Lowering her head, my mother jerks with a sob and daubs her face with the Kleenex still clutched in her palm. “You’re not well, my sweet boy. You haven’t been for quite some time.”
Through a shield of tears, I stare back at her, realizing there is nothing I can do to convince her. Nothing I can say to convince the doctor, who has already decided that I belong in this place. “Mother, please.”
“Don’t worry, Lucian.” Dr. Voigt pats my leg and gives a squeeze where my ankle is also bound by restraints. “There is still time for you. Your mother did the right thing, having you admitted here. We have a one hundred percent success rate with our aversion therapy.”
She still hasn’t bothered to look at me, her eyes cast toward the floor. “He’ll be okay, then, doctor?”
“He’s in good hands, Laura. Don’t worry.”
“His father doesn’t want anyone to know he’s here.”
“You can put your confidence in us. We’ll keep all communications strictly through you.”
“I appreciate that, Doctor. Thank you.”
“And, Lucian.” She stares down at me, the sadness in her eyes turning more resolute. “Don’t fight them, darling. This is for your own good.”
I open my eyes to see masked faces standing over me. A too-bright light bends from the ceiling, like an insect clawing its way inside the room. Nausea gurgles in my stomach. The throbbing ache at my temples is a hammer pounding into my skull.
I try to lift my arm to shield the piercing brightness, and it won’t move, still bound by the leather straps of the bed. My heart beats in time to the blood rushing through my ears. “What is this?”
No one answers.
A white towel is placed over my face, and I snap my head back and forth to remove it, but something is strapped around my neck, holding it in place. Writhing and kicking is futile against the straps holding me down.
Ice cold fluids are poured over the towel, and when I gasp in shock, the saturated fabric sucks into my gaping mouth.
The air diminishes.
A sharp pain strikes my groin, and I arch on the bed, crying out. A burning snap, like a spark on my most sensitive flesh.
More fluids trickle around my face, and I shake my head back and forth on another gasp. A second zap lashes at my balls, like an electric current running over me. “Fuck!” Teeth clenched against the pain, I arch as much as the binds will allow.
The pressure at my throat loosens, and the towel is pulled way. Blurred figures stand over me, while I blink away the water dripping from my eyelashes and draw in long, agonizing breaths, my chest pounding with the need for air. Dr. Voigt stands beside a woman I’ve never seen before. Dark hair and almond-shaped brown eyes. Maybe Asian.
“I understand you have a fascination with water. Do you remember drowning, Lucian?”
Still trying to catch my breath, I don’t bother to answer them.
Another jolt of electricity strikes my groin, and my eyes screw shut as my stomach clenches over a cramping ache. “No. I … I remember taking a bath. And I fell asleep.”
Another snap, like the strike of a whip across my nuts.
“Ah, fuck!”
“I don’t think you fell asleep. There was evidence that you had ejaculated. Semen found on the tiles.”
“Since when is … jerking off … considered a fucking crime?” The pain vibrates in my thighs and lower stomach, stirring cold nausea in my chest.
“It’s not the jerking off that concerns me, Lucian.” He removes his gloves, revealing the signet ring. The moth etched into steel. “It’s finding out just how far you’re willing to go.”
“No.” I shake my head, but the room disappears, blurred to a stark white behind the wet towel they place back over my face.
“No!”
Chapter 22
Lucian
Present day …
It’s not often that I venture out of the manor, but one thing I’ve learned from doing business with a crook: never let him see where you live. The ferry ride, plus hour and a half drive to Boston, is worth not having a scumbag like Franco Scarpinato step foot in the place where I sleep.
I sit on a bench at the end of McCorkle fishing pier, elbow kicked over the back, as I watch a young kid eyeing me. Beside him, an older guy, I’m guessing his father, hooks a worm on a fishing pole, holding it up in as if instruction, but the kid seems too focused on me to care.