Noam rolled over in the darkness, feeling Casper pressed up against his side. He had no clue how long he'd been out. The last thing he remembered was opening the last bottle of Jack Daniels and wondering if it was going to make his impending migraine better or worse to deal with.
He now had his answer.
His body ached, and head still pounded. If he didn't know better, he'd have thought someone had beaten the crap out of him. He was sore, weak, and dehydrated. His bladder was full, but it almost seemed more work to find his way to the bathroom than to just lay there in pain.
Slowly, all the memories came pouring back.
Kasey.
He groaned as he lifted his arm up and covered his eyes. "Fuck!"
Everything was a blur after Kasey left. He'd watched him pull away from the house. Watched until the taillights were out of view, then he'd turned and opened the first bottle of Jack. How many days ago had that been? At least one because he remembered it was mid-afternoon when he'd opened the second bottle. Now it was dark outside and he'd somehow managed to get into bed.
His head pounded as if someone had a rock pick and was trying to chisel out from the inside and his tongue was thick and dry. "Casper…" He closed his eyes as the dog licked his arm.
A sudden wave of nausea hit him, forcing him to move. He ignored the pain as he stumbled from the bed, almost tangling his feet in the blanket as he tried to get to the bathroom before he puked all over the bed.
He barely made it, falling against the toilet as his stomach let loose. He wasn't sure if it was from all the alcohol or from the migraine, but vomiting only made him feel worse. Casper whined, but he ignored her, too busy trying to deal with his own issues to comfort her.
Once his stomach eased, he rolled to the floor, managing to pull a towel that was hanging to the floor to use as a pillow as he tried to think straight. The last thing he really remembered was Kasey leaving. God, how did he fall in love with a man who he was going to lock up? Only he would have luck like that.
He'd thought over the situation as he drank, trying to find a solution. His only hope was that Kasey did skip town and he wouldn't be able to arrest him. He hoped he did, because he did not want to be the one to have to throw his own lover into jail.
Ex-lover.
"Fuck!" He rolled to his side, bringing his knees to his chest as his headache seemed to grow worse.
He needed to get up. It had to be Monday. He was due at work, but there was no way he was going to make it. If he hadn't already missed it. Hell, was it early Monday morning or late Monday night? He had no way of knowing how long he'd slept.
Slept, passed out, it was all the same. He didn't care. The headache, the alcohol, it all made him worthless.
Maybe they'd fire him, then he wouldn't feel obligated to turn Kasey in. He could turn a blind eye and act like he knew nothing.
He'd spent hours drinking, thinking about what Kasey did. He'd always said he wouldn't search too hard for whoever the 'Castrator' was. Even if he was breaking the law, there was some kind of dark justice to what he did. Noam had seen the kids he'd saved, seen the good that came from the files left at each scene. The 'Castrator' had access to more information about the dark web and the sex trafficking world than the cops did.
How could he hold Kasey responsible for something he'd often wished he could do himself?
Shaking and weak, Noam forced himself up. He needed to figure out what time it was, what day it was. He hadn't gotten drunk in years. Never since coming to America. He wasn't a drinker. A simple glass with dinner maybe, but his body wasn't used to large quantities. It would take days to brush off the effects of drinking so much. The addition of a migraine on top of it only made him feel worse.
Gripping the counter on the bathroom sink, he pulled himself up, thankful for the darkness so he couldn't see what he looked like in the mirror. If he looked as bad as he felt, he was in big trouble.
After letting the dizziness fade, he slowly made his way to the bedroom, glad that Casper didn't get near his feet. The last thing he needed was to trip over her. As he found the bed and sat down, he blew out a long breath before reaching over and turning on the lamp. He kept his eyes closed for a minute, then slowly opened them, unsure how his head would handle the light.
It took a second to work the blur from his vision, but he found the pain didn't increase as he looked around, trying to find his phone. The clock on the nightstand read one-forty-two, so that meant he'd probably missed a day somewhere. Fuck! This wasn't good at all. He wasn't someone who let his emotions get to him. He didn't get drunk and forget about his responsibilities.
He stared down at Casper, wondering what she would say to him if she could talk. She looked up at him with unconditional love. How he wished humans could feel that way as well.
He rubbed the back of his neck as he stood, then slowly made his way into the living room. The proof of his stupidity sat on the coffee table. The two empty bottles confirming what an idiot he was.
His cell phone was under an empty bag of microwavable popcorn that he didn't remember making. At least he'd used the microwave and hadn't tried to cook. At least he hoped he hadn't. He had yet to see the kitchen.
He reached for his phone as he sank down on the couch, sighing when he saw it was early Tuesday morning. He had missed a full day of work. He didn't even want to think about how he was going to explain why he hadn't called in.
Scanning through his messages, he saw they were all from work. Nothing from Kasey, but he really hadn't expected there to be. There was nothing more to say. He'd seen the look in Kasey's eyes before he'd left. He'd fully admitted it was him, but he'd also honestly been sorry for the position he put Noam in.
That was what made this all so hard. He believed Kasey loved him, and he was sure he loved Kasey. It wasn't how he'd planned to tell him, but it didn't matter. There was no future for them now.
Picking up the phone, he called work, telling them he'd been out with a migraine, and wouldn't be in again today. He needed the day to recover, the day to think. Not that he hadn't already had two full days to think, but being drunk didn't count. He had to sober up and seriously decide how he was going to handle the situation. Maybe, if he was lucky, give Kasey time to flee so he wouldn't have to make the decision himself.
After making a fresh pot of coffee, Noam sat down at the kitchen table with his laptop. All he wanted to do was sleep, but he needed to gather all the information he could. He had no way of knowing how many of the 'Castrator' cases were ones Kasey had done. Up until the Nevada crime scene, they'd thought it was two men who worked alone, but reports from Nevada talked of four men. Everything they thought they knew about the castration cases was based on a two-man team, because they'd never had witnesses talk about more than two until now.
That explained how some nights that castrations happened, Kasey had been with him. Fuck, he'd even talked about Faith's case, talked about how hard it was to deal with some of the scenes he had to see, and Kasey had known exactly what he was talking about all along. Kasey had created some of those scenes.
If he'd been smart, he'd have arrested him as soon as he knew for sure. It would have saved him all this thinking. Once Kasey was arrested, there was nothing more Noam could do for him. It would be up to the Attorney General's office to build a case.
Now, he'd let Kasey go and was stuck thinking about everything, questioning everything, and thinking about doing things he wished he wasn't. He gave an oath to obey the law, protect the innocent, but the thing was, the men that Kasey went after were far from innocent. They were some of the worst criminals in the world. That was the issue. He supported what Kasey did. Right or wrong, it made sense to him. What Kasey did was make Noam's job easier by bringing the men to the police's attention and making sure they physically couldn't reoffend again. Every single case that Kasey and his team had left them had ended in a conviction. The information they gave them always checked out and was more than enough to send the men to prison once they healed enough to leave the hospital.
Without Kasey and the information his group got, they wouldn't catch half of the pedophiles they did. They wouldn't bring the kids home to their families. What they did was wrong, but it was also right on so many levels. He couldn't blame Kasey for doing what he did. Not after seeing his sister raped, not after dealing with all the things he had to have seen and heard going after pedophiles for years.
Noam spent the next few hours looking at all the information they had on the 'Castrator', looking for any information he didn't already know about. There wasn't much. Kasey and whoever he was working with were professionals. Even when things had gone wrong, they covered their tracks in ways that even the best forensics couldn't find evidence. Whoever Kasey worked with they knew what they were doing.
It made Noam wonder how well he really knew Kasey. Was he really into IT or was it someone else who hacked the cameras and delved into the dark web? How much work with the group did Kasey do? He didn't work a lot of hours, but talked about meetings and things all the time. There had been so many clues. How had he not seen it sooner?
When he'd stayed the night at Kasey's, he'd never seen a computer. If he was in IT, it would make sense he'd have computers and things at home. Which meant that he didn't work from home when he got the information for the pedophiles. Where did he go?
Did he really want to know?
He had no desire to go digging into Kasey's life and find the people working with him. In fact, he hoped that the others would continue what they did. Maybe not here in his city anymore, but there were still so many out there who needed help, so many perverts to take down. Right or wrong, what Kasey did made a difference. And that was the problem. That was why he didn't arrest him the other night. Why he hadn't told anyone else what he knew.
He rolled his shoulders, trying to ease the tension, but nothing was working. What he needed was a hot shower and some food. Maybe once he started to feel somewhat human again, he could figure out how to handle the situation.
With his head still pounding, and Casper at his heels begging for attention, he made his way into the shower and stripped off his clothes. Looking in the mirror was a mistake, just as he expected it would be. Dark circles lined his eyes, and his skin was pale, even with his olive skin tone. He ran his fingers through his hair, trying hard not to think about Kasey, but he was all he could think about.
He was hurt, angry, deceived, and frustrated, but that didn't change the fact he still cared about Kasey. Loved him. How was he supposed to put the only man he'd ever dared see a future with in prison? How was he supposed to spend the rest of his life knowing that the man who completed him, his perfect other half, was sitting in a prison cell?
As he stepped into the shower, he wondered if he should be the one to leave town. Maybe go back to Israel and start over. It sounded good until he realized that no matter how far he ran, his heart would still be with Kasey.