But if he was out of town...

Kingsley strode from his bedroom and found Sam in his office.

“Three things,” he said. “First, call Phoebe. Tell her I’m out of town.”

“Check.”

“Second. There’s a number in my desk for a man named The Barber—”

“Are you getting a hair cut? Please, say no. I love the long hair.”

“He’s not a barber. It’s his nickname. He’s a Mafia numbers guy. He combs through files,” Kingsley said, wiggling his fingers like a comb at work.

“If he combs through the files, why don’t they call him The Comb?”

“Have you met anyone in the mob? They aren’t known for being brain trusts.”

“Fine. I’ll call The Barber. What do I ask him?”

“Tell him to dig through the Fullers’ finances—church and personal.”

“Can do. Anything else?”

“Third. I need you to book a flight for me.”

“Where are you going?”

I’m not the teacher. Magdalena is. She could have you flipping quarters in midair with a single-tail in two weeks.

“Rome.”

18

June

TODAY KINGSLEY FELT what he would classify as a “new” pain.

And considering how much and how many types of pain he’d experienced in his life, this was saying something.

He lay naked on his side, a warm white blanket pulled up to his hip. Soothing music played in the background. And a masseuse named Anita talked to him as she kneaded the tough scar tissue in his chest. She worked against the grain, she explained, breaking up the tightness, opening up the tissue, forcing blood into the inert cells. Not even in the hospital had he experienced this level of raw pain. Unshed tears scalded his eyes, and his fingers held on to a pillow with a death grip.

“You should be a sadist,” Kingsley said between gritted teeth. “I think getting shot hurt less.”

Anita paused and wiped sweat from his forehead. Her touch was welcome and motherly, which made him feel a little guilty about his massive erection hidden under the blanket.

“You’ll feel like a new man when I’m done with you, I promise. Do you need to stop for the day?”

Kingsley shook his head.

“No,” he said, panting. “You said you’ll make me feel like a new man. Then, make me feel like a new man.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you have a very high tolerance for pain?” Anita asked.

“Yes. A priest I used to date,” he said. Anita gave him the exact look he expected her to give him.

Anita returned to her work, and Kingsley mentally fired Sam in ten different ways for talking him into this. But he’d come home from Rome yesterday with a stiff back and tightness in his chest so severe he couldn’t take a full breath. Sam had called Anita, the massaging miracle worker, and gotten him an emergency appointment.

Not even getting fucked raw by Søren had hurt this badly. He could come any second now.

“Breathe,” Anita ordered, and Kingsley did as commanded. He breathed, she massaged, and every nerve in his body screamed.

The pain suffused him. He was awash in pain, bathing in pain, drinking in pain, breathing in pain. The pain from candle wax-play was something like this sort of steady persistent agony. When was the last time he’d felt the wax? With Søren, of course. They’d gotten wrought-iron candleholders out of storage at the school and brought them to the hermitage for extra light to play and read by. One cold quiet night, Søren had ordered Kingsley on to his stomach on the cot and tied his wrists and ankles to each bed leg. For hours Søren had sat at his hip and dripped the wax on him, burning him one drop at a time. No matter how Kingsley had panted, how he groaned, how he gasped and winced, Søren never let up. As Søren had scalded him with the wax, he’d asked Kingsley questions.

What do you want to do with your life?

Where do you want to go?

What do you dream about?

What do you love?

What do you hate?

And he’d answered the questions all truthfully.

I want to spend my life with you.

I want to go where you go.

I dream of you.

I love sex.

I love pain.

I love you.

I hate the nights I spend without you.

How small his world was back then. It had been the size of that hermitage. What if his sister, Marie-Laure, had never come to St. Ignatius? Would Kingsley’s world still be that small? He would have willingly, joyfully and blindly devoted himself to Søren. He would have gone where Søren had gone, done what Søren had ordered, slept where Søren told him to sleep, eaten what Søren told him to eat and died by his own hand if Søren had decreed it. Was it possible that it was for the best Kingsley had gotten away from Søren for a few years? Was it possible leaving and going out on his own had been the right thing to do? Søren certainly seemed happier now than he did in high school. Maybe being apart from him had been good for Søren, too, although it rankled to entertain the very idea that Søren had been better off without him. Kingsley wondered...what would he answer now if asked those same questions?

I want to build a kingdom for our kind and keep us all safe.

I want to go to the Caribbean. I haven’t been there yet. Trinidad, Dominican Republic, Haiti.

At night I dream about being choked, being shot. But during the day, when I’m awake, I dream about finding someone to share my life with and my kingdom with.