For the first few weeks after his rescue, things had been so hectic that Aiden didn’t have a moment to himself.
Everything felt surreal, like things were happening too fast.
There was a lot of news to digest. Apparently in the year he was absent Jordan had abandoned his life in Boston and moved to Italy to live with his new boyfriend. The latter was mind-boggling on several levels. Aiden hadn’t even known his brother was into men too. The identity of the boyfriend was even more mind-boggling: Jordan was dating the boss of the Italian mafia.
Granted, Damiano Conte was pretty attractive: he was tall, dark, handsome, and confident—which… yeah, okay, Aiden could see the appeal. Aiden still wasn’t sure what to think of his brother’s boyfriend, but Damiano had been very accommodating. He had sent his private jet to bring Aiden’s parents and sister to Sicily, and for the past few weeks, they’d all been staying at Damiano and Jordan’s house. It had been… strange, to have so many people around all the time.
The knock on the door snapped Aiden out of his thoughts.
It was his mother. “Can I come in, darling?”
“Sure, Mom,” Aiden said with a smile.
His mother walked over and sat down beside him on the bed. “How are you, sweetie?” she said, taking his hand.
Shrugging, Aiden smiled again. “I’m fine.”
His mother’s gaze was searching as it roamed over his face. Her hazel eyes, so much like his own, were unsmiling, troubled. “Have I ever told you about the day you were born?”
Aiden blinked, taken aback a little. “I don’t think so.”
His mother smiled wistfully, looking down at their joined hands. “You were a surprise. I wasn’t all that young, and we weren’t sure if we should have a third child so much younger than Eloise and Jordan. It was a difficult pregnancy and very difficult birth. God, I wanted to die by the time you finally came out—I was so exhausted and in pain. But when they gave you to me for the first time, you looked up into my eyes and…”
She smiled with a faraway look. “You smiled at me. They say newborns don’t see well and their smiles aren’t real, but I know what I saw. You looked at me and gave me the sweetest smile… And I fell in love so hard right there, all my exhaustion and unhappiness gone. And I knew you would be my happy child. And you were. You brought so much joy to our family. You rarely cried, always quick to smile and make people feel better. And you didn’t lose that ability as you grew up. You are so light.” She squeezed Aiden’s fingers, her eyes suddenly glistening with tears. “Or rather, you were. You still smile, but your light—it’s not there anymore, sweetheart.”
Aiden laughed a little. “Come on, Mom! I think, given the circumstances, it’s understandable that I feel a little out of sorts—”
“Don’t,” she said, looking pained. “Don’t smile for our sakes. I hate seeing it. And I hate not knowing what happened to you.”
“I told you—nothing happened,” Aiden said, averting his gaze.
There was a long, strained silence before his mother spoke again. “I understand that—that it may not be easy for you to talk to your mom about being r—about being violated—”
“I swear, that didn’t happen,” Aiden said firmly, looking into her eyes. “I swear on your life. I wasn’t—I wasn’t raped. I swear, Mom.”
She gazed at him searchingly, looking confused, heartbroken, and very, very old. “Then why are you like this? What happened to you?”
Aiden looked away again, unable to hold her gaze. Unable to answer.
He didn’t want to lie to her, but the honest answer would make him sound crazy. His parents had already suggested therapy as it was. Jordan flat-out insisted on it.
Aiden didn’t want therapy. He already knew what a therapist would diagnose him with. Everything in him rebelled against the idea of some stranger reducing his feelings to those two words and neatly deciding that they weren’t real or healthy.
Maybe they weren’t, but they were his. Theirs.
“The truth is,” Aiden said, stroking her fingers. “You’re right: I’m not really okay. This—being back with you guys—it feels weird to me. I’m happy to see you—of course I am, but… I really need to talk to him.”
His mother’s hand stiffened in his. “Him?” she said, her voice ringing with suppressed anger. “You can’t be serious, Aiden! That man is—he’s—”
“He didn’t do anything to me,” Aiden said. Anything I didn’t want him to do.
His mother scoffed. “Aiden—surely you can’t expect us to believe the man bought you out of the goodness of his heart and didn’t do anything to you in the year you lived with him? You should press charges, have him arrested! Buying people is illegal even in the UAE! He might be a sheikh, but that wouldn’t protect him!”
“Leave it, Mom. I’m not pressing charges. Even if I wanted to do it, how would I even explain how I escaped without implicating Damiano and the fact that his people killed Zain’s staff just because they were in the way!” It still made him furious. His rescue wasn’t worth people’s lives.
And if they didn’t rescue me, I could have been with him right now.
Aiden curled his hands into balls, trying to ignore the gnawing ache in his stomach. God, the yearning was unbearable sometimes. Sometimes he physically felt his body ache with it, as if every cell felt the distance between them, as if there was a string connecting their bodies despite thousands of miles separating them.
Maybe it was just him though.
Maybe Zain was happy to get rid of him—he’d planned to do it, after all.
“Damiano saved you,” his mother said sharply. “It’s unfortunate that his people had to resort to violence, but Lorenzo said there was no other choice. Apparently that man had his island more well-guarded than some prisons. That was actually what made Lorenzo suspicious, and that’s why he had that man’s younger brother bugged. And even then, it took Lorenzo some luck to get proof and retrieve you.” She swallowed and gave him a long, piercing look. “Lorenzo said they heard Gadiel Rahim yell at that man for being a hypocrite and call you his whore.”
He hadn’t known that. So that was why his family didn’t believe him.
“Fine,” Aiden said, looking down at his hands before looking back at his mom. “I did have sex with him.”
She paled and looked like she was about to be sick.
“But it wasn’t like that, Mom,” Aiden said quickly. “It was consensual.”
“Consensual?” she choked out. “You weren’t in a position to give consent! That’s not consent! That man—”
“Stop calling him that,” Aiden snapped. “He has a name!”
She stared at him, something like horror dawning in her hazel eyes. “Oh my god,” she whispered, shaking her head. “This is so much worse than I thought.”
“You don’t understand, Mom.”
She shook her head. “No, I understand now. He brainwashed you into thinking that you’re in love with him.”
Aiden’s stomach knotted up.
Love.
That was one word he hadn’t allowed himself to apply to his feelings for Zain.
But the word didn’t feel wrong.
“I—I don’t know if I love him,” Aiden said. “But I need to talk to him, Mom. If you want to help me feel better, help me contact him.”
“You can’t be serious, Aiden!” She squeezed his hands. “We will go home and find you the best therapist in the city. You’ll get better and forget about that man. Everything is going to be all right. You’ll fall in love with a nice, sweet girl your age—or a nice boy, if that’s more your thing—and you’ll be happy.”
Aiden tried to imagine it. But try as he might, he couldn’t. That nice future only left him feeling cold and hollow.
“I don’t want to forget him,” he whispered. “I don’t think I can be happy without him, Mom.”
His mother was openly crying now. “Don’t be ridiculous, sweetheart,” she said, pulling him into her arms, against her chest, as if he were still her baby in need of protection. “Of course you will be happy without that man. I promise you.” She kissed the top of his head. “Just give it time. We’ll fix you. You’re home now.”
Aiden breathed in her familiar scent, trying and failing to believe that.
