Chapter 141: Three Men.

"Where did he take you?" Dave asked when Eli had been silent for far too long.

Eli still didn’t answer immediately.

Dave’s unease deepened as he waited, dreading whatever could possibly come next. What he had already heard was horrific enough. How much worse could it get?

"Eli?" he called softly, moving closer when the silence continued.

"Black market." Eli’s voice trembled as he finally spoke. "He took me to Eastyard Country and sold me there. He announced that I was gay and that anyone who wanted a pretty pet boy could have me."

"No..." Dave muttered, struggling to believe what he was hearing.

His father had been a mafia lord, but could he really have been that cruel? How had Dave never seen this side of him?

How could the man who had raised him and made him his favourite child have done something so monstrous to someone Dave loved?

"A lot of men, mostly mafia members, fought to take me home with them. They looked too gigantic for me, and I couldn’t even bring myself to look at them. Some went as far as claiming they weren’t gay, but asking why they couldn’t have some fun with me anyway."

Eli’s voice faltered.

"I begged your father. I told him I’d do anything he wanted if he would only spare me and not sell me there, but he didn’t care about anything I said."

Dave sat motionless, his hands trembling as he listened.

"Eventually, one man took me. He didn’t look as terrifying as the others. He wasn’t as gigantic, and he was actually good-looking, but that didn’t make my trauma disappear. He locked me up for a week, and I didn’t see him once during that time. Someone brought me food, but I couldn’t manage even a spoonful."

Eli paused, wiping his face before continuing.

"One day, he showed up, and finally took me out of the room he had locked me up in, but he still wouldn’t let me leave the house. By then, I’d started convincing myself that he hadn’t bought me for sex or any of the other disgusting things I’d feared. I just couldn’t understand why he’d bought me at all."

He drew a shaky breath.

"Months passed, and I started trying to get closer to him, not sexually, but enough that we could actually talk. I told him my story without him even asking. Little by little, he started letting his own walls come down, too.

He told me he wasn’t actually gay and had never desired a man in his entire life. He’d been in a relationship with a woman he loved with every breath he took for fifteen years.

They were about to get married when he discovered she was pregnant. He’d been happy, thinking the baby was his, only to find out she’d been sleeping with his younger brother behind his back and that the child belonged to him instead."

Dave’s gaze remained fixed on Eli, his mind struggling to take in the years of suffering he had endured.

"It destroyed him. He left his family and the family business. The whole experience had affected him so badly that he couldn’t think straight anymore. Even when he went to the black market, he was looking for a girl he could keep simply to satisfy his needs. But he told me that when he saw me there, he forgot all about the girls in the room."

Eli looked down at his hands.

"But after bringing me home, he couldn’t bring himself to touch me. He said there was something about me that attracted him, that he kept finding himself thinking about how I looked. After a few days, he admitted that he thought he was attracted to me. But I couldn’t make myself feel the same way, no matter how good-looking or kind he was.

One time, I asked him to let me go and promised I’d pay him back whatever he’d spent buying me. That angered him so much that he locked me up in the room again.

For so long we kept going back and forth like that, but he never forced himself on me. Eventually, I gave in to his demands, we got in bed, but all I could think about was you. I kept remembering everything that had happened between us. I remember crying that night, and he eventually let me go without doing anything to me."

Eli’s voice grew quieter.

"After that, he stopped talking to me or even acknowledging me. He still did things for me and bought me whatever I needed, but he kept his distance. I asked him for a phone, and he bought me one, only to cut off the signal so I couldn’t make calls outside."

Each new detail made it more difficult for Dave to sit there and listen without feeling as though the ground beneath everything he had believed was giving way.

"The days became harder to bear. What bothered me most was remembering your father saying he’d make you believe I was dead. I kept imagining you eventually forgetting me and moving on with someone else. I had nightmares about it, too, but there was nothing I could do."

Eli wiped his tears again, struggling to keep his voice steady.

"Just a week ago, Eric asked me whether, after all that time, I still felt nothing for him. I couldn’t answer. We’d had that conversation over and over again, and I didn’t know what else to say. He took my silence as a no. He admitted that he’d kept me there, hoping that if we stayed in the same house long enough, I’d eventually return his feelings."

He swallowed hard.

"He said... By then, there was really no hope that anything would change, so he let me go. I didn’t even know what freedom was supposed to feel like anymore."

Eli turned toward Dave, his eyes wet with tears.

"I came straight back to you, Dave. I wasn’t expecting to find so much changed, including your father being dead. And I won’t lie to you. I thought about murdering him in the worst way possible. But he wasn’t my priority. Finding you was."

His voice broke as he looked at the man he had seemingly spent years trying to return to.

"And now that I’ve found you, I’m not even sure I should have anymore."

Dave said nothing.

"Dave, should I have come looking for you, or should I have let you continue believing I was dead?" Eli asked, his voice wavering. "Are you happy that I’m back?"

"Of course I am," Dave answered sincerely.

After everything Eli had endured, everything that had happened between them, Dave wanted nothing more than to keep him safe and ensure that no one ever hurt him again.

The thought of Eli having suffered so much while Dave had spent years believing him dead was almost unbearable. If he could spare Eli any more pain, he would.

But things were no longer the way they had been nine years ago. How could Dave keep Eli under his protection without hurting him in the process?

Eli wanted them to rebuild what they had lost, to recover the relationship that had once meant everything to them, but Dave wasn’t certain he could give him that, not without hesitation.

"Do you still have feelings for me?" Eli asked, hope unmistakable in his voice.

Dave couldn’t utter a single word.

He didn’t know what he was feeling.

His mind was in disarray, and his feelings were even more difficult to untangle.

Bryce was back from the most significant mission of his life, and Dave wanted to see him. He wanted to be there when Bryce told him how everything had gone, to listen to him, to feel the small bump beneath his stomach and connect with the baby growing inside him.

He had spent the past two days waiting for their return, never imagining that he would find himself in this situation when they finally came home.

And Vincent had just walked out after finding him kissing Ex.

Was Eli even his ex?

They had never sat down and agreed that their relationship was over.

_

He had already been struggling with the feelings he had developed for Vincent, feelings that had grown so overwhelming that he had kissed him and confessed everything he had been keeping from him.

And Vincent had left without giving him an answer, and Dave still desperately wanted to know what he had to say.

He couldn’t bear the uncertainty of not knowing whether Vincent felt anything for him in return or whether his confession had ruined what they had between them.

He wanted to go back home before Vincent began to believe that Dave had abandoned them simply because the man he had been obsessed with for years had returned.

The thought alone filled him with dread. If Bryce found out about Eli, the consequences could be far worse than Dave could imagine.

Bryce had spent so much time fearing that Dave loved Eli instead of him. Dave had reassured him countless times that it wasn’t true, that Eli was even dead and that whatever he had felt for Eli belonged to a past he could never return to.

But now Eli was here.

Dave could no longer rely on the certainty that had made those reassurances possible. Eli was alive, sitting beside him, asking whether Dave still loved him.

How was he supposed to handle any of this?

He couldn’t simply abandon Eli and leave, but neither could he ignore Bryce and Vincent. If he didn’t return that night, they might assume the worst and think he had gone back to Eli.

Dave’s head throbbed as the weight of it all pressed in on him. He had no idea what he was supposed to do, or how to keep from hurting the people he cared about most.