Maniac - Necessary Evils #7 - Ch. 8 (Patreon)

As always unbeta'd and unedited and subject to change if something in the plot ends up wonky. 

Aiden

Aiden wasn’t sure what he was supposed to feel. Disgust? Sorrow? Empathy? He didn’t feel any of those things. What he felt was rage. This red, throbbing rage that blotted out logic and reason. Rage against the ghost of a seventeen-year-old monster who’d somehow managed to ruin multiple lives with his unhinged final act.

Shane was the reason Thomas had tormented himself—and Aiden—for years. He might as well have killed Thomas too. It probably would have been less cruel. He wanted to hit something, tear it apart with his bare hands. He wished he had someone to kill in Shane’s place, but there was nobody.

Yet.

Whoever it was blackmailing Thomas, they would make a fine outlet for Aiden’s fury and frustration. He just had to find them. To find them, Aiden needed the rest of the story. Even if Thomas wasn’t ready to tell it. They were finishing this today. Then they’d find the motherfucker who’d had the audacity to go after the Mulvaneys.

Thomas was crying, but he didn’t appear to notice, clearly too busy swimming in his own guilt, or maybe drowning in his memories. Aiden itched to comfort him, but it wasn’t possible. There was no walking him back from the ledge, not until it was all out in the open. Every dirty fucking detail. No matter what that meant for either of them.

Aiden studied him for a few moments before finally forcing himself to ask, “How did he die?”

“Hm?” Thomas asked absently, staring into the flames.

Was he checking out mentally? Shutting down? Aiden wouldn’t blame him. It was self preservation. He was still hiding something. Something he deemed worse than what he’d admitted. But what? What did Thomas consider worse than the slaughter of his family? “Did you kill him? Did you kill Shane?”

Thomas turned to him, eyes red rimmed, expression grim. “I should have. I could have even. Easily. He handed me the shotgun. My father’s shotgun. The one he kept in the closet.”

“He wanted you to kill him?” Aiden asked.

Thomas shook his head, his mouth twisting into a brief smile that looked more like a snarl. “No. He wanted me to kill his parents—my aunt and uncle. I think he thought it would be…romantic? Killing each other’s families? He called it ‘removing obstacles’. That’s what they’d been to him. Just things standing between the two of us.”

“You’re aunt and uncle were there?” Aiden asked, trying to follow Thomas’s scattered thoughts.

“He’d called them. They were pulling into the drive when he handed me the gun. He said he chose the gun because he knew I wouldn’t be able to handle something up close and personal like strangulation. He said I wasn’t like him, that I was too soft but that it was okay, because I had him to protect me. To care for me. That I just had to point and shoot, like a camera. Like the hundreds of skeet we’d shot in my parents backyard.”

Aiden shook his head. “Why did he think you’d agree to this?”

Thomas scoffed. “It was my idea, wasn’t it?”

Aiden hadn’t meant to ask the question. It just slipped out. It hadn’t been Thomas’s idea. Not really. Aiden had said a million times as a teen that he hated his parents. He’d wished bad things on his father more times than he could even remember. Kids were shitheads with poorly regulated emotions due to a barely functioning prefrontal cortex. Thomas knew this. He was a doctor. But somehow all his training seemed to go out the window when it came to this one thing.

“You had no way of knowing that he would take you seriously.”

Thomas laughed bitterly. “Didn’t I? I knew he was violent. There were signs. Things I excused again and again. Things I romanticized even. His jealousy. His aggression. Hell, I was flattered to be the only boy he took an interest in. But I wasn’t a boy to him. I was a victim. Weak. Naive. Easily controlled.”

“You were special to him. He chose you for a reason. And not because you were weak or naive. If that was the case, he would have just played with you and discarded you like the others. You were special to him in some way. Maybe he saw you as a partner in crime? Someone who would let him roleplay whatever deviant fantasies he had? Killing his parents may have been his final test.”

It was all speculation on Aiden’s part. He wasn’t a psychopath. But he’d watched Thomas raise six of them. Each of them had latched onto their significant others with extreme prejudice. How had Noah put it? Like the werewolves in Twilight. Like a baby duck imprinted on its mother. Something in their psychopathy had seen their perfect match in their mate and chosen them almost on sight. Like Aiden had with Thomas. Maybe it wasn’t a psychopath thing, after all. Or maybe Aiden was a little bit of a psycho too. But Shane had recognized and imprinted on something in Thomas, and he’d fully expected Thomas would play his game. But clearly he’d been wrong.

“What did you do when he gave you the gun?”

“I told him I wouldn’t do it. That I wasn’t going to kill anybody. That I hadn’t wanted any of this. I couldn’t wrap my mind around any of it. My family was right there in front of me, but they weren’t. They were gone. Just these vacant bloated bodies with sightless eyes. I didn’t understand.”

“What did you do with the gun?” Aiden asked, hoping he could guide Thomas out of whatever memory he seemed to be reliving.

Thomas wasn’t listening. He was on auto-pilot, shaking his head like he was back there in that moment. “I told him he was sick and deranged and disgusting. I said I hated him. That he should just kill me, if not, I’d kill him. He yanked the gun away from me and he pointed it right at my head.”

Aiden’s heart raced at just the thought of a gun on Thomas’s head.

“I wanted so badly for him to pull the trigger. I wanted to be with Teddy and Thea. I wanted to stop looking at their bodies. I wanted to be gone and death seemed a blessing. But I didn’t have the balls to do it myself. I stared right into his eyes, hoping he knew how much I fucking hated him, hoping it would be enough for him to take one more life.”

Once more Thomas fell silent. Aiden gave him a moment before saying, “What happened next?”

“He obviously didn’t do it. Maybe he thought it was crueler to let me live. He was right about that. He lowered the gun and told me to run. I don’t know why I did. Maybe my sense of self preservation kicked in. I was at the front door, staring at his startled parents, when we heard the gunshot.”

Aiden blinked. It was the only logical conclusion, he supposed, but it was still out of character. “He killed himself.”

Thomas nodded, he scrubbed his hands over his face, then dug the heels of his palms into his eyes. “Do you know what a double barrel shotgun does to someone’s face when you tuck it right up under the chin?”

Given the hundreds of dead bodies they’d both seen over their lifetimes, Aiden assumed it was a rhetorical question. Besides, they'd both looked at those crime scene photos half a dozen times at least. “His parents…”

Thomas swallowed hard. “His step-father—my mother’s brother—was rightfully horrified. His sister, his niece and nephew, his brother-in-law, all dead. Now his step-son too. He threw up. Sobbed. Rang his hands and paced. But Shane’s mother was emotionless. Not a single tear.”

That was interesting. Not shocking exactly, but interesting. Perhaps the apple didn't fall far from the tree. Was she in shock? A narcissist? Did she simply have the ability to compartmentalize in a crisis? 

So many questions. “Who called the police?”

“Nobody at first. She went straight into coveer up mode. She forced me to sit on the loveseat in full view of my dead family and very curtly demanded I tell her exactly what happened. I did my best to explain in between my own bouts of nausea and shock. And when she was satisfied, she started making phone calls. Attorneys. The mayor. The DA. A senator. Hell, if she had called the president I wouldn't have been shocked. There wasn’t anybody she didn’t know.”

“So they all agreed to cover it up?”

Thomas took a drink, nodding. “Myself included. Not that I had much choice. Nobody would believe a traumatized fifteen-year-old over the police. Over a senator. They moved bodies. Staged them. Took photos. Tossed around a dozen or so plausible suspects before someone simply suggested they make it look like an accident.”

“Why would any of these high-powered figures agree to this? There had to have been hundreds of people who were agreeing to keep a very big, very dark secret.”

“We were in the middle of nowhere. The police force was small. The sheriff and his two officers easily bought. The others…turned out they were all culpable in their own way.”

“Meaning what?”

“Shane had shown signs of psychopathy from a young age. By the time he was ten, he’d already hit the marker’s for the McDonald triad. Arson. Bedwetting. Animal cruelty. She took him to therapist after therapist. But as his crimes worsened, she chose protecting her family name in lieu of institutionalizing him. She called in favor after favor. But she’d never expected things to go that far.”

“She told you that?”

“She told my uncle. While she was trying to explain herself. She even said when he’d met me she thought they’d gotten past the worst of it. That he’d just needed a friend. Someone grounded. Quiet. Someone who understood him…Until Holly.”

Aiden’s eyes went wide. “She knew about Holly?”

Thomas tipped the glass to his lips, looking down in disappointment when he realized his glass was empty once more. “Apparently. I listened, but I wasn’t really absorbing things. My family was dead. I was responsible. My boyfriend was dead. He killed my family. His parents knew he was a ticking time bomb, but they’d set him loose on society anyway, gave him chances to harm others over and over again. It seemed impossible. Like a bad horror movie. I just sat and listened. Once they were sure I wouldn’t tell, they took me home and my uncle did his best to coach me on what would be expected of me going forward as the only living Mulvaney.”

“And that was it. You just became the new king.”

“What else could I do?”

Aiden snagged Thomas’s glass and took it back to the bar for a refill, but this time he kneeled in front of him, holding the glass out for him to grab. Thomas’s gaze went hazy as he studied him.

“Drink,” Aiden encouraged. Once Thomas took a sip, Aiden asked, “Why did you adopt them? If you knew Shane was a psychopath, why would you want to raise children like him?”

Thomas’s hand inched closer but stopped short of touching him. “I had my chance to kill him and I failed. I had my chance to put down a killer and I couldn’t do it because even after what he did, I still had empathy. My feelings clouded my ability to do the right thing. When I began to really dissect the psychopath’s brain I realized there was nobody better to kill psychopaths, then other psychopaths.”

“But how did you know it would work?” Aiden asked.

“I didn’t,” Thomas said, his knees squeezing Aiden’s shoulders in an involuntary reflex. “I could only hope. Because someone had to do the dirty work. Someone had to protect people and I’d proven that I lacked the courage of my convictions. I had the gun in my hand, but I couldn’t pull the trigger.”

Was that why Thomas had been so hesitant to finish the story? Not just the guilt he felt over his family’s death, but not being able to kill the man himself? He’d been barely fifteen. Why did he insist on dragging his guilt around when he’d never expect any other person in the same situation to bear that burden? Why did any human?

“Back then, I didn’t realize that he needed to suffer for his crimes. That came later. After years of reading about the monsters living among us. Not just psychopaths, but rapists, pedophiles…falling through the cracks again and again. Bad laws. Bad investigations. Bad sentences that let the most vile creatures out so they can re-offend again and again.”

“That wasn’t your burden to take on.”

“If not mine, then who? Who else had the money, the connections, the knowledge? Do you think Shane’s mother was the outlier? Just some rogue rich woman with connections? No. The rich get away with things the poor could never dream of. And I’m nothing if not filthy rich. So I learned everything I could, talked to every expert imaginable. And then, when I felt I was ready, I began my experiment.”

“Atticus.”

“Mm,” Thomas said. “He was perfect. The right age, the right temperament. A perfect mirror. He was fascinating. You all were.”

Thomas’s hand found Aiden’s where it rested on his thigh, just setting it over his. He closed his eyes, letting the warmth of Thomas’s skin bleed into his. For better or worse, Thomas was right. His experiment, though grossly flawed, was a success. His children, all psychopaths, were the perfect killing machines, yet they never crossed the line. Not one of them. But that didn’t explain one final thing.

Aiden looked up, catching Thomas’s gaze. “Why did you adopt me?”

Thomas sighed, pulling his hand off of Aiden’s. He mourned the loss. But then his palm was cupping Aiden’s cheek. “Because nobody knows better than me what it's like to live in a house where you’re not wanted.”

Something twisted inside Aiden. “Yet you ended up not wanting me anyway.”

Thomas shook his head emphatically. “That’s not true. I never didn’t want you. I just didn’t want you the way you wanted me. You were a kid with a crush.” Aiden opened his mouth to protest but Thomas covered it with his palm. “And by the time I did want you the way you wanted me, I knew I didn’t deserve you.”

Aiden slapped his hand away. “How was that your choice to make?”

Thomas gave another sharp laugh, looking miserable. “Whose choice would it be? Yours? I couldn’t tell you the truth. I couldn’t tell anybody. How could I let you love me when you had no idea who I truly was? How was that fair to you?”

“You could have just told me. You tell me everything else. Even when I don’t want to hear it,” Aiden said, thinking of all those nights Thomas had called him, drunkenly confessing feelings he had no intention of acting on.

“What should I have done? Married my adopted son? Caused a scandal that would have had the world looking at us under a microscope?”

“So you did it to protect the experiment?” Aiden spit, not surprised, but still bitter.

“No. Not just that. What would we have been? I’m not husband material any more than I was father material. I drink too much, I never stop working, I don’t just have two secret identities but three, sometimes more.”

“But you were a father. You raised six kids. You didn’t give them a choice in the matter. You just did it. Why couldn’t you have just tried? For me?”

Aiden didn’t know why he was bringing all this up now. It wasn’t the time or the place. They had so many bigger things to worry about but he’d been putting his feelings to the side for decades and he was so fucking tired of it. If he was getting answers today, he was getting all of them.

Thomas set his glass down. “Do you know what they would have done to you in the press? To me? To your brothers?”

“So what?” Aiden shouted.

Thomas looked at him like he was crazy. “So what?”

“Yeah. So fucking what? What crazy rich family doesn’t have wild scandals? Hell, even the royals. Why couldn’t you have just been willing to bear the weight of a little bit more scrutiny? For me? Do you think a man marrying his adopted son would be a bigger scandal than half the shit Archer had done? His marriage alone was a bigger risk to your experiment than anything you and I could have brought down on this family and yet you weathered that just fine. You’ve taken it all just fine. Even Avi and Felix’s hotel bloodbath scandal. Why were they more important than me?”

“They’re not,” Thomas shouted back. “Don’t you get it. I did this for you. I’m no good for you. You deserve better. You deserve so much better.”

Aiden thought about hitting him, thought about how nice it would feel to have the cartilage give way beneath his fist. “I didn’t want better. I wanted you. I still want you. Who knows you better than me? I know all your flaws. I know all your secrets.”

Thomas shook his head. “You didn’t. You didn’t know the truth about who I was or what I’d done. And I couldn’t tell you. It wasn’t fair to let you love a lie.”

Aiden wanted to scream. How was this man so goddamn stubborn? “What else are you hiding from me?”

Thomas closed his eyes for a long moment. “Nothing. That’s all of it.”

“Everything?”

Thomas opened his eyes and met his gaze. “Yeah, that’s everything.”

Aiden rose up on his knees until he was nose to nose with Thomas, close enough to smell the alcohol on his breath. “So now I know. Now I know everything. So what’s your excuse going to be this time?”