Renzo tightened his hold on Low, pressing a kiss to his lover’s forehead as he stared up at the ceiling. Normally he abhorred silence. But this one, with Low in his arms, his hot breath warming Renzo, didn’t threaten him. He’d thought he was dreaming when he woke up next to Low earlier, but then he’d seen Dax and remembered the panic attack in his office. The meltdown after Syren’s appearance that Low witnessed.

Dax told him about Low calling him, Low staying when Dax gave him an out, Low soothing him during his night terrors. It was ironic, in a fucked up kinda way that Low was the one to calm him. To warm him. To help him feel again.

He’d wanted to repay Low, to taste him before Renzo explained about himself, in case Low couldn’t handle it. In case he didn’t stay. So yeah, he’d been a bit selfish, taking Low’s cock down his throat before he’d given the younger man any answers.

Low didn’t seem to mind.

He’d tasted the way Renzo knew he would. Hot and spicy, fucking liquid fire on Renzo’s tongue. He wanted to go there again, wanted to drink from that fountain again, but first he had to open a vein.

Low’s palm slid over Renzo’s chest and down to linger over the huge scar on his left side.

“What happened here?”

He inhaled, held it for the span of five heartbeats, then exhaled. “Someone I once loved gave me that.”

Low’s finger, busy tracing the length of the scar, stopped.

“He claims it was a gift.”

“What?” Low pulled away and sat up, a frown wrinkling his brow. Renzo touched him, attempting to smooth away Low’s confusion.

“Maybe he was right.” He dropped his hand with a shrug. “Maybe it was gift.” That blade to his side got Mauricio out of that cell. Even though for a while after he’d actually longed to be back inside that place, he’d eventually regained some of himself.

He was alive, at the very least.

So yeah, maybe it as a gift.

“What kind of person would hurt you like that and call it a gift?” Low shook his head. “You believe that shit?”

He cupped Low’s nape and tugged him back onto his chest. This was the opening he needed to explain about Mauricio. His limbs trembled, memories wiping away the bliss that lingered after what they’d just done. He kept kissing Low’s head, brushing his knuckles down the side of Low’s face.

Over and over, as he sought out the words.

Kiss.

Stroke.

While he struggled with the unveiling of the scars Low’s touch could never reach.

“Renzo?”

He coughed. “I was stolen when I was ten years old.” Low jerked against him, trying to break his hold, but Renzo held him tight. “Please. Like this,” he whispered. “Stay like this.” He couldn’t look into Low’s eyes, not right then. “Stay like this, and I’ll tell you about Mauricio Costa.”

“Who is that?”

“That is the little boy I used to be,” he murmured against Low’s temple. “He was stolen from right in front his own door.” So long since he’d had to speak of it, yet the terror hadn’t diminished. Not one iota. A whimper welled up in his throat and Low stroked his belly.

“We don’t have to do this,” Low told him softly. “Not if it’s too much for you.”

It would always be too much, but that was the precise reason to keep talking. It was what the therapist had told him when he finally found his way to one once he’d been recruited for the FBI. But by then lying and pretending were as natural to him as breathing. He gave them the words they wanted to hear. He wouldn’t do the same to Low.

“It is necessary.” He swallowed. “You have questions. This—this is how I answer them.”

“Okay.” Low nodded against his chest. “Tell me.”

“What you saw last night was a panic attack. I was remembering what happened to me. For a while last night, I was back in that place.” He exhaled. “They took me, drugged me, and when I opened my eyes again I was inside a cage. Naked, cold and nearly mute with fear.” That same feeling of helplessness remained to this day whenever he opened his eyes to darkness. “There was nothing but darkness.” The shaking started, and Low stroked him, his chest, his stomach, his face. “I would cry for my father, for my mother. I would beg to go home. All I got was silence.”

“Renzo. Babe, we don’t have to do this.”

He loved Low in that moment more than he had the moment before. He loved him for thinking to spare Renzo what he’d already experienced. He loved him for the anguish in his voice, an emotion he felt on Renzo’s behalf.

It was because he loved Low, too, that Renzo continued speaking. “Time passed. I do not know how long, but I was never fed. I was filthy, having soiled myself multiple times. Starved. No strength. All cried out. No voice from calling out for my parents. Then the monster came,” he whispered.

Low tensed.

“He promised food. He promised a bed. He promised warmth. I just had to do one thing.”

“No.” He must have relaxed his hold then, because Low broke out of his grasp and lurched upright, catching Renzo’s face in his hands. “No.” His eyes were wet and red, begging, pleading. “Renzo—”

“I followed his instructions,” he told Low. “I did what he asked.” He’d thrown up all over the both of them in the process. “When it was over, he disappeared back into the darkness.” He fisted his hands. “I didn’t get what he promised.”

“I’m so sorry.” Low wrapped his arms around Renzo’s neck and buried his face in his throat. “I’m so sorry.”

“He did it to me two more times before I understood what was happening. When he’d come to me, he’d tell me all my parents had to do to get me back was pay. He didn’t ever quote a price. I know now that my family were poor, barely making ends meet, but that ten year old boy didn’t know that. Every time the monster came, he’d say my family didn’t want me. They knew what I’d been doing with him and they refused to pay for me.”

“Jesus, babe.”

“It didn’t take too long for me to believe him.” That easily he’d been broken and conquered. “I didn’t struggle anymore. I started to anticipate his coming for me,” he confessed. “Because the darkness was worse than whatever he did to my body. The silence destroyed me more than his hands ever did. At least, I wasn’t alone then. I started begging him to stay with me. To keep me with him. He’d laugh.”

Soft lips pressed to his jaw. Tender fingers traced the contours of his body, keeping him in the now when he would have slipped back into that monstrous place.

He loved Low more.

“That’s why you need the lights,” Low murmured. “The music.”

“Yes.” He cleared his throat. “I wasn’t allowed to speak Portuguese, he’d punish me if I did. I didn’t know anything more than yes, no, and a handful of other words in English so I was always punished. Until I stopped using words altogether.” To this day, he still couldn’t bring himself to utter a single word in his native language. “Time passed. My body started changing. I was growing, and I was so attuned to him now, that I could see his disgust at those changes in my voice. At the physical changes to my physique. I was under nourished, but that didn’t keep puberty away.”

Low’s fingers stalled in their stroking. “What happened?”

Renzo had to chuckle. “He found a replacement. One with white hair and otherworldly purple eyes. And for the first time, I had a companion.” He’d taken little Marcos under his wing, telling him what not to do, how to behave. “It was a confusing time. I was happy for the reprieve, yet jealous that he was now the favorite. Once again, I spent more time in the darkness. But he became my friend. My brother. My confidant.”

Low linked their fingers and brought them to his lips.

“We were his property, but inside that cell, when it was just the two of us? We became each other’s everything. I didn’t know the name for what I felt for him, not then—” He met Low’s gaze then, staring into them as he said, “But I knew it was precious and fragile and meant to be protected. We talked about family. We dreamt aloud about going someplace warm and building a family. He taught me English.”

He’d thought himself long cried out, but a tear slid down his cheek then. Low wiped it away in silence, and Renzo loved him.

“I didn’t have a name for it, but all I wanted was to be someplace safe with him. To hold his hand and touch his hair. Talk to him.”

Low’s eyes glistened. “You loved him.”

“I loved him.” The words were fire in his throat, fueled by anger and loss and pain. “He held me when Monster used me until I was broken and I did the same for him. When Monster used us at the same time, it seemed to sting less somehow, just having him close.” He stared off into the distance.

“But?”

“But those were my feelings. Maybe he didn’t reciprocate.” Even now, after having spoken with Syren, Renzo didn’t know for sure. They were both so skilled in deception. He couldn’t say for sure. “One day he came back from his alone time with the Monster and just lunged at me.” It had felt so foreign. So wrong. And the determination on Syren’s face. “I needed to go away, he kept muttering that as the blade glinted in the darkness. I was so shocked, I barely felt the blade.” He did feel the blood as it poured. The warmth of it, almost pleasurable on his chilled skin. “I never even fought him.” He licked his trembling lips. “I just thought if I’m to die, at least his would be the last face I’d see.”

“But you didn’t die.”

“I passed out at the blood loss and Monster tossed me into the trash.”

Low’s body jerked. “What?”

“I came awake inside a large garbage dump, naked and bleeding, pelted by rain.” His surprise at having survived had been short-lived though. “I couldn’t walk, could barely crawl. A woman found me. She spoke a language I didn’t know. French.” Turns out he’d been in Paris. “She scared me. I had to have scared her. But she fed me, stitched me up, and when I could walk on my own, she handed me some money and shoved me out the door. Her name was Opal.” Years later he’d visited her to offer his thanks.

“What did you do then?” Fingers tight around Renzo’s, Low sat cross-legged beside him with wide eyes filled with pain.

And Renzo loved him.

“I stayed on the streets until the money ran out. Stole. And when I got caught stealing from a bakery after hours by the owner, I bribed him with the only currency I had left.”

Low blinked.

“My body.”

“Oh babe.” Low kissed him. Lips so tender, tasting so sweet. “What you went through. I can’t imagine it.”

Renzo didn’t have to imagine, did he? He’d lived it. Barely survived. “The baker and I made an arrangement. I would help him clean up around the place in exchange for my body and a place to stay. That lasted for about six months. I was seventeen then, and I hadn’t forgotten that dream to be in a warm place. To have a family. But I didn’t know how I would get home.” He touched Low’s face, dragging a fingertip over his nose, tracing the curve of his gorgeous lips. “The only thing of value I had was my body. I used it, only this time it was my choice.”

Low sat up straighter.

“I had a client. He had money. He had influence and he had a daughter who adored me. They taught me things. About money, about the world, about myself. They helped me perfect my English, helped me get a new identity, helped me find my family.”

Low covered his mouth. “They cared about you.”

Renzo nodded. In their own way, Fabiano and Anna had cared for him. “I flew back to Brazil When I was twenty-five.” To the family he’d thought didn’t want him. “I wanted to confront them, you know. Find out why they left me to Monster. Why they didn’t love me enough to fight for me. We lived in Rochina favela—one of the largest in Rio—and they hadn’t moved. When I got there, my ten year old face was plastered all over. On walls, on fences. On buildings. The posters faded with time and the elements.”

“They didn’t stop looking,” Low whispered. Tears ran down his face, unchecked.

“They didn’t stop looking.” Renzo’s throat closed up, so he tilted his face toward the ceiling. “I stood out there, staring at the house that seemed way smaller than I remembered, and I felt guilty.” The shakes started again and he clung to Low. “I felt so guilty for hating them all those years. For believing what Monster told me.”

“What did they say?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t meet them. Haven’t, to this day.”

“What? Renzo—”

“I was no longer their son. I was no longer my sister’s older brother.”

Low made a choked sound, staring at him with wounded eyes.

“I was no longer Mauricio and that changed long before my name did. I couldn’t go to them. I couldn’t be that ten year old boy for them.”

“So you let them go on missing you?”

“They would always miss him, because I was no longer Mauricio. I saved them that. I came to the states instead and I built my resources until I found him. I found Monster.”

Low’s eyes widened. “You did?”

“An ex-pat from Chicago.” He had to be careful what he shared next, but he told Low, “I found him and I made him pay.” With some unexpected help. It had also been there in Chicago that he’d first been approached by Dutch to join his task force.

“Babe.”

He clasped Low’s face in his hands, bringing their foreheads together. “I’m a broken boy wearing the body of a broken man. My scars are souvenirs I can’t ever leave behind. But I need you within my reach. I need to lay where you lay.” Lips against Low’s, he whispered, “I belong to you.”

Low ducked his head and slid down Renzo’s body, kissing each scar as he went lower and lower.

For who he was, and who he wasn’t, Renzo loved him.