Six months ago

Ken was having another lavish party. This time, they were in a hotel. A whole conference room normally used for weddings and conferences had been rented out. There were cocktail tables and cocktail dresses. A string quartet sawed away in one corner, and chandeliers twinkled overhead. A few elegantly dressed Christmas trees were scattered about.

“You look nice tonight, sweetheart,” Ken whispered against the column of Theo’s throat. They were matching. Ken wore a crimson silk tie, the same color as Theo’s skin-tight slacks. The waistband sat low on his lips, showing off the tiger that curled around his side and growled just above his navel.  Above it, several gold chains were draped across Theo’s belly, visible below the trim hem of his cropped white sweater.

Theo sipped his sparkly, highly alcoholic party punch and gazed around the room. Ken’s hand curved possessively around his bare waist, fingers pressing into his skin. He kissed the side of Theo’s neck, leaving a wet splotch. Every muscle in Theo’s body strained to break away and wipe off the saliva in disgust. He took another sip of his drink.

People’s eyes lingered on them as though Theo was in a slutty mini-dress, and Ken had his hand up the skirt. They were either disgusted or wanted to be the ones licking Theo, which had more to do with them wanting to stand in Ken’s shoes. It was Ken’s party. He had the money and the power and could take Theo right in the middle of the floor, and the string quartet would not even stop playing because he could do whatever the fuck he wanted.

He had come a long way over the years from selling dime bags at college frat parties. Climbed the ladder, if you will. Everybody wanted to be him. To have his cars, his mansion, his whores. To have Theo. It did not matter that he was a boy. If anything, it made their daydreamed conquest all the more thrilling. Their eyes were filled with heat as they looked at him, but it was the same look they gave his Battista.

Theo gazed about impassively, doing his very best to dissociate himself from the entire situation. But the sight of one familiar man snapped his eyes right back as soon as they passed him by. Boldly tattooed knuckles wrapped around a hard plastic crystalline cup filled with bubbly pink punch, lifting it to a mouth that made Theo forget about the fingers pressing into his side. He was already looking at Theo when their eyes met, and he held his gaze as he sipped his drink.

It had been months since he actually saw Abel. After they had pho together and he declined to give Abel his number, the man did not approach him again. Every time Theo got out of yoga and passed the bar where he knew Abel worked, his attention was drawn to the establishment by some freaky magnetic force that he did not understand, and he found himself wondering if Abel was currently behind the reflective glass windows. But he never went in to see.

He looked odd among the other guests. Not that he did not fit in with his buzzed hair, snarling viper neck tattoo, and confident set to his shoulders. But he was not mingling, not trying to get into the good graces of this or that person, nor gossiping about Ken while sneaking glances at him. No, he stood there like a goddamn mountain rising above the rest and stared straight at Theo.

Theo, who tried not to react upon spotting him, was the first to break eye contact. He blinked down at the ground and tried to get his thundering pulse back under control. For a moment, it had felt like he rose out of his body in pure shock, and climbing back down was difficult.

He had not thought too much about why Abel was at the gathering in the bar where he had created a scene all those months ago. But seeing him here reminded Theo that his identity put him on Ken’s VIP guest list. This meant he was not a nice person, despite having an issue with rape and buying Theo a nice lunch the last time they saw each other.

“What caught your attention?” Ken purred in Theo’s ear, making him drop right back down in his body. He had forgotten the man wrapped around him, but now he felt his fingers digging into his side again, his hot breath against the side of Theo’s face.

“Hmm?” Theo gave the room another casual sweep, keeping his eyes unfocused. “What do you mean?”

“I felt you go tense?” Ken insisted. “What did you see that…aha!”

He chuckled lowly, having spotted Abel. Mostly because Abel was marching straight toward them. Theo’s eyes widened, and he tossed back the rest of his drink. The two bodyguards on either side of them bristled, but Ken waved them down.

“You look familiar,” he said in greeting when Abel got within earshot.

“I made a big scene at another event of yours a few months ago,” Abel offered a hand with a winsome smile—straight white teeth and dimples on his cheeks. Theo’s knees went weak, and he longed for another drink. “Abel Rosko.”

Ken’s eyes sharpened, and his polite smile took on a rather maniacal tone. There was only one incident that Abel could be referring to, and so he knew what he meant immediately. He shook Abel’s hand nonetheless and said, “I thought I told them to take you off my future guest lists.”

Abel’s eyes twinkled in amusement. “Did you? The doorman said something about a guest list, I suppose. But when I told him that my uncle works with you, he said I did not need to worry about it.”

Ken frowned. “Who is your uncle?”

“Istvan Barta.”

Ken’s fingers spasmed on Theo’s side. His smile tightened, and his eyes suddenly warmed considerably. He was momentarily speechless, and Abel’s smile widened.

“I can understand the misunderstanding,” he said with sympathy. “Since I am related to him through my mother, I don’t share the same last name, and it is easy to get mixed up.”

Theo felt a little faint. Of course, Abel was not just some nice guy working in a bar. They met at one of Ken’s parties, after all. But he could not have imagined he was a member of the most notorious branch of the city’s Hungarian mafia.

Ken finally recovered enough to say, “I have never seen you on any jobs before.”

He sounded a bit faint himself.

“I’m not really associated with my uncle’s business. My father died when I was young, and my mother has kept us away from it. I ended up at your event last time mostly by accident,” Abel explained, which made a wave of misplaced relief flood through Theo’s veins. What did it matter to him if Abel was actually a criminal? It shouldn’t matter at all.

Abel continued explaining. “I just came tonight because I wanted to apologize to you,” he looked from Ken to Theo, “and to your companion for the scene I caused last time.”

Ken waved his hand dismissively. “No worries.”

Even if he was a second cousin or whatever he was, a Barta could do no wrong. Ken played a delicate balancing act between their family and many of the others who ran in this city, acting as a sort of liaison while running the logistics of distributions. Theo was not sure exactly how he managed to play everyone the way he did and not get stabbed in the back for all his backstabbing. He did not really care to know. But even Ken was not stupid enough to cross a member of the Barta family, no matter how distantly related.

In fact, he was always seeking to butter them up.

“I know it's hard to believe that he’s such a little slut when he looks this beautiful,” Ken slid the hand around Theo’s waist down to rest it directly over his crotch. “So, I understand your confusion the other night.”

“I was more surprised by the fact that you were alright with him sleeping with another man,” Abel said cooly, lifting his drink to his lips again.

Ken snorted. “He’d find a way to sleep around on me, anyway, wouldn’t you, sweetheart.”

He kissed Theo’s cheek, and Theo nodded numbly.

“He does it all the time, believe me,” Ken assured Abel. “So, it's no big deal for him to sleep with some of my associates if I ask him. He doesn’t mind doing me a favor. Even if he didn’t owe it to me, he loves it.”

He squeezed Theo’s cock. “Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”

Theo nodded, eyes on Abel’s shiny black dress shoes.

“In fact,” Ken took his hand off Theo’s cock and patted his butt a few times, encouraging him to go towards Abel. “Why don’t you spend the night with him? What is in the past is the past, and you can see just how much he loves it.”

Theo clutched his cup in both hands and fought to cling to the numbness against an onslaught of terror. Abel’s dimples and kind tones and righteous outrage did not belong here. Theo hated that he was here. He did not want him to join the ranks among those who helped themselves to Theo’s body, demons breaching him and filling him with their horrible shadows until there was nothing left inside.

He wanted Abel to remain in his imagination – a bright angel shining a light on a small piece of Theo that he kept hidden away and protected from the shadows. He’d begun to think of Abel when things were difficult. He imagined reaching out for his hand and tracing over his tattoos to distract himself from the scary things. Abel could not be here. He could not be one of them.

Theo would rather die.

“That’s a generous offer,” Abel said. And Theo closed his eyes against the terrible, terrible sound of him following up with, “Thank you.”

“You can have him for the night. Tell them to put the room under my name. My treat.” Ken said, but Theo could barely hear him.

Abel held out his hand.

Theo wanted to die.

If you are going to do it, then do it! That’s right, you won’t. Too much of a pussy. What were you thinking? Give me the gun, you ungrateful cunt. You think you can leave me? Never. Get that through your stupid little brain. You’re too stupid to know what’s good for you, so just do what I fucking say, alright?

“Go on.” Ken patted him on the butt again.

He slid his palm against Abel’s and let himself be led out of the glimmering, watchful party. Everyone was now imagining stabbing Abel in the back instead of Ken, but he walked confidently—not haughtily like Ken, who thrived off the attention but briskly, as though he could not care less.

He did not let go of Theo’s hand as they stood at the concierge desk waiting for a room key, not in the elevator on the way up to the eighth floor, nor as he pressed the key to the lock and waited for it to turn green so he could let them into the room.

The door slammed shut behind them, cutting off the ambient noise of the hallway and lobby below. Abel did let go of his hand then. Theo watched his back as he walked further into the room. When he turned around, Theo’s eyes flicked away, landing on the bed. Something acidic burst in his gut, and he dropped his eyes to the ground.

Then he took a deep breath, hid himself far, far away within his mind behind walls and walls of this is not actually happening, and smiled up at Abel through his eyelashes.