Page 5 of Hero Worship

"Crystal clear, Daddy," I purred, watching his eyes darken at the title. "I can be very, very good at following orders when properly motivated."

Valentine's eyes narrowed, and for a second, I thought I saw a flicker of something softer. Restraint? Want? Whatever it was, it vanished before I could even pin it down.

"See that you are. I don't do second chances." With that, he turned on his heel and strode out of the training room, the door whooshing shut behind him.

I stood there for a long moment, my heart galloping in my chest, my compression shorts suddenly way too tight. Holy fuck.That was intense. I'd never been so thoroughly dominated by someone's mere presence before. Valentine hadn't even touched me and I felt owned, claimed. Like he'd reached inside my chest and grabbed hold of my heart, branding it as his.

Tomorrow couldn't come fast enough.

My cane clicked againstpolished floors as I followed Algerone through Spade Tower, each step a reminder of how far I'd fallen. Every gleaming surface and high-tech gadget screamed money and power, a far cry from the coffee-stained chaos of FBI offices I'd called home for twenty years. The excess made my skin crawl. It was too similar to the opulent lifestyle my parents had built on blood money and broken bodies. They'd left me a fortune I couldn't stomach spending, millions sitting untouched while I lived on a government salary. Better to let the money rot than profit from their crimes.

Algerone moved ahead with the grace of an apex predator, while I limped behind him like some broken attack dog. He gestured to various amenities—state-of-the-art labs, firing ranges, even a fully stocked bar. The kind of toys that made my old bureau resources look like a kindergarten classroom. Everything about this place reeked of dirty money cleaned up and made respectable, just like my parents had tried to do.

My knee throbbed by the time we reached my new office, the pain a constant companion these days. The space was bigger than my first apartment, with floor-to-ceiling windows offering a panoramic view of Cincinnati's skyline. A massive mahogany desk dominated the room, while a leather couch that probably cost more than my car sat off to the side. The whole setup screamed power and control. Just like my father's study, where he'd conducted his "business meetings" that usually ended in someone getting fitted for concrete shoes.

"I trust this will be sufficient," Algerone said, his smug smile telling me he already knew the answer. His eyes flicked to where I leaned heavily on my cane, and I fought the urge to straighten up, to hide the weakness. But we both knew why I was here. I was a broken-down fed, too stubborn to take a desk job, selling out to the highest bidder.

I grunted in acknowledgment, free hand running over three days of stubble as I took in the space. Twenty years of playing by the rules, of trying to make up for my family's sins by bringing other criminals to justice. And here I was, working for the devil in an Italian suit. But maybe that's what it took these days to get real justice. God knows the system I'd dedicated my life to was broken beyond repair.

I'd seen too many monsters walk free on technicalities, watched too many victims' families leave courtrooms with nothing but shattered faith in the system. Like the Riverside Killer. Five families were still waiting for justice while that smugbastard walked free because of a chain of custody error. I'd played by the rules then, followed procedure to the letter. Fat lot of good it had done those victims.

Maybe that's why I was here. Because sometimes justice needed darker methods. Sometimes the system that was supposed to protect people just gave monsters more places to hide. I'd spent my entire life trying to prove I was different from my father, that I could fight evil without becoming it. But sitting in this temple to excess, surrounded by all the trappings of power he would have loved, I had to wonder… Was I really so different? Or had I just been lying to myself all these years?

"We'll convene for a briefing tomorrow at fifteen hundred," Algerone said. "Don't be late." He swept out before I could respond, leaving me alone in my new kingdom of chrome and glass.

I hobbled over to the desk, my leg screaming in protest. The leather chair was more comfortable than anything I'd had at the Bureau, perfectly adjusted to support my bad knee. Of course Algerone would think of that. The bastard never missed a detail. The desk was a work of art, all gleaming wood and burnished metal. Different from the scarred government-issue furniture I was used to, but then everything about this place screamed excess. The inheritance from my parents sat untouched in offshore accounts. It was all blood money I couldn't bring myself to spend, but couldn't figure out how to clean either. Monthly donations to victims' rights organizations barely scratched the surface of my need for atonement.

The money sat there like a cancer, growing with compound interest while I tried to pretend I wasn't my father's son. Every month I'd look at the accounts, try to find some way to clean it that didn't feel like blood money laundering. But how do you wash away that kind of stain? How many scholarships for victims' children would it take to balance the scales? How manyanonymous donations to domestic violence shelters would make up for the bodies my father had buried?

Some nights I dreamed about the endless parade of broken people who'd sat in my father's study, begging for mercy while he calculated their worth in dollars and cents. I'd watch from the shadows as a child, learning lessons I'd spend the rest of my life trying to unlearn. But maybe some lessons went too deep. Maybe that evil wasn't just in my blood. Maybe it was carved into my bones.

The new laptop hummed to life under my fingers as I pulled up Xander's personnel file. The headshot at the top hit me like a punch to the gut—tousled hair, bedroom eyes, and lips made for sin. The kind of trouble that got under your skin and made a home there. Young, beautiful, whole. Everything I wasn't anymore.

My mind flashed back to the training room, to the way he’d met my eyes. The scent of him had filled my lungs, clean sweat and something sweeter, making my mouth water. For a dangerous moment, I'd wanted to sink my teeth into that perfect skin, mark him up where everyone could see who he belonged to. There was something magnetic about his defiance, the way he challenged authority even while craving discipline. He looked at me like my limp was a badge of honor rather than a mark of failure, like my scars made me more appealing rather than less.

Christ. A lifetime of knowing exactly who I was, what I wanted, and this kid had me questioning everything. Two failed marriages because I couldn't give them the softness they needed, couldn't let them see the monster that lived behind my badge. But Xander? He looked at my rough edges like they were exactly what he craved.

I scrolled through his file, each detail painting a clearer picture of beautiful chaos. Twenty-two years old. Birthday March fifteenth. Born in some backwater town called Liar's Corner.Mother deceased, father Algerone. No surprises there. But his adopted family? That's where things got interesting.

Annie and Yuri Laskin. An angel-of-death serial killer and a mob body disposal expert, living in some kind of polyamorous arrangement with a Russian crime family. Their other kids weren't any better. They were vigilante killers, the lot of them. Each one was more damaged than the last. The kind of family that would make an FBI profiler's career if they ever got caught.

But it was Xander's psych eval that really got my attention. Borderline Personality Disorder. "Intense fear of abandonment manifesting in pursuing unavailable partners." "Forms passionate attachments quickly, prone to idealizing potential relationships." "Extreme emotional responses to perceived rejection." Between the clinical language, I could read a lifetime of people walking away when things got too intense. I'd seen the same patterns in victims and perpetrators alike, that deep wound of abandonment that never quite healed.

Unstable relationships, intense attachments, desperate attempts to avoid abandonment. Classic BPD presentation. But there was something else that made my protective instincts flare even as my analytical mind tried to maintain a professional distance.

Most people saw BPD patients as manipulative, attention-seeking. But I'd interviewed enough trauma survivors to recognize the signs of someone who'd learned early that love was conditional, that they had to earn every scrap of affection through increasingly dramatic displays. The kind of person who'd rather burn everything down than wait for the inevitable rejection.

My first wife had called me controlling, said I tried to fix everyone's problems instead of dealing with my own. The second one just said I was empty inside, that I gave her everything except the one thing she really needed. They'd both been right,in their own ways. I'd never let them see all of me, never trusted them enough to show them the parts of me that weren't polished and professional.

But Xander? He wore his damage like armor, flaunted it like a challenge. "Here I am," his every move seemed to say. "All my broken pieces on display. What are you going to do about it?"

My jaw clenched as I read about his recent partying, the drugs, the endless string of random hookups. Each one a desperate attempt to fill some void inside him, too quiet whatever demons drove him to seek out pain disguised as pleasure. The kind of self-destructive spiral I'd seen destroy countless promising agents.

Under gender, there was an X instead of M or F, with a note about using he/they pronouns. Twenty years ago, that might have thrown me. But I'd learned that monsters didn't care what pronouns their victims used. Evil was evil, and justice was justice. If Xander wanted to express their gender through dresses or suits while taking down bad guys, that was their business. They'd already proven themself more than capable in training.

I leaned back, rubbing my temples as memories of the training room replayed in vivid detail. The way they yielded when I barked orders, went soft and pliant like they were starving for someone to take control. That kind of submission was dangerous. It made me want to own them completely, break them down and rebuild them into something stronger. Something mine.

The possessive thought should have disturbed me, but something about them called to me. I’d always considered myself straight. Never questioned it. But suddenly, thoughts of Xander made my world tilt sideways.

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