“I’m, uh, new to the cu—society,” Oscar quickly added.
Selene grinned, her head turned so only Oscar could see the way she rolled her eyes in amusement. “I’ve participated in ménage sex…with one man and one woman, two men, two women, and on one particularly fun weekend there were four of us, two of each gender.”
“Of course you have. And by the way, that’s fucking hot,” Oscar teased Selene before looking at Luca. “Let me guess, your crazy cult demands chastity as well as sobriety.”
Luca shook his head. “No, of course not. The Bellator Dei follows the Catholic doctrine. Marriage between a man and a…w-woman, procreation, these things are highly regarded, required even.”
Oscar noticed the slight stutter in Luca’s comment about marriage. A quick glance at Selene proved she’d heard it as well.
“So one man and one woman,” she clarified. “That’s all that’s allowed?”
Luca nodded, his gaze shifting to look out the window. Oscar didn’t think the Italian was suddenly taking an interest in the blizzard as much as trying to avoid making eye contact with them.
“So,” Luca began again after several quiet moments, turning slowly to direct his next question to Oscar. “Your brother and Mr. Blake…they…”
He knew what Luca wanted to know but was too uncomfortable to ask, so he gave him the answer. “There is butt stuff.”
Selene snorted, then stuck out her leg and kicked him gently.
Oscar sighed. “I don’t hang out in the bedroom with them, Luca, but…I’m pretty sure they’re lovers too, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Fascinating. The Bellator Dei believes that homosexuality, bisexuality—these things are abominations against God, terrible sins that must be severely punished, expunged from a person’s soul through brutality.”
“How fucking surprising,” Oscar growled, his temper flaring hot. “Your cult is filled with those beat-the-gay-away dickheads. God, I hate those motherfuckers.”
Selene reached over and placed her hand on his knee, squeezing it. His shoulders started to relax.
Luca didn’t respond to Oscar’s violent outburst, but there was pain in his expression that told him he was right about the cult’s unsavory control tactics.
It told him something else as well, as Oscar felt a few more pieces of the Luca puzzle click into place. And he started to understand why the man was no stranger to beatings.
“So it is true the Masters’ Admiralty embrace, even encourage…” Luca ran his hand through his shaggy brown hair as he considered what they’d told him so far. Obviously, the guy hadn’t had time to stop in for a haircut while running all around the East Coast, chasing a tablet.
“Are you gay, Luca?” Selene asked quietly.
Luca lifted his face, swallowing heavily, and Oscar knew the second the man began to speak that Luca was not only not a liar, he trusted them. And considering everything the man had suffered in his life, Oscar recognized that as the gift it was.
Luca squared his shoulders, tension radiating from him. “I’m bisexual.”
Oscar’s stomach clenched with pain on Luca’s behalf. “They found out. The fucking bastards found out and tried to beat it out of you, didn’t they?”
Luca gave Oscar a single nod. He wasn’t sure how to respond in the face of the other man’s obvious rage in his defense. He had noticed over the course of the past day or so that Oscar wasn’t the type of man who shielded his emotions. Everything he felt was written plainly in his expressions and in his tone, yet Luca felt as if he could see through the man’s outbursts to the passionate person beneath.
Luca had spent his entire life repressing his feelings because he’d learned from a young age that sadness or fear were easily exploited, while anger and love were easily snuffed out through violence.
“Luca,” Selene said softly. “I’m sorry they did that to you.”
Luca didn’t doubt for a moment that Selene’s compassion was as genuine as Oscar’s anger, and his throat began to tighten. He couldn’t recall anyone—with the exception of his sister—ever stepping up to his defense. These people were strangers, yet in just a day, they’d shown him more compassion than the orphanage or those who had raised him in the Bellator Dei and had claimed to love him.
Unlike Joli, Luca, who was older, had vague memories of their real parents, who were killed when his sister was just a baby. She’d waited eight years for a family, her entire lifetime, when the couple from the Bellator Dei found them at the orphanage, claiming they were good children of God who would grow