Adler (The Henchmen MC 14)

And because I understood that, I cooked for him any time he wanted it.

It was then, as I watched him take the plates to the sink to wash them - as was our ritual - I realized I wanted that.

I wanted to be understood.

I wanted him to understand me.

To see the things that made me who I was, that made me act the way I did, that made me fight him so hard, that made it hard to be soft with him outside of sex when I simply didn't have the control to do it.

The fear had subsided while I listened to his story. It wasn't shocking per se. I knew how the world worked. I knew how people were bought and sold into labor, into sex. It was more common than anyone wanted to believe. He'd been alone and vulnerable, had been an easy target for those who meant to take advantage of that fact.

My heart ached for him, for the boy he'd been, for the lack of love he had known, for the hopelessness he must have felt by the time he was sold for the second time. And I felt an odd surge of pride for him when he told me of how he had escaped, how he had gotten free of that, and made a new life for himself.

Sure, that life was full of contract killing.

But I was not one to judge.

"Hey Adler," I called, watching as his head half-turned over his shoulder.

"Yeah?" he asked, his hair down around his shoulders, blocking some of his face from view.

"Come with me," I demanded, voice faint, but steady as I rose to my feet, as I took a few steps in his direction, watching as he rinsed and dried his hands before turning.

"Come where?" he asked, head ducked toward his shoulder, watching me with drawn together brows as I walked the last few steps, my feet feeling oddly weighted as I came to a stop at the door.

"In here," I told him, watching the recognition register.

"Ya sure? I'm not demandin' anything, Lou," he told me, giving me an out I didn't want.

My hand closed around the knob, turning, pushing.

"I'm sure. It's time," I assured him, flicking on the light, moving in and out of the way, leaving space for him to follow me in.

He did, brow raising a bit as he looked around.

At the walls. At the ceiling. At the whiteboards set up on easels. At the surface of my dresser and nightstands that flanked my queen sized bed with the neat gray comforter that I hadn't mussed in as long as I had known Adler, crashing on the couch with him, or over at his apartment.

His gaze finally went to me again, blank for a second before his lips curved up ever-so-slightly.

"Fuck Lou. What kinda serial killer shit is this?" he asked, making a hysterical little laugh burst out of me as my hand raised, raking through my hair, internally admitting that he had described the room perfectly.

Serial killer shit.

That was what it looked like.

Like the house of a serial killer, a madman.

I guess one could call me that.

Especially after all these years.

I had to be mad. At least a little.

Hell, maybe a lot.

It had been such a long time since I had stopped to think about the rationality of it, the sanity of it, that I wasn't even sure anymore.

And, what's more, I wasn't sure I cared that it might be crazy, that it might make me someone worthy of a straitjacket.

My gaze moved around the room, taking in the papers plastered to my walls and ceiling, mugshots, surveillance shots, handwritten notes I had taken, newspaper articles. There were even strings connecting things, color coordinated, so I never got confused.

Though confusion was the least of my worries. I was too obsessed with it to fuck things up, even after all these years.

His hand reached for the stack of pictures on the dresser, flipping a bit carelessly through them. "These crime scene photos?" he asked, but I didn't answer because he already knew. Dead bodies and blood usually spoke for themselves. "What? Ya into solving cold cases or somethin', Detective Lou?"

"In a way. But not really."

"Am I supposed to guess?" he asked, head ducking to the side.

"No," I told him, moving toward the bed, carefully climbing up, patting the space next to me. He came across the floor, slipping into the spot at my side.

I couldn't quite bring myself to look at him, moving down until I was laying flat, staring up at the ceiling above my bed, looking up at their faces staring back at me.

"Where do I start?" I asked, never having given someone my story before, not knowing how to go about doing it.

"Usually best to tell a story from the beginning," he suggested.

The beginning.