Fuck the pants.
Fuck my body’s endless hunger.
But most of all, fuck the man who thought I was still some stupid kid waiting to be saved.
Luca wasn’t the only one who’d gotten good at forgetting.
Chapter Two
Luca
He moved like someone who was in trouble.
Looking over his shoulder all the time, doing his best not to get too close to anyone, which wasn’t always an easy task while walking along the tourist-infested sidewalks of downtown Seattle. And he did his best to stay unnoticed.
But a guy like Remy Valentino was anything but unnoticeable.
Or at least, I thought so.
The people around him didn’t seem to suffer the same affliction because few even noticed when he dodged their steps.
With the way Remy kept looking over his shoulder and taking in his surroundings, I was amazed that he hadn’t noticed me. Sure, I was being careful to try and stay out of view, but for someone who was clearly expecting to be followed, Remy was pretty shitty at identifying when it was actually happening.
Of course, the more important question was why the hell was I following him in the first place? The young man had made his wishes pretty well known when he’d left me standing in the middle of his apartment with a handful of heroin, but here I was, a week later, still seeking him out.
Yeah, okay, not exactly seeking him out because I was too much of a fucking coward for that. The kid had basically stuck a knife in my gut when he’d so easily confirmed that I had, indeed, ruined his life. A better man would have just taken that wound and accepted it… lived with it.
But here I was, seven days later, on his trail again, making sure he didn’t…
What, Luca?
Do more drugs?
Sell himself for cash to pay for those drugs?
I pulled in a breath and forced the image of Remy on his knees for some faceless asshole out of my brain.
It didn’t work, of course. My hands fisted like they usually did when I thought of the degrading things Remy had been forced to do to survive. My gut twisted painfully around itself so many times that it was all I could do to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Fortunately, I was forced to focus on keeping out of Remy’s sight as the sidewalks started to clear out a bit. Remy had left the touristy part of the waterfront and was headed south.
While I’d been following Remy for the better part of a week, I still couldn’t figure out what he was up to. I’d lost him in the crowds twice, while the times I’d managed to stick with him, he’d merely walked down side streets, alleys, and even into a few buildings, but he’d never stayed long. I didn’t want to admit that his behavior smacked of someone looking to score his next fix, but it was getting harder and harder to deny. Not only had Remy not been to work at all in the last seven days, he’d stopped going back to his apartment.
The latter could have been because of me, but I had a feeling I wasn’t the only one he was trying to hide from. My brother, Vaughn, and his boyfriend, Aleks, who also happened to be Remy’s friend, had shown up at Remy’s apartment a couple of times. I’d known that because I’d been sitting on the place after I’d lost Remy those first times when I hadn’t been able to keep up with him. The only reason I’d even managed to find Remy at the motel was because I’d asked my brother, Lex, to hack into Remy’s phone records. Lex had done it, no questions asked, but I knew my younger brother was dealing with his own issues. He hadn’t said as much, but the fact that he hadn’t flown to Seattle when we’d found my son spoke volumes. I’d tried to talk to Lex, but he hadn’t answered any of my calls or texts beyond the stuff about Remy.
I pushed thoughts of my brother aside as I stepped into a doorway while Remy stopped to talk to some guy wearing a dirty hoodie. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it was all I could do not to stride across the street when the man reached for Remy. Remy stepped out of his grasp, but that was it. When the man motioned to a nearby alley, I was silently yelling at Remy to turn and walk away. Remy seemed to hesitate for a minute, then he was following the guy.
White-hot rage replaced all the anxiety and guilt I’d been feeling, and I was moving before I could even consider what I was doing. I wasn’t sure what I’d find when I rounded the corner, but it didn’t matter to me. Remy on his knees or Remy accepting a handful of drugs were equally abhorrent to me, and no way in hell was I going to let it happen.