Page 60 of Pose for Me
I nod, hanging on to his every word. “What happened to her?”
“Dad shot her up with heroin mixed with battery acid.”
I gasp. “What the fuck? Why? He didn’t go to prison?”
He shrugs. “Can’t say why he did it. He was an asshole. He could have been a psychopath, but he’d never seen a therapist or got a diagnosis. He didn’t go to prison because he told the cops she overdosed, and they believed it, even though she had no history of drug use. He had her body cremated so no one could really prove it.”
“How old were you?”
“Thirteen.”
“I’m sorry, Ry.”
He smiles and nods. “Thanks. We lived with Dad for another two years, with him using Jacob as a punching bag. Jacob hit back, but he knew he’d end our father if he went too far, so he never did much more than get our dad off him. Jacob doesn’t like killing. He doesn’t like the blood or the mess of it, so he keeps his cool as much as possible because if he snaps, he won’t come back to himself until he knocks someone’s head off their shoulders. Literally.”
I swallow hard and nod. I might not fear Ryell will kill me right now since he hasn’t physically hurt me, but I haven’t met Jacob and don’t know what he’s capable of.
“When I was fifteen,” he says, “I came home from school and heard Jacob and my dad fighting. I mean, that wasn’t unusual, so I didn’t rush to see what was going on. But when I got inside, I saw Dad on top of Jacob, his hands locked around my brother’s throat. And Jacob wasn’t moving. I didn’t think; I just rushed into the kitchen, grabbed a knife, came back, and stabbed my dad in the neck. He let go of Jacob to try to stem the bleeding, but he couldn’t. I got him right in the carotid. Even if there was a doctor a few feet away, it wouldn’t have mattered. Jacob came to a few seconds later and gave me shit because I got blood on him.”
I sit there and play with my food, trying to absorb what he just said. Ryell murdered his dad. His own father. But his father also killed his mother and tried to strangle his brother. He saved his brother from the same fate his mother suffered, and what would have happened to Ryell himself if he didn’t stop his dad.
“Were you okay? After?” I ask, searching his eyes.
Ryell stares at me in shock. “After I killed my dad? You’re asking if I was okay after a murder?”
I nod, though my stomach churns. He is a murderer, and he’s not absolved of that, but he was defending his family. I can’t fault him for trying to keep his father from offing his brother. “It had to be hard. He was your dad.”
“He was a cunt,” he says, and I bark an unexpected laugh at his words. “He was. He wasn’t a good person. After I killed him, we buried him in the woods about a mile from our house where no one ever went, not even hunters. He’ll never be found.”
“What happened to you and your brother after that? You didn’t have parents. Did you get taken by foster care?”
Ryell looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “Of course not. We pretended nothing happened and kept up our normal lives until Jacob turned eighteen. Jacob got a job so we could pay the bills, and he went to a state school so I could stay in his care after he graduated. We reported Dad missing when Jacob turned eighteen, and a few years after not locating him, he was declared dead. That’s one of the main reasons we moved. We didn’t want to be anywhere near his corpse.”
“Where are you originally from?” I don’t detect an accent, but he also doesn’t sound like a native Californian.
“Kentucky,” he answers with a frown marring his face. “And I’ll never step foot in that state again.”
I hum. I’ve heard nothing good about Kentucky. If I ever find myself assigned there, I’ll put in my notice.
If I ever get another assignment.
Reaching across the table, I take his hand in mine and squeeze. “I understand why you killed your dad. He killed your mother and almost did the same to your brother.” Blowing out a long breath, I say, “Some people deserve to die.”
An evil, deadly glint enters his gaze as he squeezes my hand in return. “Yeah, they do.”
Twenty-Three
Ryell
As I’m sittingin my office, sketching an image of Lane gazing up at me with his mouth full of my cock, I can’t shake what he told me about his adoptive parents. Now it makes sense why Lane broke so easily. He said he didn’t like being ignored, but now I see the extent of it.
And I don’t fucking like that they treated him that way.
If I was able to break him after only a week of not speaking to or looking at him, then they really fucked him up.
The charcoal pencil splinters in my hand as I grip it tightly, imagining a young Lane begging for his parent’s attention.
With a grunt, I toss the sketch pad on my desk, pushing my fingers through my hair. After we went to bed that night, I subtly asked Lane for the names of his parents so he wouldn’t know what I had planned. He told me on a wide yawn and was asleep within seconds, so I don’t think he even realized he told me.
