Tiny Dark Deeds: Chapter 5

Dorian

“How are you doing today, Dorian?”  Dr. Singh asked me, her head tilted. She’d barely looked up from her notepad today, which meant nothing good for me. “Are your nights getting any easier?”

Meaning was I sleeping.

Since the answer was no, I shook my head, and her head went down again. Some days I wondered if all the epically fucked-up shit I gave her on the regular could be made into a volume of encyclopedias, a manifesto of a fucked-up youth…

At least, that was what I’d call it.

I’d been seeing Dr. Singh off and on since my grandparents died when I was a kid. My parents had signed both Charlie and me up, and I’d kept going mostly for Charlie. He hadn’t wanted to go but seeing me had kept him going so I had.

I had to admit, over the years it’d been nice, the check-ins. Dr. Singh had been there for all the milestones. The first time I’d tried weed, then later, the harder stuff when I’d been a fucking idiot enough to try it. That phase hadn’t lasted long, but she’d been there for it.

She’d been there for the parties and even the conquests. I’d bragged to her when I’d lost my virginity.

Like a fucking tool.

We had this doctor-fucked-up-client privilege thing so I knew she wouldn’t tell my parents about any of the things I told her, and Dr. Singh had actually been a bit of a release. I could unload all my shit, then go about my business. I could live my life doing all the fucked-up things I wanted to do, and ironically enough, despite telling her all my shit, she really didn’t know shit.

At least where it mattered.

I’d kept all the personal stuff close to the cuff over the years and hadn’t even seen her since Charlie had died. I hadn’t needed anyone poking and prodding into my life.

Not that I had a choice now.

Dr. Singh continued to scribble on her notepad, her salt-and-pepper braid over her shoulder. We spent a lot of time like this, her writing, me sitting. She often tried to offer advice I never took, nor did I allude I would. Never stopped her from trying to, though, and I knew me being here made my parents happy. They saw therapists themselves, thought it was healthy.

I shifted on the couch, biding my time. We had forty-five minutes, and we’d only eaten up maybe ten.

“How are you doing with your attachments?” she asked me. She pushed her glasses up into her hair. “Letting go of the things you can’t control. I know you’ve had trouble there in the past, and I think it’s important to really work on that now. During this time?”

During this time.

I fought myself from smirking, my hands open. “Please. Help me. Save me.” Daring her to, I leaned forward. “Because believe me, if anyone had the fucking remedy for my life, I’d take it right now.”

Dr. Singh had no reaction for my passive-aggressive shit, never did. She just continued to write, and I cursed. None of these behaviors would get me off her chair.

Nor make my parents back off.

They were the ones controlling shit right now, controlling me. These sessions weren’t optional. I threaded my fingers together. Dr. Singh wanted to talk about my grandfather next, so needless to say, the next thirty-some-odd minutes were deathly silent. I didn’t want to talk about my grandfather.

And I definitely didn’t want to talk about Sloane.

I was on my phone when I came out of the therapist’s office, and if I’d thought Ronald, our butler, had given me a chance to breathe by taking off, I’d been wrong. He was right there outside the room when I exited, a smile on his face and his hat on his lap. Standing, he held the expression. “How did it go today, Master Prinze?”

He knew how it went. I was here, wasn’t I?

If that wasn’t an indicator for how shitty my life was right now, I didn’t know what was.

Because I was respectful of our family butler, I kept silent. I saved all the attitude shit for Dr. Singh, and it wasn’t Ronald’s fault he was forced to babysit me.

It’s yours like everything else.

The self-deprecation I kept to myself too, swallowing hard. Ronald waved us on, staying close. I assumed he’d already done recon on the area since apparently, I was the president’s kid these days.

Our butler may be older, but he was also ex-military. He was security just as much as he was traditional household staff and had been assigned my personal keeper as of late. Not only had I lost access to my ride, but I couldn’t physically go anywhere without Ronald or a cop in tow.

My parents would justify these changes with having something to do with my grandfather, and though maybe some of that was there, I’d be hard-pressed not to know they were keeping me controlled as much as protecting me. They were still looking for Sloane, and they were attempting to keep me out of it.

And any breeches held consequences.

The last had gotten me Ronald, me sneaking out, going rogue. Since I didn’t sleep, I spent pretty much every waking hour doing one thing, and my parents were completely aware of that.

They weren’t dumb.

Ronald got us to the house in silence, never one to prod. That wasn’t his job. He was there to protect me, as well as get me from point A to B. In this case, that included my weekly therapy session, but that hadn’t been the consequences of a breech. Regular sessions with Dr. Singh were the result of my parents’ disappointment, their fear. I’d tried to kill my grandfather, and now, I was sitting on a shrink couch every week.

My parents were scared, scared for me, and they probably should be.

I was scared for me.

I was scared of what I’d do if something didn’t change soon.

If we didn’t find her…

A burn rolled like tight heat in my chest, my head lowered as Ronald cruised one of my father’s sedans past the gate into our neighborhood. The familiar news vans were there, all of them attempting to snap pictures and calling my name. Thatcher and Wells had similar activity outside their houses, and at Wolf’s house, it was difficult to get on the block.

I shielded my face from them all, people here for the story, and that was all. Once word had gotten out that Sloane and I’d been a thing, I especially had been slapped across the papers and internet search engines. I was now the boyfriend of the missing Mallick girl. I was Pilar Mallick’s boyfriend.

Not the kid with his fucking heart ripped out.

I didn’t know where Sloane was. For an entire week, I’d been left to wonder if she were alive or dead. I’d been left to wonder if she was even here, or if she’d skipped town entirely. She’d somehow gotten out of that hospital with her brother.

And the rest of us were left to simply wonder.

The restless nights began that night, no sleep ever coming to me. I spent all my mental energy either looking for her or thinking about her, but it wasn’t like I could do much.

My parents, the families, had my buddies and me under close surveillance. They made us sit on our hands while they moved pieces and talked to people. Maywood Heights was in a city-wide search, and the details of that my friends and I were kept out of. We weren’t allowed to move unless they said we could.

So, we moved without them.

I was facing the consequence of that now, my butler never more than a breath away these days. He was nice about it, and as a friend of the family, I doubted he minded, but he was always there. He was my own personal keeper, and I really had no control.

I forced myself to at least look okay about that once I got inside. Ronald told me my mother wanted to see me, so I fixed my fucking face enough to make it seem I was good today. Being good got rewards, and maybe they would even drop the therapy sessions.

I ended up finding both my parents when I went looking for my mom. The pair were in the kitchen, talking, but they stopped in my presence.

This wasn’t surprising, speech halting around me. My parents may be at home full time these days, but that didn’t mean they were speaking about anything they were doing. I was being shut out, black-balled.

And my father could barely look at me.

Mom had been better about it, better at hiding it, her disappointment. There was a reason they both were forcing me back into regular sessions with Dr. Singh.

“How was it today, baby?” Mom eased off her barstool, Chestnut at her feet. The family dog bounded over to me, and Mom smiled a little. “Progress?”

It’d only been a week, but Mom clearly was trying to make conversation with me.

Dad too waited for this response, interested, but that didn’t surprise me. He did care, cared about me.

But that didn’t mean I hadn’t fucked up in his eyes.

He’d been begging me to talk to him, pleading even about my problems and everything when it came to Charlie. I hadn’t listened then.

And now here we were.

I ran my hand through Chestnut’s fur, playing with her for a little while. I didn’t know really what to say. My default was lies in the past, lies about how things were and what I was going through.

My silence was very telling.

It caused both my parents to sigh and my dad to put his hands together.

“Well, I at least hope you’re giving it a fair chance.” Dad swung a rare glance over to me. His eyebrows knitted in tight. “It will only help you.”

I begged to differ there, but I wouldn’t today. “I’d like to be helping you.”

I was working on honesty. Being honest instead of gut reacting.

Dad panned away. “I think we both know that’s not happening.”

“But I can help—”

“Like sneaking out at all hours?” My father cocked his head. “Going missing with your friends and making your mother and me worry when you know our attention is needed elsewhere?”

We had a few times, Thatcher, Wells, and me. We’d even recruited some Court kids, everyone ready and willing to help us. They’d been at late hours and outside of the city’s searches with the local law enforcement and city volunteers. We’d only left Wolf out of it because we’d been forced to.

His parents had him on lockdown even worse than us if one could imagine.

Wolf wasn’t leaving unless his parents knew about it. They were worried about him, worried about him spiraling. We were too, but we knew our brother. His energy was better spent looking, but again, his parents weren’t easing that tight grip.

I guess they’d already lost one kid.

I couldn’t breathe thinking about that, and it crossed my mind more than once that maybe Noa didn’t want to be found.

I mean, she’d left, hadn’t she?

One better, she hadn’t contacted me after she’d left. If she were scared, overwhelmed, she should have done that. I didn’t know the reason exactly why she’d left, but I did know I hadn’t been a part of the decision. She hadn’t come to me.

Even still, that hadn’t stopped me from trying, and with Wolf tied up, us guys had attempted to do our own thing. We kept our searches local to the city for the most part, but also left its boundaries to knock on doors and ask questions in neighboring towns. The last evening’s search ended me up with Ronald. I’d come home and run into Dad.

He’d been coming to check on me.

He hadn’t said as much, but it’d been obvious. He’d left without saying a word, and the confrontation had just added to the epic shit, me continuing to disappoint my parents, my dad.

“Wanna know the way you can help, Dorian? Help your mother, me, and everyone else?”

My head shot up, my father’s eyes on me.

They narrowed. “You can help by going to your therapy sessions. You can help by taking care of you and letting us all do what we need to do to find Ramses’s and Brielle’s daughter.” Dad’s legs crossed at the knee, his arms rested on them. “It’s bad enough we’re already having to deal with my dad being in the mix of all this, and it’d be great if you were a factor none of the adults have to worry about on top of it.”

“Are you working with Grandpa?” I asked, pretty much ignoring the last part of what he’d said. My dad wasn’t working with Grandpa.

If he was, the world would know.

A lot had changed in simply a week, and one of them had been my grandfather essentially coming out. He’d held a press conference the day he reached out to my dad. He’d detailed who he was, his connection to Sloane and Bru, and his place in all this. He’d told the truth.

And no one had been surprised more than me.

I didn’t trust my grandfather, not for shit did I trust him, but I couldn’t deny that he’d put himself in front of the firing squad. This town hated him as much as the Legacy families. He and Wolf’s grandfather, Ibrahim, were essentially blacklisted after they’d helped Wolf’s great-uncle Leo.

Even still, he’d come out, and, in that announcement, he’d offered to help the families in any way he could. He’d said he would, but only if they wanted that too. He’d keep his distance if they didn’t.

Needless to say, I hadn’t heard another word about him.

The families, my parents, were clearly doing their own thing.

“The lines of communication are open,” Dad said now, his hands together. “His people give us everything they gather. Though, it’s not any more than we have.”

I didn’t know what they had, but I did know Sloane wasn’t back. That told the truth more than anything. They didn’t know where she was.

My mouth dried. “Would it help if Grandpa were maybe brought in?” The two could join forces. I really didn’t trust my grandfather, but we should be doing everything we could do. “I just think that—”

“You think, huh?” Dad got up, my eyes at his level. We were pretty much equal in size, my father and me, but even if I were larger, that wouldn’t matter. My father commanded and intimated the fuck out of anyone I’d seen come into his presence. He and my god dads were a force, a team of influence and affluence.

It only helped that they were great people.

They were, each and every one of them, but when tested, they didn’t play around.

I stayed silent, but I meant what I said. We should be working with my grandpa. We should be doing everything we can, and I wasn’t sure how much of a threat they actually found my grandfather these days. Sure, they made sure I didn’t leave the house without Ronald or a cop, but I was ninety percent sure that had to do with me. They wanted me to stay out of things, and lately, I was looking more guilty in their eyes than anything Grandpa had done.

This was a hard truth and one I hated to admit. It was true, though, as shit as that may be. Grandpa had been helpful, and I was the one going behind their backs.

I was the fuck-up.

“Like I said, the lines of communication are open, son.” Dad took his jacket off the bar. “We haven’t cut my father off from his hand, and in regard to that relationship and my decision on how to handle it, that has nothing to do with you.”

Understood, I nodded.

“In any case, your mom asked to speak with you,” he said, bending down and kissing her cheek. “I’ll be in my office.”

“Okay.” Mom’s gaze followed my dad’s exit, and it seemed they had more to talk about. I bet they did. Though none of it did ever have anything to do with me. My parents had made a stance here, and they weren’t breaking it. I wouldn’t be helping, and that was that. She took my hand. “Ramses asked to see you, and it’d be nice if you could stay over there tonight.”

My mother didn’t have to ask, of course, and Ramses didn’t have to ask me to come by. Thatcher, Wells, and I had pretty much lived over at the Mallicks’ this week.

I noticed Mom said Ramses had requested to see me specifically, though, and that didn’t surprise me either. Every time I was over there, he wanted to talk, talk about Sloane…

Knowing the specific reason for the request, I told my mom I would.

“Ronald knows to go with you,” Mom said. She held my face. “Your dad’s right. You can help us all so much more by taking care of you, and that isn’t just therapy.” She cupped my cheek. “You know you used to talk to us.”

It felt like so long ago, those days. My parents and I never had the deep conversations, but we did used to talk.

It used to be easy.

I didn’t know why it seemed so complicated now, but I knew that definitely had something to do with me.

My mom ended up leaving me with those words, and after throwing some water on my face, Ronald took me over to the Mallicks.

We had to fight through the paps and media to get close.

The Mallicks had gates, but Wolf and his family weren’t in a secure neighborhood like mine. Being the mayor, Brielle always wanted herself available to her constituents. The mayor’s house wasn’t open by any means, but it was like the White House in the sense it had gates but could easily be seen from the street.

I ducked my head again, avoiding flashes and questions. This had become old hat for me, and oddly enough, Wolf’s house was as quiet as mine today when I finally got inside. Normally, they had people lining the walls and the reason was obvious there. Many people wanted to help them.

People were mourning for them.

I wasn’t mourning, refused, and if I knew anything about the girl we were all looking for, she was keeping her head low. She was thinking because she was a fucking thinker just like me. She thought too much sometimes.

Also like me.

We had way too much in common, Noa Sloane and me, and I thought about that as I sought out Ramses. I found him in his office, alone and on calls. He was always on calls. These ceased immediately when he saw me, and he waved me inside.

“Hey, kid,” he said, getting up, and the way he charged over to me, one would think he hadn’t seen me in days, weeks. Like this wasn’t something we did every day.

Like he didn’t ask me the same question every day.

There was a reason Ramses asked to see me specifically, and if we didn’t see each other, my god dad always called me or texted. This had become our routine, something I’d come to dread because every time I was forced to give him the same answer to his question. Every day I had to break his fucking heart, and that killed me.

But it always destroyed him.

I had to see his face change, and if we weren’t in front of each other, I heard the disappointment in his voice over the phone. Ramses wore his stress well. The guy was a rock and was always trying to make people feel good.

Even when he was drowning within.

He never let me see that side of him. At least, not before this. He was so good at hiding his pain, but in these quiet moments with just the two of us, I got let in a little. I saw the grieving father.

I saw his fight against the current.

Like the rest of us, my god dad hadn’t appeared to be sleeping much. Dark rings underlined his hope filled eyes, and when I asked about Brielle, he told me something that, unfortunately, had become as familiar to me as our conversations.

“She’s back at the office,” he said. “Plan to join her tonight.”

Brielle didn’t leave the office. At least not these days. Pretty much all the chaos surrounding the search for Sloane had moved there, all the families and city officials operating out of there. It gave the Mallicks back their home so that was good.

Not that they were here much outside of Wolf and us guys.

Of course, we all had security too, people to keep an eye around, and the kids out of things. Really, Bow was the only one getting to do what she wanted to do and was making way more progress than we were. She’d been running local searches, and the parents were letting her.

Probably because she listened to them.

She was out scouring the town with local search parties while us boys were under lock and key.

“So, anything today, um…” Ramses started, and I was surprised the conversation hadn’t led with this. It often did even before we said hi. His head lowered. “Have you heard anything?”

Again, the same question every day. Had I heard anything, heard from her.

“No, sir,” I said, and I think the only reason I had been given back my phone was because I did know Sloane. They all knew she didn’t have a phone right now, nor her brother. Grandpa had told them, and that was one of the few things they’d told me. Her phone had gotten destroyed, and Bru had given his to Grandpa’s team after the media had been harassing them.

Even still, the parents hoped she’d reach out to me. They hoped because I let them know what we’d been, how we had something, and they believed she’d contact me because of that connection.

She never did.

Sloane had left me as much as she’d left this town, and there was so much fucking irony in that. I’d left her once selfishly and to my own delusions.

I suppose this was penance.

My stomach rolled from the reality as much as I watched that change occur across my god dad’s face. He brought a hand over it, brief about it, but that didn’t matter. Our meetings were taking their toll. All of this was so fucking shitty. Ramses Mallick was one of the best people I knew. He was so good, kind.

And all this was gutting him.

I saw the wear and tear every day, and after the check-in, Ramses told me to go see Ares. I planned to do that, but I stuck around for a beat. I watched him on calls, one of the rare parents to actually let me do that. The parents had started their searches outside the city, but the extended ones were being done remotely. They were talking to people, getting information. The whole world knew Noa Sloane was missing at this point, and the families had her face on every screen. They needed the world to see her.

They needed to find her.

The last call was clearly Ramses talking to Brielle. He told his wife he loved her and would see her soon before getting up, and when I asked how they were doing, he simply hugged me.

“We’ll find her,” he said to me, a hard and unyielding hug. “We will, and we won’t stop until we do.”

How ironic he’d been telling me this, and if the emotion hadn’t fucking choked in my throat, I would have manned up and told him that. I would have given him this hug, but then, he wouldn’t be my god dad if he would have let me.

He was always taking care of everyone else.