Death's Ink Black Shadow Read online

  They were over.

  Ben doubled up and was sick over the kitchen floor.

  He couldn’t breathe because he was vomiting and sobbing at the same time. Radulf began to whine in distress, and then Tim began to cry, and it was only Squeezy who was doing anything practical, but that simply consisted of swearing—but his curses were more use than the noises the other three were making. The profanity brought Ben back to himself and he tried to apologise, tried to clear up the mess, until Squeezy just grabbed him and hugged him.

  No one slept that night. They allowed Ben to talk, to go over and over what had happened, what had led to it, what Nikolas had said or not said. It was all for nothing. Dawn arrived. He had a splitting headache, a sore throat, and was no further forward in trying to escape the nightmare he was in.

  A couple of hours later, Squeezy left them. Tim said he was going to fetch some more milk, as three Englishmen in crisis can go through a lot of tea. They had fifteen mugs already on the table as no one could face washing up.

  Ben realised he had to take Radulf out, that he ought to put some thought into where his bike was, or the car, how he was going to get home to Devon, and then he stopped thinking, for all he could see was a dark tunnel ahead of him. He’d seen one of those before and had done something…uncharacteristic.

  The dark future of his life without Nikolas.

  However, when he’d seen this solution before, he’d still loved Nikolas and had wanted to be with him. The scar on his wrist was visible evidence of his commitment.

  Now…he didn’t love Nikolas. He hated him. But the tunnel was very seductive, nevertheless, its darkness beckoning him, because in the dark he wouldn’t suffer how much he hated Nikolas, how painful that realisation was, how raw it made him feel. The table was suddenly too hard to lean on, the skin on his arms too tender and bruised. The light in the room was too bright and his eyes ached. He shut them. That was better.

  He felt a hand on his arm and snapped his eyes open. Nikolas!

  It was Tim. He was watching Ben cautiously. “Go to bed for a bit, maybe?”

  Ben nodded. He wouldn’t sleep, but he wanted to be out of the kitchen and away from everyone for a while.

  He went to the guest room and lay down.

  He was offered unconditional love when Radulf slowly heaved himself, uninvited, onto the bed next to him, his old, whiskery chin placed just so on Ben’s belly, his unseeing eyes raised knowingly to Ben’s face. Ben wondered if dogs didn’t need sight to see all that ever needed to be seen. Unconditional love was unfortunate, however, given as it was then, for it not only put into contrast the gaping hole now left in Ben’s life, it showed only too well what he had enjoyed for the last ten or so years. Despite all the roil and tumble of life with Nikolas Mikkelsen, Ben had always been sure of one thing: Nikolas wanted him more than anyone else.

  He could make out the faint sounds of the traffic on the London street. Another day starting as it always did, the world continuing on its disinterested diurnal schedule.

  Sometime later, he heard voices and assumed Squeezy had come back with the milk.

  He suddenly felt the need for more tea and rose, going back into the kitchen, his faithful companion click clicking after him on the laminate floor.

  Squeezy turned quickly to the sink when they appeared, banging things around. Ben slumped into his chair. He was done talking about—whatever that man was called. He’d forgotten even the bastard’s name and needed to start thinking about things that were important in his life.

  “My bike was stolen.”

  Squeezy whirled around. “What? When?”

  Ben started, then frowned deeply. “What happened—?” His eyes widened, and he shot to his feet. Squeezy had a black eye and his lip was split. “You went to see him?”

  Squeezy could hardy claim he’d been mugged by the milkman.

  Ben opened his mouth. Once more, infuriatingly, nothing came out. His thoughts were too much of a jumble. “What did he say?” It seemed a very simple thing to ask about such a momentous event.

  Squeezy twitched his nose. “I didn’t go there to talk to him.”

  Ben nodded, pleased. “You hit him?”

  Squeezy rubbed his jaw. “He’s a big fucker, but yeah, I got a few in.”

  “Is he—?” What was he going to ask? Is he okay? “Was he on his own?”

  Squeezy shrugged. “I didn’t check the bed, Ben.”

  Ben frowned. Something seemed off about this reply for some reason. Since when did Squeezy ever use anyone’s real name? He was about to frame another question when Tim offered, “We’ll drive you to Devon. You need to get home. Give yourself some perspective.”

  Ben turned to him. “Perspective?”

  Tim winced, apparently at something he could see in Ben’s expression. Ben closed his eyes. It wasn’t Tim’s fault.

  It was no one’s fault but Nikolas’s.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Things were so awful when Ben got home he couldn’t cope with it all. For the last year or so, he and Nikolas had both made more effort to show the shared nature of their lives in their living spaces.

  There were one or two pictures of Nikolas now, more of Ben, but some of them together, taken by their friends, which Ben had put up. They looked so unbelievably good together that it was hard to believe they were not models, actors, playing the roles of men deeply in love but trying not to show it.

  Perhaps they were—just working to a script by an unseen hand.

  Ben refused to think about it.

  He found a plate of sandwiches pushed in front of him and discovered they’d been back over an hour. He hadn’t moved from the kitchen table in that whole time, the minutes just passing him by. He winced at the food, felt nauseous and shoved the plate away. Squeezy sat down alongside him and slid it back. “If you get sick it’ll only please the fucker. Eat and stay healthy and say fuck you to him by doing that.”

  Ben stared at him. Squeezy held his gaze. Ben could see no sense in that at all.

  Then he did.

  He conjured Nikolas, and all there was left to give him was blood and pain.

  Such oblations were not offered by the weak.

  He considered the sandwiches and began to eat.

  Squeezy nodded and muttered, “Yeah, exactly.”

  Squeezy thought like him.

  They were birthed and bred from the same mother and father. The same home.

  Ben ate all the sandwiches and thought about revenge, and the food tasted the better for it.

  Something of a calm settled on them all then. Even Radulf, reunited with his little scrap of blanket and his familiar basket by the range, stopped the low whine he’d kept up since…the incident.

  Ben felt guilty. He suspected Nikolas sliding and bleeding across the kitchen tiles had been more the cause of the dog’s distress than the complexity of human emotion that had preceded it. For some reason, Radulf adored Nikolas. Ben couldn’t think why. He hated him.

  A great deal more tea had been drunk by the time Ben came around to this conclusion, and the detritus lay about on the table: mugs, spoons, spilt sugar, squeezed-out bags. It was ugly. It ruined the perfection of his perfect house, his perfect kitchen. His perfect life. And then he saw a pair of Nikolas’s reading glasses on the counter next to a folded newspaper with the crossword half done. It was like a death. Ben mourned as if someone had died. Something had. He was bereft.

  He began to cry again and was so embarrassed that he stood abruptly, knocking over the chair and going swiftly toward their—his—room at the back of the house.

  It really didn’t help.

  But then where was there to escape to when your whole life collapsed upon you?

  § § §

  Sometime later, Tim came in and climbed onto the bed with Ben. They lay side by side.

  “This isn’t very manly.”

  Tim didn’t seem bothered. “Being manly’s never done shit for you, Ben. Try getting in touch with your feminine side
for fucking once.”

  “You’ve been hanging around Squeezy too long.”

  “He hangs around me.”

  Ben chuckled, and he hadn’t thought he’d be doing that for a while. “I should fuck you. I’ve always wanted to.”

  “Almost did once.”

  “Almost.” But he hadn’t because even then, even then he’d been in love with the bastard.

  “A revenge fuck is never a good idea. I thought about it with John.”

  Ben frowned, and Tim added to clarify, “I thought about sleeping with Sebastian. He was a little whore. He’d have gone for it.”

  “Then, on that logic, I should think about it with—” For the first time, the startling thought came to Ben Jackson Keane. Kinney? What the fuck?

  He sat up.

  “What?”

  His thoughts were too unformed to share. He didn’t want to have them laughed at. “Nothing.” He looked down at Tim, at his tousled black hair, his stubble and beautiful blue eyes. “What would Squeezy say?”

  Tim seemed to know what he meant. “He’d join us.” Then he frowned deeply and added, “Although he’s been kinda weird since he spoke with the bastard this morning.”

  Ben didn’t comment on the fact that Tim appeared to have the same nickname for Nikolas as he now had. Had they all seen this in Nikolas? This thing he had never suspected? Sure, they’d played at being unfaithful, Nikolas teasing him by watching other men, commenting occasionally on another guy’s physique, face, anything he knew would go right to the heart of Ben’s jealousy, but he’d never once thought Nikolas would actually stray. Was that insanity or vanity? Or both?

  And what about him? He wasn’t so innocent that he hadn’t baited Nikolas back.

  What would he have done with this situation in the time when he’d still loved Nikolas Mikkelsen? Lying alongside Tim Watson, whom he had wanted from the very first time they’d met in a pub.

  Ben would only have let it get so far and no further, that’s what he would have done.

  Pretending to himself that he was tempted had been the whole point—pretence.

  He’d never wanted anyone else since he’d met Nikolas.

  Oh, but he was tempted now.

  Not because sex with Tim was anywhere on his list of things to do post mortem, but because he wanted to hurt Nikolas, and he knew, whatever Nikolas thought about their destroyed relationship, the sense of ownership and possession didn’t go away that lightly. Nikolas might consider himself free to do as he pleased, but Ben knew without a shadow of a doubt that Nikolas would not extend that courtesy to him.

  He turned on his side, propped up on his elbow, and undid a button on Tim’s shirt. It felt incredibly familiar, and Ben realised he must have done this in his dreams already. It was very different to Nikolas’s chest, which was smooth and very powerful and scarred. Tim’s had dark hair in a line up from his belly button, spreading like a T to his nipples. Ben stroked through it thoughtfully.

  He caught Tim’s gaze. Tim narrowed his eyes. “I’m trying to decide if I want you enough to be a revenge fuck—because I get that’s all this is.”

  “What have you decided? Because I don’t deny it. I hate him. You get that, yeah?”

  Tim blinked slowly and opened his mouth to reply, but they heard a noise, and Ben glanced up to find Squeezy in the doorway.

  He came over and pulled Tim off the bed. Tim began to protest, but Squeezy merely dragged him out of the room and shut the door on him. Then he locked it. Ben started to object, vociferously, but then Squeezy ripped off his T-shirt.

  Ben’s brows lifted and any complaint dried on his lips. Fucking Squeezy was something he’d not considered before. But now, looking at his defined abs, his perfect face—the aquiline nose, high cheekbones, wide-spaced eyes and strong, stubble-covered jaw—knowing him so well, the temptation was…beyond Ben to resist. That would fuck the bastard up. Squeezy annoyed Nikolas like a permanent irritant in a place he could never scratch. Ben grinned.

  Squeezy grinned back. “You got any running clothes I can borrow, Diesel?”

  § § §

  Out on the moors, Ben allowed the fractured pieces of his life to fall back into place a little.

  He couldn’t believe what he’d nearly done. Not because of any residual feelings he had for Nikolas, there were none, but because of what it would have done to his friendship with Tim—and Squeezy, of course. They were now running side by side, something they’d not done for well over ten years. It was better than other things you did side by side—or on top of each other. Or underneath. Or standing, come to that. There was no position he and Nikolas hadn’t explored. Fuck him!

  Ben had forgotten how fit Squeezy was. He was fitter than Nikolas—a better runner anyway. Nikolas’s smoking habit meant he would never be able to keep up the speeds and do the distances Ben could. Squeezy could though. He was actually pushing Ben. But then Ben allowed himself a little slack. He wasn’t on top form, for a number of reasons.

  It seemed an odd way to spend the first day of the rest of his life: running.

  He stopped suddenly. Squeezy had to skid to a halt and double back. “What’s up? Stitch? You complete fucking pussy.”

  Ben shook his head. “I just realised something, that’s all. This isn’t like—” Neither Squeezy nor Tim knew about his response to thinking he’d lost Nikolas before. He was willing to tell them some things about his relationship, but not that—that was still very private. “I’m going to live.”

  Squeezy snorted. “Not if your fucking fitness doesn’t improve a bit, mate. You’re a fat pig.”

  Ben was six foot four, weighed a hundred and sixty two pounds and had a BMI of nineteen, which was in the very lowest of the normal range. It was only that high because most of the weight he did carry was muscle, which was heavier than fat. His abdominal v was so pronounced it cast a shadow. His abs were so ridged Nikolas could bounce—he saw Squeezy eyeing him with some amusement and stopped being outraged.

  He spat instead, and took off, picking up the pace. No one could outrun him.

  No one.

  § § §

  When they returned to the house, Tim was gone.

  Squeezy didn’t seem surprised by this sudden departure. Ben would have accused him of orchestrating it if he hadn’t been running with him for the last two hours. But Squeezy seemed to know a lot about it, suspiciously. Apparently, Tim had gone to visit his mum and dad who lived in Bristol. It was wicked how little he saw them. Ideal opportunity, now that he was so close. In Devon…

  Ben was feeling drained so he wasn’t all that bothered where his friend was. He was more worried about his bike again, the theft of which he’d pushed to the back burner with so much other awful stuff happening. He told Squeezy he was going to take a shower, and with great reluctance decided he had to call Nikolas. He had to ask him about the bike before reporting it to the police. If Nikolas had sold it or something to…what? Punish him? Perhaps he’d given it to Kinney. It was such fun being so fucking miserable that Ben thought he might make a profession out of it.

  Nikolas picked up, which was something. He’d clearly seen the caller ID. “Hello, Benjamin.”

  Ben didn’t waste time with trivialities like hello. “My bike was missing—”

  “No, I’m sorry. I forgot to tell you that we had new parking places. More convenient actually. It’s quite safe. I’ll have it sent down.”

  Ben was at something of a loss now. He’d been planning on making a big deal about the missing Ducati. Which had meant a lot more than a missing motorbike, of course. What the Ducati had represented to him. To them both, given that Nikolas had bought it for him. Thirtieth birthday present. Fuck him!

  Ben sat heavily on the end of the bed, starting to shake from drying sweat, unable to think of a single thing to say.

  “Was there anything else?”

  Was there anything else? Ben held the phone away, staring at it. He ended the call.

  He was lying there, staring up at t
he tor when Squeezy came in, freshly showered. “Come on, fuckwit. I’m starving. I’m taking you out to eat. Curry? Chinese? Pub? Yeah, pub sounds good. Guess what?”

  Ben summoned a reserve of strength he didn’t know he had. “Surprise me.”

  “Some old mates up at Okehampton. They’re coming down to join us. Lego and Tonks.”

  Ghosts from a past Ben had left long ago. He frowned. They’d been at the regimental dinner he’d gone to earlier that week. He opened his mouth to point this out, but in that moment saw the whole thing play out once again. All the weirdness since. The last thing he wanted was to meet up with the very men he hadn’t wanted to see then.

  He needed distance from Squeezy’s unfailing cheerfulness and seemingly unflagging ability to keep him occupied. He agreed to the night out and said he was going to shower. Anything to be on his own.

  Squeezy gave the room a quick once over, his eyes darting around, then left him to it.

  Ben returned to the interesting thought he’d had about events since the regimental reunion.

  He’d gone to the dinner. He’d come home unexpectedly. Nikolas had been pleased to see him—after the inevitable grumbling about having his peaceful evening disturbed. Nikolas had been very glad to see him. They’d fallen to the sofa in a passionate release of need and desire for each other. Nikolas had been laughing, annoying, happy.

  Then Steven had arrived.

  Since that moment when Ben had stood, pulling on his jeans, he’d had no idea whatsoever what Nikolas was thinking. It was as if a shutter had come down over Nik once more. Worse almost than the habitual guard he’d had over his emotions when Ben first knew him. Even then Ben had seen glimpses of the real man beneath…when they fucked, for sure. Nikolas had been entirely unable to hide behind his masks when he was coming inside him.

  But not the last few days.

  Who had that man been who’d taken him so abruptly, so painfully? Ben fingered the bruise around his neck, thinking.