The King: The Original Sinners Book 6 (10 page)

“I have nothing to celebrate.”

“I do. Celebrate with me.”

“What are you celebrating?”

“For years I had no idea where you were, what you were doing, how you were living. And then you were shot and in the hospital and dying. And that’s why they contacted me. That’s how I found you. Now here you are, right in front of me. God brought me back to you, brought you back to me. I haven’t stopped celebrating from that night I first stepped in this house and saw you again.”

“You were angry at me.”

“It breaks my heart to see you like this.”

“I don’t believe that. I don’t believe you have a heart.”

Søren pressed his hand to the side of Kingsley’s face and with his thumb stroked the arch of his cheekbone. A gentle touch, a loving touch. He would have preferred a slap. It would hurt less.

“Do you remember all those notes you hid inside my Bible?” Søren asked.

“I wrote them in French so no one could read them.”

“I still have them. They’re still inside my Bible. I think the Kingsley I remember is still here.”

“You kept my notes?” Kingsley asked. It was the last thing he expected to hear. The notes, the remnants of his bullet... What other pieces of Kingsley did Søren still have in his possession? Other than his heart?

“All of them.”

“Why? You aren’t in love with me anymore.”

“I treasure the memory of what we had. And I pray we can have something even better, deeper now.”

“What?”

“Friendship. A real friendship.”

“You’re never going to fuck me again, are you?”

“Could you be faithful to me if I did?”

“Is that a serious question?” Kingsley asked.

“Let’s say it is. Let’s say I would break my vows with you. Let’s say I’d even consider leaving the priesthood for you. Could you be faithful to me?”

“Just you and I?”

“You. Me. Eleanor. The three of us, like we dreamed of that day.”

“You aren’t serious.”

“Pretend that I am,” Søren said with unbroken eye contact. And for a split second Kingsley almost believed him. “This will be the one time I make you this offer. You. Me. Eleanor. The three of us. Forever.”

“Forever?”

“Eleanor agreed to forever. Can you?”

Kingsley closed his eyes. He could have Søren and the girl they dreamed of. And what? No one else? Ever? Forever was such a long time. And he’d been free of Søren for eleven years now. Only Søren? Only this girl he’d never met?

“I take it back,” Kingsley said. “You’re still a wolf.”

Søren grabbed a towel off the stack by the steps. He took a corner of it and dried Kingsley’s face. If Kingsley could fall asleep right here, right now, when Søren was taking care of him, he could fall asleep and never wake up. If he died now, maybe he could die almost happy.

“Can you remember...” Søren began as he squeezed water from Kingsley’s hair. “Was there ever a time when you felt like you were doing what God put you on this earth to do?”

“Once.”

“When?”

“When we were lovers.”

“Kingsley, be serious.”

“I mean it. You were so alone,” Kingsley said. “I’ve never met anyone more alone than you were back then. Everyone was afraid of you. No one ever talked to you. They treated you like a leper. You wanted them to.”

“You didn’t.”

“I was scared. But I loved you more than I feared you. I had to know you. And that night in the hallway when you said you wondered why God had made you the way you are, you wondered what the reason was...”

“Je suis la raison,”
Søren repeated. “That’s what you said to me.”

“I am the reason,” Kingsley whispered.

Søren nodded.

“That was it,” Kingsley said. “That night I felt like God put me on earth to show you why he created you like He did. You needed me as much as I needed you.”

“I did. Until you, I thought I was the only one who wanted the things I wanted.”

“You never hurt me. Do you know that? Even when you hurt me you never hurt me. I loved it. It wasn’t until you stopped that I felt the pain.”

“It hurt me, too.” Søren ran his fingers through Kingsley’s hair. Eleven years since their last night together, and yet Søren still knew exactly how to touch him in the way he most needed. “I was wrong. I shouldn’t have married Marie-Laure. I thought I was solving all our problems. It was arrogant and foolish, and I realize that now.”

“It was fucking stupid is what it was,” Kingsley said. “Your Virgin Queen was right. You are an idiot.”

Søren dropped his hand into the water and splashed Kingsley in the face in punishment.

“Good to know you’re still as much a bastard as always,” Kingsley said, grabbing the towel and swiping his face with it.

Kingsley tossed the towel on the floor and looked up again.

“I don’t know what to do,” Kingsley said, watching the light dance once more on the ceiling. It danced faster now as he and Søren set the water moving.

“Now? Tomorrow? Forever?”

“With my life. I don’t have to work. You saw to that. I don’t know what to do with myself. I make enemies as a hobby. I drink to kill time. I fuck to forget.”

“I can’t tell you what to do with your life,” Søren said. “That’s between you and God. But first you have to know that you do want to live. Once you’re certain you want to live, you’ll find your reason for living.”

“I don’t know if I want to live. I look at the future, and I see nothing. It’s all black. I have no dreams, no visions, no hope. And you don’t even want me anymore like you used to.”

“If that beautiful, proud Kingsley Boissonneault who chased me down the hall and watched me sleep and confessed he thought of me all the time and yelled at me for breaking the rules of a game without rules... If he walked into this room right now, then I would be tempted to break my vows. That boy was a king, which is why I took so much pleasure in making him kneel. But this self-pitying, self-loathing, self-destructive Kingsley Edge in front of me? There’s no honor in breaking someone already broken. There’s no fun in it, either.”

“I want to be him again. But I can’t. He’s gone, he’s dead. I’ve done too much. I’ve seen too much.” He closed his eyes and raised his hands, wanting to push away the visions in his mind—the crimes, the corpses, the missions into war zones. He’d taken a wrong turn somewhere and found himself wandering the back alleys of hell.

“You can be a new man, Kingsley. If he’s dead, then he’s dead. But you don’t have to live the rest of your life walking around inside his corpse. You can have a new life.”

“It’s so easy for you to say and so hard for me to do.”

“It’s not hard at all. You only have to want it. You have to want the life where you’re doing what God created you to do. If the one time you felt like you were fulfilling your destiny was by helping me, then go find the others like us and help them, too.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. You’re one of the most intelligent men on this earth. You can figure it out.”

“I don’t even know where to start on a new life.”

“Do you truly want one? Do you want to give up all this self-destructive foolishness and do something worthwhile? Do you want to be a new man?”

Kingsley paused and thought about the question. It seemed too good to be true. It sounded like a magic trick.
Voila.
New man. New life. But he wanted that magic even if it was an illusion. What he wouldn’t give to feel that way again, feel the way he felt when he and Søren had been lovers, when his mere existence gave Søren reason for hope. When Søren’s existence gave him hope.

“Oui.”
Kingsley met Søren’s eyes. “I want it. What do I do?”

“You die and then you’re reborn. New life.”

Kingsley rolled his eyes.

“I die? That’s going to take some doing. I’ve been trying to die for ten years now. No luck.”

“With this I can help.”

“How? Are you going to kill me?”

“Yes.” Søren grasped Kingsley by the front of his shirt and dragged him to his feet.

“Life.” Søren looked straight and deep into Kingsley’s eyes.

“What?”

“Death.” Søren pushed him underwater.

Immediately Kingsley thrashed and jerked, trying to fight off Søren’s iron grip that held him under the surface of the water. He was drowning, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t get back up. He knew how drowning worked. He knew he would be dead in a minute. The water covered his head and face, and he couldn’t get traction, couldn’t get air. He looked death in the face and clawed at its eyes. He’d kill death before he’d let death kill him.

He fought back, fought hard.

He would not die tonight. He would live even if he had to kill Søren to survive.

Søren pulled him back up, and Kingsley spit out water, his throat and lungs burning.

“Resurrection.”

The water settled. Kingsley panted. The word
resurrection
echoed around the room, reverberating into the innermost chamber of his heart.

Søren took a step back.

“I did my part by coming back to you,” he said. “God did His part to keep you alive long enough for me to get here. Now you do your part and make yourself worthy of the second chance you’ve been given.”

“You tried to drown me.”

Søren smiled.

“It’s called baptism, Kingsley. Welcome to the Kingdom.”

Søren walked up the stairs, grabbed a towel and left him alone in the pool. Kingsley wordlessly watched him leave. He could still taste the vomit in his mouth. His clothes were soaked, he looked like hell. And yet, he felt clean.

Welcome to the Kingdom.

The Kingdom.

In that moment he stood sick and shaking and cold and wet, Kingsley knew exactly what he would do with his life. Once upon a time, he’d made Søren a promise. He’d made a promise and now he would keep it. He saw it before him, and it seemed so real he could touch it, feel it. He saw a building, old, Gothic, crumbling, like he was—awaiting rebirth. And people filed into it, people with secrets. They needed him, needed his protection, needed his knowledge. They needed to kneel. They needed a king. He heard their cries of ecstasy, saw their hunger and devotion. He would take them all and give them to one more worthy.

And he’d never seen anything more beautiful in his life.

A promise made long ago... A promise he would keep.

A king must have a kingdom after all.

12

May

“YOU’RE PLANNING TO
build a what?” Søren asked.

“A BDSM club,” Kingsley said. He leaned forward at his desk and held up photographs he’d taken at a dozen different clubs. “I’ve been all over the world the past three weeks looking at what’s out there. I took these pictures in LA. It’s more a nightclub than a kink club, but it has a few dungeons. I went to this club in Germany—it’s as terrifying as it looks. This one was New Orleans. A brothel and a club, probably like your friend’s in Rome. And this is Chicago. Did you know the old Playboy clubs gave a key to every member? We’ll do something like—”

“Kingsley, stop.” Søren met his eyes across the desk.

“What?”

“Are you on drugs again?” Søren asked.

Kingsley tossed his photographs down.

“I’m sober, and I have been for two weeks.” He wasn’t merely sober, he was wildly sober, willfully sober and blissfully sober. His head was clear, his eyes bright and the bone-deep exhaustion he’d been living with for a year had evaporated. He was alive and happy about it for the first time in as long as he could remember. “I’m trying to tell you I know what to do with my life.”

“And that is...?”

“I’m going to build the biggest, most exclusive, most impressive S and M club in the world.”

Søren said nothing at first. But he did look up to the ceiling and addressed a few words to it.

“I suppose it wouldn’t have occurred to you to call him to join the Peace Corps, Lord,” Søren said, still gazing upward. “It had to be this?”

“Who the hell are you talking to?” Kingsley demanded.

“God. I was criticizing Him, so perhaps it’s for the best you interrupted. This is your grand calling in life? Your ultimate purpose? An S and M club?”

“No,” Kingsley said, shaking his head. “Not
an
S and M club.
The
S and M club. And you’re going to help me, because it’s your fault I’m doing this.”

“My fault?” Søren repeated, pointing at himself. “What leaps in logic did you take to lay this at my doorstep?”

“You turned me kinky,” Kingsley said.

Søren paused.

“I want to argue with that assertion,” Søren said.

“Oui?”

“I said I wanted to argue with, not that I could.” Søren took a breath, sat forward in the chair and clasped his hands. “I have to say I am pleased to see you enthusiastic about something that isn’t drinking yourself to death before thirty.”

“Drinking yourself to death before thirty is so nineteenth century.”

“Whatever the reason for this change of heart, I’m grateful it happened. If I can help you in any way, I will. But, please, recall I am now a Catholic priest, so I’d prefer not doing anything particularly illegal if it can be helped.”

“Nothing illegal. I just don’t know where to start. You’re the smartest man I know, and your friend Magdalena had a club. How do I do this?”

“I suppose you’d start with a location. Magdalena’s club was her home, her home her club. But I assume the town house isn’t zoned for commercial enterprises.”

“And it’s not big enough. And neither is the Möbius. But, yes, you’re right. We’ll need the perfect location. Lots of rooms to play in. A big room for a big dungeon. A bar, too, but we’ll keep the alcohol consumption in check. More or less.”

“More,” Søren said.

“You’re a Catholic priest. Aren’t you all drunks?”

“If I wasn’t before, being back in your life might drive me to drink. Between you and Eleanor it’s a miracle I’m even lucid.”

Kingsley pointed at him. “I take that as a compliment.”

“You would.”

“Maybe an old hospital,” Kingsley said, turning back to his photographs and flipping through them. “Are there any old abandoned hospitals lying around Manhattan? Or a mental asylum?”

“A mental asylum might send the wrong message,” Søren said.

“Oh, you know what they say,” Kingsley said with a wide grin at Søren. “We’re all mad here.”

“Who’s mad?” Blaise asked, as she strode into the office without knocking first. She had what looked like a newspaper in her hands. Not a good sign where Blaise was concerned.

“My girlfriend is mad for interrupting us when we’re working,” Kingsley said, feigning disapproval, which was Blaise’s favorite form of foreplay. The more peeved he was at her, the harder she worked to get back into his good graces.

“I told you, I am not your girlfriend,” Blaise said. “I am your submissive.”

“She has a point,” Søren said. “They’re quite different concepts.”

“Thank you, Father.” Blaise gave Søren a curtsy, which was an act of submission and exhibitionism, as her pale green kimono-style robe barely made it past her hips. At least she had underwear on.

For now.

“What, pray tell, are you doing in my office when I told you not to interrupt?” Kingsley asked, grabbing Blaise by the arm and pulling her down on to his lap. In addition to sternness, she also adored a good manhandling.

“I need ten thousand dollars, please,” she said.

Kingsley looked across his desk at Søren.

“She’s right. She’s not my girlfriend. She’s my ex-girlfriend.”

“This is serious, King.” Blaise scrambled out of his lap and sat on his desk facing him. “It’s for a good cause.”

“Oh, God, not another cause.” Kingsley collapsed back in his office chair and groaned. “No more causes. That’s an order.”

“Listen to me, you French fascist,” Blaise said. “I need to picket a church.”

“
Chouchou
, you know I adore you, but you can’t picket God,” Kingsley said.

“You can picket God,” Søren said. “No prohibition against that in the Bible, to my knowledge.”

“Thank you. I appreciate the support,” Blaise said. Without smiling she looked back at Kingsley. “Listen to me. This is a bad church. They’re the ones who are always on the news with the ‘God Hates Fags’ signs and ‘Abortion is Murder’ signs. And they’re coming to our city.
Your
city. Read it.”

Kingsley grabbed the newspaper from her hands. He took his glasses out of his desk and put them on.

“Oh, don’t do that,” Blaise said with a purr in her voice. “I can’t be mad at you when you have your glasses on. You look too sexy. Doesn’t King look sexy in his glasses?” she asked Søren.

“I am overcome,” Søren said. Kingsley glared at him over the top of his glasses.

“Just read it, King. There’s a church called The Way, The Truth, and The Life, and they’re trying to take over Manhattan. Those people who have been protesting at the Möbius are part of that church.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I asked them last time I was there. They tried to tell me strip clubs exploit women.”

“What did you do?”

“Flashed them.”

“Don’t reward bad behavior,” Kingsley said, wagging his finger at her. “If they think they’ll see your breasts again, we’ll never get rid of them.”

“We won’t get rid of them. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. They’re trying to take over the city. The guy who runs it is a piece of shit. He’s this big fire-and-brimstone preacher, and he wants to make sodomy a federal crime, outlaw strip clubs and pornography in every form, ban public schools from teaching evolution, and make having an abortion punishable by jail time. Also, they hate Catholics. They think the pope is the Antichrist.”

“What does that have to do with us?” Kingsley asked. “I mean, other than you’re a feminist, he’s a Catholic priest and sodomy’s my favorite hobby?”

“You are not listening to me,” Blaise said, snapping her fingers to get his attention. “The governor of New York is Reverend Fuller’s best friend. His wife and the mayor’s wife go shopping together. This guy even says the opening prayer at all the state functions in Albany. The church is rich, it’s powerful and it wants to take all our freedoms away. Reverend Fuller’s like an evil Billy Graham on acid, and we have to stop him.”

“I met Reverend Graham once,” Søren said, putting his feet up on Kingsley’s desk. “A good man. I’m currently trying to imagine him on acid. Makes for quite a thought experiment.”

But Kingsley wasn’t listening. He was staring...studying...gazing...seeing...

There it was. Right there.

Kingsley reached into his desk and pulled out a bundle of cash bound with a paper band.

“Here,” he said, handing the money to Blaise and removing his glasses.

Blaise threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek.

“Merci, monsieur,”
she said. “I promise I will earn every penny of this in bed tonight. And tomorrow night. And the night after...”

“Consider it a finder’s fee,” Kingsley said.

“For what?”

“For this.” He held up the newspaper to display the black-and-white photograph. “I found our club.”

Kingsley was gratified to see Søren’s eyes widen.

“What is it?” Blaise asked.

“This church bought a five-story condemned hotel from the city,” Kingsley said. “The paper says they’re turning it into their new church headquarters. It has a ballroom, a bar and fifty hotel rooms. Complete with attached parking garage. This is our club.”

“You intend to buy that building for your club?” Søren asked, sounding dubious.

“Fuck, yes, I do,” Kingsley said.

“Are you serious?” Blaise asked. She sounded awed and aroused. He could probably talk Blaise into submitting to anal sex tonight—lots of it. He should go on anti-church crusades more often.

“Deadly serious,” Kingsley said. He couldn’t stop staring at the picture in the paper. It looked like everything he’d dreamed right before his eyes. He hadn’t felt this sense of destiny, this rightness about what he was doing since the day he first laid eyes on seventeen-year-old Søren sitting behind a piano in a chapel in Maine twelve years ago. The hotel was his. It belonged to him. And he could shut down a toxic church in the bargain—killing two birds with one flogger.

“But the sale already went through,” Blaise said. “The church owns the building now.”

“I don’t care. I’ll buy it from them or steal it from them. But I need to know more about this church before I try either. You know them?” he asked Søren.

“I have heard of them,” Søren said. “What I’ve heard certainly gives me pause. The church is politically active—a full-fledged member of the Religious Right. I’m a firm believer in the separation of church and state. Better for the state. Better for the church. Better for everyone. This particular ministry seems determined to turn America into an evangelical Christian theocracy, which, as you can imagine, doesn’t sit any better with Catholics than it does with heathens like yourself.”

“You should ask Sam about the church,” Blaise said. “She’s the one who showed me the article in the paper. She knows all about them.”

“Sam? Who’s Sam?” Kingsley asked.

“Sam works at the club,” Blaise said. “At the Möbius. Your Möbius?”

“Sam. Is she new?” He couldn’t picture a bartender named Sam.

“She started a month ago.”

“How do you know this and I don’t?” Kingsley asked.

“Because you don’t pay any attention to the club except when you want to sleep with one of the dancers.”

“You may have a point. So, who is Sam?”

“Sam’s the new head bartender. And she’s amazing. Really smart and funny. She has history with Fuller’s church—bad history.”

“How bad?”

“She didn’t tell me much, just that if Fuller’s church moves in, she’s moving out. Which would be sad, because she gives me free drinks whenever I go in.”

“Because you’re my girlfriend?” Kingsley asked. “Submissive? Whatever you are?”

“No, silly.” Blaise rolled her eyes. “Because she likes me.”

“Likes you?”

Blaise gave him a wide-eyed and pointed look. “She. Likes. Me.”

“Kingsley, I believe your ex-girlfriend, current submissive is attempting to tell you your bartender is a lesbian.”

“Why are you in my office?” Kingsley demanded.

“You summoned me,” Søren reminded him.

“When did you start doing what I asked you to do?”

“I promise, it won’t happen again,” Søren said, standing up. “If you have no further need of me in your divinely inspired quest to build the largest kink club in the world, I have a homily to write.”

“Go,” Kingsley said. “You’ve done enough. You—” he pointed at Blaise “—you don’t leave the house. I’ll be back in a few hours, and your presence will be required in my bed.”

“Where are you going?” Blaise asked as Kingsley grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair and headed for the door.

“The Möbius,” Kingsley said. “I have a lesbian bartender to seduce.”