another man before what happened with you.”

“Dead?”

“Yes.”

“Two of them?”

“Yes.”

“And the last is in prison?”

“He’ll be charged with your assault as well, and the gag order will include him.”

He got up then, brushing by me, and walked to the kitchen table where the guitar was lying in the case. Tenderly, he traced the neck, staring at it like it held all the secrets of the universe before he walked back, leaning on the wingback chair across from where he’d been sitting moments ago.

“Will they take all the horses away from my father?”

“Your father’s going to jail,” I told him. “That’s a fact. I would think that the land and everything on it will be sold to pay off whoever’s gonna sue him. You might be able to get the horses at auction if that’s what you want. I’m sure you can have your lawyer make a deal to purchase them and have them taken to your sanctuary. I don’t know what can be done about the land, your sisters probably have some say in that, but you could talk to your lawyer. If you can buy it, then the house and stables can be bulldozed to the ground.”