Blackbird Fly Home (Doyle Global Securities Book 1) Read online

  “Do you have any more of those hats?”

  “Absolutely,” he said as he turned towards the bar, “Hey Amy, can you hand me a hat, please?”

  The young woman ducked down behind the bar and then stuck her arm out to Jake, who grabbed the hat and handed it over to Noah.

  “Anything else?”

  “I don’t know yet. I might need a place to hide out for a bit.”

  “My office is yours. It’s got an electronic lock on it,” he said then he told Noah the code to open it. He looked back at Noah with a raised eyebrow as he waited.

  “Can you up the alcohol content on the drinks you send to that table?” Noah said as he lifted his chin towards Jacob’s table.

  Jake looked over his shoulder, “Done.”

  “He’s a lawyer. This could get….messy.”

  Jake snorted a laugh, “Please, I was a prosecutor for ten years. I used to eat assholes like him for breakfast. Don’t worry about me or my place.”

  Noah nodded to him as he pulled the hat down low over his head, “Thanks.”

  “If you need anything else, just holler. I’m always around.”

  Noah nodded to him again and then watched as Jake leaned over the bar to say something to the bartender and then she added more booze to the tray of drinks on the bar in front of her. One of the servers picked it up and brought it over to Jacob’s table. As they were handed out, he saw the young man next to Jacob lean in and whisper something into his ear. He watched as Jacob started to stand with him but then the other men at the table laughed and said something to Jacob that made him frown and Noah knew that they were giving him shit about not letting his boyfriend go to the bathroom by himself. He knew it because Jacob had done the same thing to him.

  After listening to the other men teasing him, Jacob turned to his young man and placed his hand on his cheek. He leaned forward and pressed his lips to the young man’s ear and Noah knew that he was giving him explicit instructions to not make eye contact with anyone, not speak to anyone, to go in and piss, wash his hands and return to the table without haste. Hell, even though it had been a decade, he could almost hear Jacob’s deep voice in his own ear whispering those same commands to him and a sick feeling shivered through his body like a snake.

  Fuck.

  This was his chance, this was going to be his only chance. It was now or fucking never.

  He didn’t turn his head, just let his eyes track the young man as he made his way through the crowd and to the darkened hall that led to the restrooms. Then Noah’s eyes swung back to find that Jacob was doing the same thing, his eyes glued to that dark hall like a hawk.

  Fucking hell. He couldn’t slip down there now or Jacob would see him for sure. How the fuck was he going to do this? He was beginning to worry that he’d have to come up with another plan.

  Until….

  Luther stepped in front of Jacob and blocked his view.

  “I brought backup. Go,” Morgan said as he stepped up to Noah’s table and turned to watch his husband engaging Jacob and the other men at the table in conversation.

  Noah knew that Luther would keep those men occupied for a while because even though Luther Santiago was no longer in his old line of work as a mob boss, he was still a highly respected, and feared, man who could command the attention of any room that he stepped into. And he currently held the rapt attention of those six men in that booth.

  Noah slid out of his corner and ducked around the wall into the dark hallway and down into the men’s restroom.

  He still wasn’t sure what he was going to say when he pushed the door open and saw the young man at the urinal but he knew he had to choose the right words or the young man would be lost. Forever.

  He silently closed the door behind him and took a deep breath, “I used to be you,” he said quietly.

  The man’s head whipped around and the terror in his eyes broke Noah’s heart. “What?” he whispered.

  “I used to be you and he nearly killed me.”

  The man’s eyes went wide and Noah could see not only the fear in them but also a thousand questions. But he knew the man wouldn’t ask him a single one of them, though, because that was how Jacob had trained him. Noah knew this because Jacob had trained him the same way.

  “I, I’m not supposed to talk to anyone,” he mumbled as he quickly zipped up and moved over to the sink.

  “What’s your name?” Noah said as he stepped closer to the man who was mumbling to himself as he washed his hands. As Noah got closer he realized that the man was counting how many times he rubbed the soap over his hands, like Jacob had burned it into his brain that if he didn’t wash long enough he wasn’t clean. Fucking bastard.

  “J-J-J-Jesse,” the kid mumbled as he resumed his counting.

  Noah stepped up to Jesse’s back and reached over to close his hands over Jesse’s, causing Jesse to hiss in a breath, “Broken ribs, three broken wrists, five concussions, two broken arms, two broken ankles, and a punctured lung from when he stabbed me with a butcher knife.”

  “He, he doesn’t really hit me,” he whispered.

  That surprised Noah for a brief second but then he realized…. “No, but he does other things that make you feel hopeless, helpless, humiliated.”

  “I, I, I m-m-make him angry. I’m bad.”

  “No, Jesse. I never did anything wrong and neither did you. You don’t have to live like this. I can help you. Let me help you, please.”

  Jesse’s tear-filled eyes looked at Noah in the mirror, “How?”

  “Come with me, right now. I’ll take you someplace safe where he’ll never find you, I promise.”

  Tears spilled over onto Jesse’s cheeks as he looked down and ran his fingers over his forearm, “Yes he will, he’ll always find me.”

  As Noah’s eyes darted down to Jesse’s arm, realization hit him like a freight train, “Fucking hell, Jesse, did he put a tracking device in your arm?”

  Jesse silently nodded his head.

  Noah slid his right hand up Jesse’s back until he reached the man’s neck, “Please Jesse. I swear on my life I can help you. Will you trust me? Will you come with me?”

  Jesse’s eyes met Noah’s again in the mirror, “Your hands feel really good on me,” he whispered.

  “Is that a yes?”

  Jesse blushed and nodded his head so Noah dipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out his Bluetooth and stuck it into his ear then he grabbed his phone, dialed Morgan’s number and shoved the phone back into his pocket.

  “Go,” Morgan said.

  “I need you to guard the door. Things might get a little, uh, loud in here. I need you to keep people out, keep them from calling the police.”

  “What the fuck, Noah?” Morgan said and Noah could hear that he was now moving through the crowd.

  “A tracking device, Morg. He put a goddamned tracking device in his arm. I need to get it out before we move.”

  “Fuck! Okay, I’m here, go.”

  Noah reached into the hidden sheath he kept on the inside of his belt, something that was a permanent part of his wardrobe ever since Morgan had helped him escape from Jacob. He pulled out the small butterfly knife and palmed it. It would hurt like a bitch but luckily for Jesse, Noah was meticulous with his weapons and he kept them not only clean but sharpened too so it wouldn’t hurt as much as it would with a dull knife. He set it on the edge of the sink and gently turned Jesse around to face him then he pulled his own t-shirt off.

  Jesse’s eyes went wide and he hissed in a breath as he gazed down over Noah’s torso. His fingers reached out to ghost over Noah’s pecs, down the ripples of his abs then back up to rest on the blackbird tattoo over Noah’s heart, the one that had a cage with the door open and the birds flying out, and the farther they got from that cage the bigger their red hearts were in their bodies – as if the farther they got from that cage, the more alive they were. Just like Noah was, when he finally got away from that bastard.

  “This was because of him, wasn’
t it?” he whispered.

  Noah nodded, “It was,” he said but he couldn’t go into it more, they didn’t have time. “Here Jesse, bite my shirt. This is gonna hurt.”

  Jesse shoved Noah’s shirt into his mouth, they held each other’s eyes for a moment and then Jesse nodded his head.

  Noah took a deep breath, picked up the knife, tucked Jesse’s hand between his arm and side and cradled his elbow in his left hand. He pressed down on the smooth, soft forearm until he felt the small, two-inch-long, needle-like device just under the surface of Jesse’s ivory skin. He pressed on one end with his thumb to get the other end to push up on the skin, pulling it taut.

  As he stared down at it and put the tip of his blade to the skin, he whispered, “I’m sorry,” then he pushed.

  Jesse’s muffled cries into his shirt broke his heart. He knew the man was doing everything to be brave but what Noah was doing had to hurt like a bitch. Because even though he only had to make a small slice, there was obviously scar tissue that had formed around the device and it was making it difficult to get it out. Scar tissue meant that Jacob had inserted this a while ago, maybe even years. How long had this poor kid been held within Jacob’s evil clutches?

  Noah mentally shook off that thought, now was not the time, and he focused on what he was doing.

  He dug his thumb in harder and finally got almost half of it emerge and then he grabbed it with his fingers. The fucking thing was slippery with blood and wanted to slide back inside but he’d be damned if he put Jesse through this shit again. He squeezed his fingers so tight that they ached and then he gave one final yank and, with a heartbreaking muffled scream from Jesse, it pulled free.

  He dropped it into the trash can next to the sink then grabbed a handful of paper towels and pressed them to Jesse’s wound. Then he took his t-shirt from the man’s mouth, wiped the tears and snot from his face and wrapped it tightly around his arm and tied it in a knot. Then he slid his fingers through Jesse’s and said, “No matter what, do not let go, okay?”

  Jesse nodded his head.

  “We’re coming out.”

  “You need to hurry,” Morgan replied.

  “Can we get out the back?”

  “Yes, Jake is waiting there. He’s disabled the alarm for you.”

  Noah pulled open the door and turned to the left.

  He saw Jake waiting for him at the end of the hall but the ten feet or so to reach him felt like the length of a football field.

  Jake held a set of keys out to him as he pushed open the door, “Take my car. It’s the black Lexus parked right there,” he said as he pointed just beyond the door.

  “But how will you….?”

  “Don’t worry about me, Noah. Just go,” Jake said as he gave him a gentle shove out the door.

  Noah wrapped his arm around Jesse’s shoulder as he pulled him out into the cold night air.

  “Take him to my house,” Morgan said into his ear.

  “But,”

  “No, arguments, Noah. My house is much more secure than yours. He needs that right now. Just do it.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Noah said as the locks on the doors opened and he helped Jesse into the passenger seat. As Jesse buckled in, Noah dashed around to the driver’s side and fell into the seat. He buckled then pressed the button to start the car. He once again threaded their fingers together then the car shot down the narrow alley. Just before they got to the end, the darkened figure of a man stepped into the opening. At first Noah thought it was just someone walking past on the sidewalk so he slowed down.

  But then the man stopped and looked right at them just as the car’s headlights swept over him.

  “Fuck,” Noah whispered as he looked into Jacob’s eyes – eyes that used to make him cower in fear….but not anymore.

  At first, he thought, hoped, that the car’s interior was too dark to really see who was inside. But then he realized that they were sitting right next to a streetlamp.

  Jacob’s eyes landed on Jesse and they narrowed in anger but then they swept over to Noah.

  It took Jacob a moment, it had been ten years after all, but then his eyes widened as he recognized who was behind the wheel. Recognition morphed into something else. He became…not angry, not furious, more like livid. Noah could feel Jacob’s fury reaching out towards him like the tentacles on a giant squid.

  “Noah, please,” Jesse whispered, his voice shaking with his fear.

  Noah dropped the car into reverse using their joined hands as he said, “I’ve got this Jesse, I promise, I’ve got this,” then he shot that car backwards down the alley until he had room to spin it around. He did a one-eighty, dropped the gearshift back into drive and pressed his foot to the floor as he prayed that the car could go faster than that evil man’s reach.

  Two

  When Morgan and Luther walked into the house from the garage, the young man who was sitting at the counter with his arm laid out for Noah to suture it closed, gasped and almost yanked his arm away. Almost. He didn’t because Noah’s finger’s gently caressed over the pulse in his wrist as he said, “It’s okay, Jesse. That’s Morgan and Luther. This is their house. They helped us tonight.”

  Jesse’s eyes locked with Noah’s and he instantly calmed as he nodded his head.

  Noah went back to suturing Jesse’s arm as he said, “He saw me, Morg,” and his eyes darted up.

  Morgan watched Noah for a moment, “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. He saw me, he recognized me and he knows Jesse is with me.”

  Morgan sighed, “Then I guess it’s a good thing you came here, yeah?”

  “Yeah but what next? We can’t just keep running.”

  “Oh, we won’t, you won’t. It’s time to stop that asshole once and for all.”

  “Stop him how?”

  “Find some charges that will stick or, if that doesn’t work, expose him for the sick, sadistic, abusive bastard he is and ruin his reputation. He’ll run so far, so fast that I guarantee he’ll never show his face anywhere near here again, probably not in the States again.”

  “I sure as fuck hope it’s that easy,” Noah said as he bandaged up Jesse’s arm.

  “As do I. Look. It’s been a trying night. Let’s all get some sleep and we’ll see where we are in the morning,” Morgan said.

  “Good idea. Come on Jesse, I’ll show you to one of the guest rooms,” Noah said as stood up.

  Panic filled Jesse’s eyes as he said, “You’re staying with me, right? I’m afraid to be alone, Noah.”

  Noah looked at the other men in the room then back at Jesse, “Um, I guess I could. But we’re just sleeping Jesse, we’re not having sex, okay?”

  Jesse’s face blushed bright red, “Oh, I can’t have sex with you. I’m a virgin,” he said, laughing as he turned to walk down the hall. Laughing like it was no big deal.

  “Jesse, wait!” Noah said.

  He waited for Jesse to stop and turn around.

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-four, why?”

  “And you’re still a virgin? Even though you’ve been living with Jacob?”

  “Oh yes, of course. Jacob insisted that I remain pure until we get married right after my twenty-fifth birthday.”

  “And you haven’t done, um, anything with Jacob?”

  Jesse blushed as he looked at the floor, “He, um, uses my hand sometimes to jerk off with. And he makes me jerk off while he watches even though it embarrasses me. He says I need to in order to keep my, um, you know, keep the pipes clear.”

  “Jesse?”

  Jesse’s deep blue doe eyes lifted to meet Noah’s, “Yeah?”

  “How long have you been with Jacob?”

  “Um, he found me at the shelter when I was almost fifteen. It was shortly after my dad had kicked me out because he had found the pictures I had from sports magazines of shirtless, sweaty male athletes. I thought they were beautiful with their shiny skin and rippled muscles, and the bulges in their pants did funny things to me too. I didn’
t realize it would piss dad off so much if I had them. But he hit the flipping roof. He said there was no way he was going to have another, um, gay son. But he didn’t say gay, he used meaner words, a lot meaner. I hated hearing those words but more than that I hated the cruel stuff he said about my brother.”

  Noah kind of felt like he was going to throw up.

  He knew Jacob was a sick fucker but a pedophile too?

  “Jesse? When did he start, um, watching you and having you touch him?”

  “Oh, not until my eighteenth birthday. He said it was better for me to wait.”

  Better for him…yeah right.

  “But he……” Jesse mumbled as his eyes glazed over and he looked away.

  “He, what, Jesse?”

  Jesse blinked and then looked back at Noah, “Oh, um nothing,” he whispered.

  Nothing, my ass, Noah thought but he wanted Jesse to tell him when he was ready so he let it go….for now.

  Something niggled at the back of Noah’s brain, something about that Op he had recently done for Morgan and that Cole guy that he’d fucked. One of the names in that file was a Kelly Braddock. He remembered glancing over Kelly Braddock’s file and seeing that he grew up in this area, that he had to run away from home when he was a teen, leaving behind a younger brother. He’d read that he was adopted by Connor Braddock when he was eighteen and that the father who raised him before that was a homophobic prick. What he couldn’t remember was Kelly’s last name before he got adopted.

  “Hey Jesse? What’s your last name?”

  “Miller. Why?”

  Noah glanced at Morgan then back at Jesse, “No reason. Come on, I’ll show you to the bathroom so you can use to brush your teeth and what not before bed.”

  As he stepped into the guest bathroom with Jesse right behind him, he pulled open a drawer and pulled out a brand new toothbrush. As he set it on the counter Jesse said, “Did you want me to jerk off tonight and did you want to watch to make sure I come?”

  Noah’s eyes went wide as they stared at Jesse’s reflection in the mirror then he squeezed his eyes shut, took a deep breath and turned around to look him at him directly.