I mean, I knew that all of my Bonds hadn’t waited for me. Even the two closest to my age had very obviously chosen to sleep around before they’d met me, but I don’t really want to hear about it, and knowing that he ramped it up in retaliation for something I’d never done… yeah, this isn’t my favorite moment for us to share.
He looks at me closely and when I don’t say anything, he continues, his voice a little stronger now that he’s gotten that part over with, “This went on for a couple of years. Right up until about six months before North and Gryphon found you while you were on the run, actually. My parents were all out of town for a Resistance function. Yeah, the Top Tier families in the Resistance throw galas and shit to raise money for the cause. It’s a whole different world on the East Coast than it is here. It’s… really different than it is here, actually. So, anyway, they were out of town and my mom changed the password to the butler’s cellar. It’s a passcode thing, and she did it so I couldn’t drink while they were gone, so I went snooping through her shit with one of my friends who knew enough about coding and hacking to be useful… On her computer, I found videos. I got my friend out before he saw anything really, but then I sat for two days while my parents were gone and watched the recordings of Silas Davies torturing you. My fourteen-year-old Bond being carved open as though you were nothing but a slab of meat to a butcher.”
My heart stutters to a stop in my chest.
I never knew there were recordings. I knew there were cameras, so of course there was a chance that there were tapes but, fuck, I hadn’t even thought it through that far.
I swallow roughly and he takes my hand, carefully so I can pull away from him if I want to. I don’t want to though. I want him to hold me because… I don’t even remember half of what was done to me thanks to my bond. To think that he’s seen it all—nope.
What’s happening? Oleander, I’m coming up.
I blink back the useless tears in my eyes and answer North immediately. Don’t. We’re just talking and he told me about the tapes. I’m guessing he’s told you already?
He is slower to answer but the urgency is out of his tone. I’ve seen them. Take a break and come see me. Leave this alone until later.
But I can’t. I need to know everything so that I can have my Bond back and know exactly what else he has on me that I didn’t know about. Fuck, North’s seen the tapes now too?
“You have them here, with you? Have they all seen them?” My voice is more of a croak, and when some of the tears spill out of my eyes, I hastily wipe them away.
He looks devastated when I pull my hand away from him but shakes his head. “No. Just North and Gryphon. I wouldn’t let them keep the footage because I didn’t want Nox seeing them. I know that you’re still on the fence with him at least, and I wasn’t letting him… see you like that. The other two had to see them to understand why I won’t ever side with my family. Ever, Oli. I would never side with people who did that to you.”
I can believe that, even without Gryphon’s lie detecting ability, because I can feel just how badly he needs me to believe him pouring out of his soul in my direction. He’s being very careful about keeping his bond away from mine, obviously so that I don’t assume he’s using it against me, but I can still read him like a book right now.
He means every word.
He also told me about sleeping around when I’m sure he’d rather not have talked about that but he’s being completely transparent.
So I nod again and murmur, “What happened then?”
He takes a deep breath and tips his head back to stare at the ceiling. “I confronted my mom about it. She didn’t want to tell me anything, but when I told her I was going to the Dravens to help look for you, she broke and admitted that she knew about them taking you. She’d lied to me about you so I wouldn’t go looking for you, and she ‘forbade’ me from finding you because of what Silas wants from you. The problem with her plan was that I was already nineteen at that point and had access to my trust fund. There was nothing she could do to stop me, not without telling my dad or the others what I was doing. So I planned out how I was going to find you and be with you on the run, and when I say that I had everything planned out, I mean everything, Sweetness. From moving my trust fund into an offshore account so that my dad couldn’t trace the money to knowing the exact whereabouts of all of the Resistance camps and having them mapped out so we could stay away from them.”