Page 2 of He is Poison

He was overwhelmed bythe sharpness of the air that filled his lungs and the sun coming in freelythrough the sides of the building. He tried to understand where he was, but thespace looked like an oddly empty parking garage.

He squinted for betterfocus as his captors pushed him forward. Seth’s lips parted at the sight of twogroups of men gathered close to a few expensive cars. Asians on one side, whitemen on the other, most with tanned, olive skin and dark hair.

Sicilians.

Seth opened his eyeswider, and his heart beat furiously. Was it all going to be okay? Would theybuy him out?

His gaze instantlydarted to a man who took a step forward, moving ahead of his group. Partiallybecause he held a black suitcase, which hopefully contained a ransom that wouldget Seth out, partially because the man was so freakishly handsome. Seth’s mindwas sent into a parallel reality for a few seconds.

A snap of the suitcaseopening brought him crashing back to reality, and what he saw were neat stacksof hundred dollar bills. The handsome Sicilian looked sleek like a panther,with his long black hair tied back into a tight ponytail. His moves wereconfident, as if he were born to keep calm under pressure. The way he stoodstraight in his tar-black suit brought out the pride in Seth and made himstraighten his back despite the pain in his muscles and joints. In a battle ofsuits though, Seth’s would lose before the fight even started. The immaculatetailoring on the black piece of art created an angular silhouette from theman’s wide shoulders to the slim waistline. Even looking at the dark perfectionhad Seth itching to take off his blue insult to fashion. The man’s tie waselegant and slim, while Seth didn’t even wear one.

One of the Asiansstepped forward, took the suitcase, and brought it back to their leader. Sethdidn’t follow him, remaining captured by the Sicilian, who looked up at himwith a pair of amber eyes. Their gazes met, and Seth stopped breathing. It waslike being watched by a puma, the man’s eyes never blinking and intense. Sethwasn’t sure if he wanted to take a step forward or run away. Those eyes werecold and scrutinized Seth as if he were a piece of merchandise worth much lessthan what was being paid for it. But maybe that wasn’t what hid in that perfectskull? Maybe it was Seth’s bruised ego talking, since he was mad at himself forhaving to be rescued like a baby. In the end, Seth’s insecurity won, and helooked away, trying not to think of the shrubbery of a beard on his own face andhow it compared to the smooth-shaven skin of the handsome mafioso.

The Chinese boss musthave confirmed that he was happy with the amount of money because the manbehind Seth removed the cuffs that held back his hands. Freedom came as such asurprise that Seth didn’t move right away, taking a second to look at the redmarks on his wrists, but the moment he realized he could, his legs moved ontheir own, carrying him forward in a frantic jog. The tiny smirks on a fewfaces made him regret acting so hastily, but what was done was done.

All the Sicilians backedaway to their cars, including their leader, whose rich cologne whispered,“Follow me and fuck me on the backseat”. So Seth followed, keeping close behindhim. He noted, not without satisfaction, that he had about an inch on the guy.

“What happened? Why wasI taken?” he asked everyone and no one, still aware of a nervous overtone inhis voice. He gripped the wrist of his left hand when a stab of pain remindedhim of the missing finger.

The handsome strangerstopped and looked at Seth over his shoulder. “You shouldn’t have tried to geta hen house on Craigslist,” he said and snapped open a lighter.

Seth just watched him,dumbstruck by the answer. He did get ambushed on the way to pick up the item.From an anonymous seller.Fuck.

The mafioso lit acigarette as he gave orders to the other men. His profile was like an actor’s,with a straight nose and lips of the most perfect proportions. For a moment,Seth thought that maybe the guywasan actor, employed for some unknownreason, but there was something familiar about him that Seth couldn’t pinpointyet.

“Take him where he tellsyou to, and I’ll pick him up in an hour and a half,” the man said in a voice sodeep that it sent a shiver down Seth’s spine. Seth was beginning to feelannoyed by this visceral reaction. This was just some hot guy. It was time toshake it off since homosexuality was non-existent where he was going.

A gay mafioso was a deadmafioso.

Seth’s lips parted as hewatched the man adjust the lapels of his suit with his long fingers, decoratedwith three different signets. “What’s the day today?” he finally choked out. Hefelt so rugged and beat-up in comparison to this beautiful man. Even if the manhimself couldn’t care less, Seth couldn’t stand the unsaid competition, and itsparked a yearning for grooming and nice clothes that he couldn’t yet satisfy.

“September tenth,” saidone of the men who stayed with Seth when his wet dream left without paying himfurther attention.

“Who was that, anyway?”Seth tried to sound like he didn’t care all that much, but that man was the onething he could talk and think about without pain and shame after two weeks incaptivity.

“That’s DomenicoAcerbi.” The driver of a sleek black Maserati opened the door for him.

“What?” Seth frowned andgot into the car, thrown off balance by the new information.TheDomenicoAcerbi? The scrawny boy with whom he used to play as a kid? “Why did Fathersend him? Never mind, I’ll talk to him myself,” he added before he got an answer.The fact that he let himself be thrown off balance by someone like DomenicoAcerbi was just getting him aggravated.

The driver nodded, andin a matter of seconds, they were off.

Seth looked down at hisown hand in wet, dirty bandages, still shocked by the sudden change of hiscircumstances. He hadn’t seen Domenico in fifteen years. And he knew exactlyhow many because he remembered being eleven when ‘little Mimmo’ attacked himwith a kitchen knife. Seth never saw him after that. It was as if the guy disappearedoff the face of the earth. Which wouldn’t be that surprising in his family.About two years after the incident, Seth heard his name mentioned on occasionand rarely in his presence, but that was it.

And now Domenico hadbeen sent to reclaim him, as the head of the group, all calm and cool, brimmingwith testosterone. And that cologne of his…God, that man shouldn’t be allowedto be so handsome.

Seth ordered the driverto stop a few blocks away from the apartment he shared with Peter and exited thecar, holding onto the cell phone they had given him. He didn’t want to revealthe exact address, just in case. Having a gay lover wouldn’t earn Seth the sonof the year award. As he rushed through the busy street in his ill-fitting suitand uncomfortable shoes, he tried to figure out a way of communicating to Peterthat they needed to part. ‘I need some space’ wouldn’t do, but Peter was toodelicate to bring him anywhere close the Villani family. Sometimes Seth thoughthewas too delicate to be close to his own family. He’d thought movingto another continent would be enough space to breathe. That had turned out tobe wishful thinking. At least he’d gotten the chance to enjoy a very active gaylife, something he could never have experienced back in Italy. Everyone knewhim back home, all eyes were on his back, and no gay guy with any sense ofself-preservation would approach him.

Seth, the Don’s son.You’d have to be an idiot to try and hook up with him, Seth thought to himself grimly, before starting to climbup the stairs to the apartment he’d been sharing with his boyfriend for thelast year.

The wooden door seemedlike something from a past life, and when he pulled out the wallet his formercaptors had returned to him with the clothes, it was as if he were enteringsomeone else’s life. He turned the key in the lock, took a deep breath, andmoved into the apartment, feeling ten years older the moment he stepped foot inthe messy hallway. In the bluish light coming from the living room, he lookedat the shoes scattered by his feet when a shadow drowned them in the dark.

“Seth?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” hesaid, annoyed at how raspy his voice sounded.

The door banged againstthe cupboard, and suddenly Seth’s arms were full of his shivering boyfriend.Peter was so small and fragile as he held on to Seth, sobbing into his ear, butthe flowery scent of his perfume didn’t bring anything but familiarity. It wasnothing like the masculine scent of the adult Domenico Acerbi; so intense itstill lingered in Seth’s nose.

“Hey, Peter, don’t cry,I’m alive, okay?” he said, but scowled at his own bruised reflection looking athim from the mirror. Peter looked like hell with his eyes swollen and almost nomakeup, his short-cropped blond hair wasn’t styled, but Peter didn’t seem tocare. He clutched Seth, pressing into him like a child.