Page 77 of Don't Shoot Me Santa

But the words weren’t fury. They were grief, dressed in rage. A howl from a boy cornered too many times, backed into too many walls. Kenny felt it like a bruise blooming under the skin. He knew that sound. The same as he knew every scar etched into Aaron’s body. Those worn on the outside, and the ones buried deeper still.

It wasn’t fear.

It wasmemory.

Aaron stopped. In front of Kenny. As if his presence had hit him square in the chest. He wavered. Trembling. Too many instincts fighting for dominance. Flight. Fight. Collapse. Kenny held out a hand.

Aaron waited a breath. Then took it.

One step. Two. Then he was in Kenny’s arms, falling into him with no barriers, no bite. Pure, unfilteredneed. Kenny wrapped him in tight. Tucked him close. Then stroked his hand up the nape of his neck.

Blackwell’s voice cut through the night again.

“There’s no need for dramatics. Complete misunderstanding.”

Kenny kept his eyes on Blackwell but lowered to whisper in Aaron’s hair, “I’ve got you.”

And Aaron, who would normally shove, snarl, deflect with teeth bared and humour sharp, did none of it. Instead, he folded tighter into Kenny’s coat. As if he could press himself into the lining and disappear. As if the safest place in the world was beneath Kenny’s ribs.

Blackwell had the audacity to roll down his sleeves. Casual. Careless. “He’s flipped out over nothing. Didn’t even say he had a…” He raked his gaze the length of Kenny. “Father figure.”

Kenny didn’t raise his tone. Didn’t need to. The fury was in the precision. Thestillness. “He doesn’t owe you an explanation. He doesn’t owe you a goddamn thing.”

“On the contrary. He’s my employee.”

The pause that followed was surgical, long enough to cut, long enough to draw blood.

Kenny held Blackwell’s gaze to deliver the punch. “And because of that, if you so much asbreathein his direction again, I’ll make sure you’re torn apart by HR, the press, and the courts. In that order. And once their finished with you, I’ll take my turn.”

“You’re overreacting.” Blackwell’s smile thinned. “Emotions always tend to run high with his type.”

“Histype?”

“We both know.” Blackwell slid his gaze over Aaron before resting on Kenny with quiet malice. “Don’t pretend you didn’t choose him for that very reason, either.”

Kenny reached behind him to open the passenger door, one hand still on Aaron’s neck. “Come anywhere near him again and you’ll see exactly how much I canoverreact.”

Kenny didn’t wait for a response. Blackwell knew better than to offer one. Some men fed on conflict. Stoked it. Needed it. Kenny didn’t. He fed on control. And he’d already seen more than enough. So he guided Aaron towards the passenger seat, where Chaos let out a distressed whine and launched over the console, landing squarely in Aaron’s lap, tail thudding like a frantic drum.

Aaron ruffled the dog’s ears and dropped his forehead into his fur. Kenny leaned in, working around them both to buckle the seatbelt. Then he shut the door.

Blackwell was still watching.

Kenny held his gaze, unblinking, giving nothing back.

Then he rounded the bonnet, slid into the driver’s seat, and shut the door. The engine turned over, steady beneath his hand, but inside the car the silence pressed like a held breath. Kenny knew it wouldn’t last. Aaron wouldn’t stay silent for long. Not when the storm had already taken root in his bones.

And when it came, it came fast. Aaron kicked the footwell. Then again. Then a flurry—three, four, five—hard, sharp strikes, as if violence could shake the stench of Blackwell off him. Rage with nowhere to go, bursting out in staccato jabs too quick for words, too jagged for form.

Kenny didn’t stop him. He understood. Flight had collapsed into fight, and Aaron needed the bleed-out. To feel the impact, to hear the thud of his fury landing somewhere safe.

It was Chaos who broke the cycle. His whimper, soft and worried, followed by a wet tongue dragging insistently across Aaron’s cheek. The storm snapped, spent. And Aaron sagged back against the seat, shoulders trembling, the fight gone out of him as quickly as it had flared.

Kenny didn’t ask what happened. He didn’t need to. Whatever had gone down inside that building didn’t requirewords. He could read it in that explosion. In the shape of Aaron’s now silence. How he stared out the window as if still being watched. The way he chewed on his lip until it nearly bled.

Kenny ached.

Not with rage, though that simmered, dark and low, but with something harder to name. Grief perhaps. And,fuck, he wanted to turn the car around. Storm back in. Demand answers and crack the skull of a man who thought Aaron was something to be played with. Someone who didn’t already belong to someone.Him.