What Grows Dies Here

Such a stark turnaround in my beliefs was the thing that shocked me.

“I learned the necessary skills from a branch of government that isn’t supposed to exist,” Karson explained. “One that works domestically, spying on citizens, taking away their rights if the upper echelon decides they’ve committed crimes against their country.”

I blinked. I believed him. It didn’t surprise me one bit that there was a secret government organization that worked in the shadows, did things that only people with tinfoil hats imagined.

I’d been around enough political powers that be to know that there was a whole world behind the curtain.

I was surprised that Karson was telling me all of this, though. I was essentially a stranger. One who wasn’t well known for her secret keeping abilities. Yet he couldn’t know that about me. Because he didn’t know me.

Yet here he was, telling me he used to work for a top-secret government organization that likely tortured and killed Americans.

Karson didn’t strike me as a man who went around telling everyone this little gem buried in his history.

“I did well in school, despite all that shit,” he continued, the low baritone of his voice enchanting.

His eyes had never left mine. Most people didn’t hold eye contact for an extended period of time. Their gaze flickered around the room, back and forward. Prolonged eye contact with someone during even the most banal of conversations was too intimate for most people.

This was not a banal conversation.

I was trapped in Karson’s gaze. In his past. “Got a scholarship to some fancy fuckin’ college.”

He paused to take a sip of wine. I didn’t do the same. I just stared, actually waiting with bated breath for him to continue.

“I didn’t go,” he said after swallowing. “Knew I wouldn’t fit in there. Knew, even then, that I wasn’t cut out to be put on an assembly line and cut into whatever shape those places turn out. So I enlisted. Wasn’t the only kid from my hometown that did. It was the only way out for most people born poor, destined to continue whatever fucked-up lifestyle they were born into. Most of us went in because we wanted to hurt. Kill. Somewhere where that was a job instead of a crime. Of course, we only told each other that. It’s not something to be proud of.”

There was no shame in his voice now. Just honesty. Brutal, stripped-down honesty. It should’ve scared me, him admitting he wanted to kill someone.

It didn’t.

The time for fear had come and gone. I was hungry, ravenous for more of him.

“Turned out I was good at it,” he told me, eyes intent on me, searching for some kind of reaction. “Killing. Turns out I liked it. My superiors took notice. Tested me. Though I didn’t know that’s what they were doing at the time. I passed. With flying colors. A test most men fail. A test most men should fail. But I didn’t. So they offered me a job. One that meant I had to cut all ties with the person I was before. Told me I couldn’t contact anyone I loved.” He scoffed. “It wasn’t a great sacrifice. It actually felt like a fuckin’ gift from God, shedding away everything I was born into and being able to create my own version of myself.”

With a shaking hand, I took a sip of my wine, not tasting any of it. All I could taste was Karson’s words. They were sweet, even though they shouldn’t be.

“It didn’t bother me.” He trailed a finger down my arm almost lazily. “For years, it didn’t bother me. I fuckin’ loved it, in fact. Then I decided I didn’t. Nothin’ drastic happened. They didn’t ask me to do anything that was beyond my morals. I’d done everything and anything. One day, I decided I didn’t want to be taking orders from some fucker wearing a suit, sitting in the shadows, who’d never had blood on his hands in his life. Figured out I was a puppet, and that eventually they’d kill me. When I outgrew my usefulness. Didn’t quite like the thought of being a puppet. So I left.”

I took in his relaxed demeanor. “Now, I’m no expert on secret government operations, but I have a sneaking suspicion that you don’t get a cake and a gold watch when you announce your retirement.” My voice was croaky, rough.

Karson smiled at me. It warmed me to my very soul. Lit me up from the inside out, like he hadn’t just told me he’d tortured and killed people for years.

“No,” he replied. “It’s not a job you leave. It’s one you disappear from. One way or another. I was good at making people disappear, so I did that. Drifted around for a few years, found Jay. And the rest, as they say, is history.”

It took me a second to process all the information that he’d just offered me so freely. All of his history. He didn’t gloss over it, didn’t try to make it more palatable for me. And I’d devoured it.

“That satisfy you as a villain origin story?” he smirked.

I nodded once, draining my drink and placing it on the coffee table with a clang. “Yes. It more than satisfies me. Now we’re going to go to my bedroom, and you’re going to satisfy me in a whole other way.”

Karson’s stare deepened, and I silently prayed that I wouldn’t stain the couch with my arousal. I watched his throat move as he drained his remaining wine, setting his glass down beside mine.

“As you wish,” he murmured.

Then he picked me up and threw me over his shoulder, hand coming down on my ass.

I screamed in delight and desire.

Then, he took us to my bedroom. Where he satisfied me. Thoroughly.