Daddy's Forbidden Room
Kevin sat back on his heels but gagged as soon as he took a deep breath and the air filled with particles of death reached deep inside him. It squeezed his lungs and wouldn’t let go, so for a while, he just sat there, crying, desperate for the lost sense of safety.
Kevin didn’t know how much time had passed before he got up, but his knees were weak as marshmallows and he had to hold on to the wall in order to keep standing. No matter how many times he pinched himself, he had to face the reality that this wasn’t a nightmare.
Would Sandro really murder him like Roberto had said? Kevin wanted to run upstairs, curl up on the sofa, and pretend none of this ever happened, but that wasn’t a possibility anymore.
He’d killed a man, and his beloved Sandro had a murder room right under their love nest.
Kevin walked past Roberto’s corpse and hesitated once more, but eventually entered the room disturbed by the fight that had left both men incapacitated. Blood was everywhere, but most of it had pooled on the floor and was now darkening. More tools revealed themselves to Kevin as he stood by the chair and looked around. One of the leather straps on the armrest had been ripped off, so maybe Roberto had been tied down and managed to get away.
A syringe lay on the tiles close by. The tranquilizer? But why would Sandro even have enemies who carried this kind of stuff on them?
Kevin hugged himself and once more faced the sharp implements on the walls, devastated when he realized that he didn’t know his Daddy at all.
The man who’d kissed him, stroked his hair, and brought him gourmet apple toffee popcorn from his recent trip to New York City wasn’t at all who Kevin thought he was. Kevin had never asked too many questions, never pried, instead focusing on the time they spent together, since Sandro usually steered the conversation that way.
In Kevin’s wildest, darkest nightmares, he’d imagined that Sandro was vague about his trips because he actually had a family, a wife somewhere, and kept Kevin as a little boy toy on the side.
But this?
Kevin stared at several hooks attached to the ceiling of this butcher’s office, suspecting what their purpose was. And yet he hadn’t let Roberto attack Sandro on his dying breath and instead finished the job Sandro had started.
Kevin walked out and grabbed Sandro under the arms with new determination. If Sandro had been right about the effects of the tranquilizer, Kevin had a few hours to think things through, but despite his fear and disappointment, he couldn’t leave Daddy down here, asleep next to a dead man.
Chapter 11
Dragging Sandro all the way to the guest room in the first floor was no easy feat. Not just because of the physical effort Kevin needed to put in. That was a welcome distraction from the mental exhaustion assaulting him at every step. He cried several times before he even managed to climb the stairs, still in shock over what he’d discovered and what he'd done.
Getting Sandro out of that godforsaken corridor was one thing, but the bed in the guest room proved so high, he ended up creating a nest of comforters and pillows on the floor. He took great care positioning Sandro comfortably, but his mind still thudded with desperation, so he brought some rope that they’d played around with for bondage, tied Sandro’s hands and attached the makeshift cuffs to the footboard of the bed.
Kevin hated fearing the man he loved, but Roberto lay dead in the guts of the house, and there was no unseeing what hid behind the door Kevin had never been meant to open. For so many months Kevin had dreamed of finding out what Sandro was hiding from him, but now that he knew it all, he wished for ignorance, wished to wipe his mind clean and never have to remember the implements of torture that belonged to the man who treated him with such tenderness.
He tried not to wallow in self-pity but had far too much time on his hands to avoid it. He’d been an idiot, a stupid little kid who believed in things far too good to be true. Now he was also an accomplice to murder. No matter how much he’d hated Roberto, he had never even fantasized about putting an end to his life. Punching him, maybe, or kicking him in the nuts—yes, many times—but not murder, not guts spilling over the floor from an open stomach.
He threw up from the nerves twice, then washed his teeth, taken a shower, and changed out of his sweaty, bloodstained clothes. He checked on Sandro often, but his Daddy slept like a log, oblivious to the turmoil in Kevin’s head. Sandro was the eye of the storm, but Kevin was on the outside, thrashing in the unforgiving rain, and he couldn’t find safety no matter how much he wanted to untie Sandro, lay down next to him, and hug him.