Page 91 of Boost

Hearing that name—my name—said out loud after over fifteen years threw me back to my childhood.

The beatings, the verbal tirades that left me feeling inadequate and half-an-inch tall. The scars inflicted by ‘accidentally’ touching the tip of a cigarette to my skin. My mom’s pleas in the night, my sister sobbing… Taking my father’s life before he took the only good thing from mine and my sister’s.

“Fuck,” I whispered, and dry retched again.

Suppressed emotions and memories clawed their way over my senses. Revulsion surfaced along with the numb desperation that accompanied the fear during each ‘episode’.

My father got what he deserved—I had no regrets over that. Only now, as a grown man, I wished I had the opportunity to make him suffer the way he made our lives a living hell.

There had been flickers of light, of hope, each time my mother threatened to pack our bags and leave. But each time he managed to sweet-talk her into staying. It always ended the same though, every damn time—with empty promises and broken trust.

I didn’t know how long I spent hunched over that airport toilet bowl with my eyes squeezed shut and my head spinning, but I was thankful Colton gave me time to get a grip. The chain around my chest refused to ease, and it seemed to pull tighter when I staggered from the stall and dared to look at myself in the bathroom mirror.

Faceless men came and went after giving me dubious sideways glances. To them, I no doubt looked like a jumped up thug on the edge. And no wonder. My fists refused to unfurl against the sink top. My racing pulse hadn’t eased, and I sure as hell hadn’t managed to catch my breath.

The one fear I had—that one demon that would take everything from me all over again—had chosen a real fucking shit time to resurrect itself.

But it wouldn’t just destroy me; there was Colton’s foundation. Arlo’s budding Indy career. And Greer. There wasGreer.

After splashing more water on my face, I drank from the bathroom tap and then toweled my face dry. The crisp, white paper contrasted with my brown skin and the tattoos that adored my fingers and hands. Silly really that it seemed so pure and clean until coming into contact with the darkness that clung to me.

Tainted. That’s what I was. Once an innocence was taken, it could never be restored, no matter how far or how hard you run. I was living, breathing proof of that.

Tossing the balled-up paper towel into the trash, I ran a hand over my clipped hair. Fuck me, I was at a total loss over what to do.

Did I risk going out in public? All I could imagine was everyone knowing my darkest secret after burying it in the past the day I changed my name. The fear was paralyzing.

Withdrawing my phone from my back pocket, my fingers trembled more than I was proud of. Reality rocked me to my core, and fuck if I knew what to do now. I needed to ring Greer, but first I needed to ring Colton back.

“Found your panties yet?” he immediately asked on pick up.

“Fuck you,” I snapped, then added, “You’ve got questions?”

He sorted. “Damn right I do. Starting with, how the fuck did no one already know about this?”

“You’ve always known me as Raf Ortiz, right?”

Colt huffed impatiently.

“Yeah, well, that was about a year after my name was changed. I couldn’t keep it, not with what happened. Not when I carried my father’s surname as my own…”And not when I had his blood on my hands.

Some people were straight-up evil, and he was one of them. He deserved to die the way he did, and the two times that I’d visited his grave in the last fifteen years, he deserved the wad of spit I left behind.

My hatred for him was soul deep, and that wouldneverchange.

“I have to admit, Raffie, you’ve got me unsure of what to do here. I mean, fuck, I sure as fuck don’t like my past being slapped in my face—we aren’t the boys we once were—but, I’ve already had calls from sponsors getting antsy about the foundation.”

As if I couldn’t feel any worse, shame coated me. “I’ve let you down, brother.”

“It’s true, then? That shit I googled about Rafferty Delgado?”

I hissed and ran a hand down my face. “Can’t say I’ve ever googled it, but yeah, I’m assuming most of it is true.”

Tense silence smothered our disjointed conversation as we both got drawn back into the turmoil within our heads. I opened my mouth to speak, only to shut it again. What the fuckcouldI say? I mean, there was literally nothing that explained the feelings so deeply ingrained in me they shaped who I was every single day of my life.

“Did your mom survive?” Colton asked in a low voice, filled with unexpected emotion.

I froze to the spot. Unable to swallow. Unable to breathe for the longest time.

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