confessions of love

Act 1 || scene 1

How badly do you want to be free, cairo?” As questions went, it was a redundant one.

What sort of person didn’t want to be free of the tether binding them to a lifetime of oppression and abuse?

What kind of person thrived on the fear of not knowing if they would live to see another day?

But cairo knew it wasn’t the answer Lucan was after.

For him, it was to remind cairo just how far beneath his boots he stood and how his life was his to do with as he so wished.

I’m sorry the payment was late this month,” he began, talking to his filthy boots rather than facing the man sitting on the hood of his shiny, black Bentley, or the five other men standing in a perfect circular formation around her, caging him in.

“I couldn’t pull enough hours—”

“That wasn’t my question.” Lucan slid off the car, disturbing the dirt beneath their feet as he kicked absently at a soda can.

The bit of metal clattered noisily in the late afternoon as it tumbled across the parking lot.

“Do you want to be free?” lucan wasn’t much taller than him.

Maybe a foot at the very most, but he had intimidation on his side, which was something cairo severely lacked.

Plus he had the gun tucked into the waistband of his black jeans. The butt stood out against the white material of his t-shirt. It was all cairo could see despite his best efforts not to stare.

Swallowing the thick chunks of bile pooling at the back of her throat, cairo nodded “Yes.”

His footsteps drew closer, deliberately slow as the space between them shrank rapidly.

He stopped when cairo could smell the sharp stink of tobacco on his dark clothes and clearly make out the broken road map scarring his boots.

The sweet stench of cinnamon rolls curled into the space separating them to claw across his cheeks.

It tangled with the stench of stale beer wafting off his breath and taunted the sickness cairo was fighting so hard to suppress.

we had a deal you and I, didn’t we?” Lucan reached up and it took all him courage not to cringe when he twirled a coil of his hair. He wound it around a dirty finger, tight enough to tug strands from his scalp. “You promised to pay the debt your father owed me and I wouldn’t take your pretty little wolfie as compensation. So far, I have kept my end of the bargain, but you haven’t kept yours.”

“I’m sorry—” With the speeds of an angry cobra, his free hand shot out and closed around Cairo's jaw.

Jagged nails bit into tender skin as lucan wrenched him closer. His breath cut across Cairo's cheeks, burning his senses.

Tears sprang to his eyes and were quickly blinked back; lucan already held all the power over him.

cairo refused to let the bastard see him cry.

Oh, but lucan tried every chance he got to break him.

“Sorry doesn’t get me my money, pretty fcuk,” Lucan murmured in a taunting whisper that was followed by pressure on his face.

His cold, brown eyes sliced into cairo from amongst a messy cap of equally brown hair.

Most would have considered him handsome, and maybe he was with his built frame and rugged features, but all cairo could see was a monster. “I want my money, or something of equal value.”

Crippling terror vaulted up the cavity of his body in a numbing lance when The monster dropped his hand holding lock of his hair to snake up the side of his thigh, dragging the worn hem of his waiter uniform up his leg in the process.

Chills rushed over him in a torrent of hot and cold.

He reflexively grabbed the Alpha’s wrist, but it slid effortlessly inward despite him using both hands against only one of his.

“No, please…” The hand on his face tightened to the point of blinding pain.

His cry went ignored.

“I own you.”

The hand tucked behind his legs to grind in painful nudges over the trousers groping his ass.

His resistance had no effect on the monster.

He was barely able to push him away and that amused .

It lit the dark glimmer of triumph shimmering across his eyes and radiated in the possessive grip of his fingers bruising his jaw.

lucan pulled him in closer so their mouths were mere inches apart and cairo was forced to swallow every one of his exhales.

“Everything you have, everything you will have … mine, and there is nothing you can do about it, señorita.”

The sickening truth rippled up the length of him to curdle in his chest.

It warped around his heart and lungs until he was sure he would suffocate right there at this monster’s feet.

But even death had abandoned him to his mercy.

“I’m sorry,” he choked out, struggling not to fight, while simultaneously restraining his prodding fingers from pushing past the material of his pants.

“I’ll get your money!” cairo promised over the loud boom of terror thundering between his ears. “I promise.”

“See that you do.” His gaze lingered on Cairo's mouth, dark and hungry. “And make sure this is the only time we have this conversation.”

He released cairo and he staggered back in a fit of coughs.

A sob worked up into his throat and curled into a tight ball that made him want to do the same across the dirt.

Cold, clammy hands went to his face to rub the welts he’d left behind on his skin.

A violent shudder claimed him.

“And to ensure that this never happens again,” he pivoted on his heels and meandered back to his car. “I want two months’ worth by tomorrow.”

Two months?” Cairo's disbelief came out in a choked gasp. “I can’t get six thousand dollars in a day.”

Pausing at the driver’s side door of his Bentley, lucan turned. “That’s your problem, Señorita.”

He yanked open his door. “Six thousand or your sister by five o’clock tomorrow.”

!~~~!

There was nothing to do but stand back and watch as the group disassembled and peeled off in a plume of dust and exhaust.

Around him, the world seemed to roar back into focus with a vengeance.

Sights and sounds slammed into his ear. Their normality paralyzed the breath he was desperately trying to suck in.

Despite the heat, his skin prickled in pimples that itched beneath his uniform.

His stomach writhed, a pit of angry snakes struggling for dominance.

Nausea pushed against him, threatening to take underwater. But he couldn’t.

He had work and he couldn’t go in smelling like vomit and sweat.

Knees wobbled as he staggered his way unsteadily to the The Wonder diner. The squat little burger joint catered mainly to truckers, hookers and the occasional family passing through and was, literally, around the corner before an abrupt drop into the churning Han River.

It sat off the main highway into the city and was the main stop for most people coming or going.

But as tips went, it was questionable.

The only ones who actually gave good ones were the truckers and only after spending an hour squeezing his ass.

But it was a job and it paid some of his bills.

The afternoon rush had already begun when he stumbled through the door into a wall of palpable heat.

Low chatter sweltered through the rancid stench of burnt fries, grease, and stale perfume.

Someone had put a quarter into the jukebox and Taylor Swift crooned from the crackling speakers bolted into the two corners of the room.

Overhead, the twin fans wobbled and creaked as they churned the sour air like dough beneath a blender head.

cairo always wondered when the two would just dislocate from the ceiling and k/ill somebody. It was only a matter of time.

“cairo!” More hairspray than person, Oh Siena slapped the rag in her hands down onto the counter and speared her tiny fists on voluminous hips.

The plastic bangles circling twiggy arms clattered noisily. “You’re late!”

Automatically, Cairo's gaze darted to the clock behind the auburn beehive adding about two feet to Siena’s four foot nothing stature.

“I-I’m sorry—”

One child-sized hand cut through the air, five slender fingers splayed in a clear warning to stop talking.

She stood like an irate traffic guard at an intersection, but meaner.

She burned cairo with her squinty, blue eyes.

“This isn’t some charity place,” she bit out. “You’re not going to get paid for being lazy.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell the woman that he had never been late a single day in two years and that it was only five minutes, but he knew that would only get him fired.

“Do you have any idea how many applications we get a day for your position?” Siena went on in her chirpy squeak. “We could have you replaced within the hour.”

It didn’t matter whether or not that was true.

cairo was in no position to test the theory.

So, he apologized again before ducking his head and hurrying behind the counter.

His worn sneakers squeaked against the grimy linoleum in his haste to get away from the shrewd woman watching her every movement.

siena didn’t stop him as cairo disappear

into the back.

Siena’s husband and their fry cook, looked up from the grill he was scraping with a metal spatula.

His pudgy face was flushed and shone with sweat that he wiped off on the hem of his filthy apron.

His beady eyes watched cairo as he darted into the miniature-sized staffroom tucked between the walk-in and the bathroom.

The kitchen was a small, cramped place that barely fit two people.

Most of the space was claimed by the grill and deep fryer combo crammed into one corner.

It was attached to a sheet of dented metal that ended under the takeout window.

The walk-in took up the rest.

The Wonder was the kind of place cairo felt like people needed to get a tetanus shot before stepping into, or the sort of place that killed its customers and served them in the burger mix.

It was dingy and badly maintained.

It made no sense to him why anyone would want to eat there.

But people did and so long as they did, he continued to get a pay-check once a week.

By no means was it enough to support him, his sister, and the tower of bills that just kept getting bigger each day, but it was something.

The rest was made up from his two other jobs that he did throughout the week.

Yet no matter how many jobs he worked or how many paychecks he pulled in, it was never enough.

Between the mortgage, bills, Olivia's tuition, and lucan he barely saw a penny of it.

Things hadn’t always been bad.

There had been a time when he had been a normal carefree teenager with a room full of all the craps unwanted when their life was perfect.

He’d had a mother and a father and an irritating baby sister.

They had even had a tiny dog that slept on a velvet cushion on his window seat.

Back then, he never had to worry about making ends meet.

He never even knew where the money came from, only that they had it and he was popular and rich and the envy of everyone at his elite prep school.

Then his mother had died.

No amount of money in the world could save her.

The cancer had been too advanced. It had taken over her body seemingly overnight. She barely lasted a year.

Cairo's world had fractured the second her mother’s heart monitor had flat lined.

His perfectly manicured existence tumbled into dark chaos and no one stayed to hold his hand through it.

His girlfriend had called him an emotionally unresponsive rascal and left him for his best friend.

All the kids who had once begged for a second of his time were nowhere to be seen.

His father drowned himself in whiskey, quit his job, and squandered their money on horses.

The checks to the school bounced.

The bank began to call three times a day.

The cupboards had more cobwebs than food and he had a nine year old sister who needed him.

Abandoning his dreams of partying it up in high school, cairo had gotten a job, then two, then three.

He worked his fingers to the bone and went home exhausted only to wake up an hour later and do it all over again.

But that was his life and someone had to do it.

“leo?” Securing the apron strings around his waist, cairo faced the giant beast of a man dumping greasy onion rings out of the fryer. “I was wondering if I could get an advance on my pay-check this week?”

Twisting enormous hands in his apron, leo turned to him. “You’re still paying off the last advance I gave you.”

“Then an advance on my next week pay? You know I’m good for it,” he pressed.

“I’ve been working here for two years. I’m always on time and I come in every time you guys ask me to.”

“Always on time?” he mumbled with a raised eyebrow.

cairo grimaced. “Today was an exception. I ran into some complications.”

Leo grunted and went back to scooping onion rings into a paper covered basket. “How much do you need?”

It was a struggle not to look away, to not shift uneasily. “Six thousand.”

Leo's tiny eyes nearly bulged from their sockets. “Six thousand

dollars?”

You know I’ll pay every penny back!” he cut in hurriedly.

“What the hell do you need six thousand dollars for?”

“Bills,” he semi-lied.

“I don’t have that kind of money,” leo shot back. “Are you crazy? Do I look like a bank to you?”

Already mortified for having even asked, cairo bristled. “Well, what about three thousand?”

“No!” he barked. “Get to work.”

Cheeks hot, he spun on his heels and stormed from the kitchen.

The Twin star Hotel was the epitome of luxury and sat nestled in the heart of the city.

Its gleaming walls of glass glinted in the fading afternoon light.

Sparks sliced down the sharp lines in blinding winks.

The building itself rose from a bed of lavish green like a sword jutting from its magnificent hilt.

For miles all around, lush hills rose and dipped.

Manicured bushes swayed daintily in a breeze that wouldn’t dare be anything but soothing.

Even in the winter, the surrounding park and golf course remained the picture of a absolute perfection.

Back when life had been simple, cairo had dreamed of renting one of the condos at the very top and entertaining the most exclusive people.

He used to drive out with his friends and walk the grounds, chattering on like the world was already his.

Stupid, he thought now as he shifted the strap on his sling bag higher and ducked through the staff doors at exactly five.

Unlike the cool scent of lavender, sea breeze, and money wafting through the lobby and corridors, the staff area stank of sweat, harsh cleaners, and desperation.

The paint was a little duller there, the carpets a little more rundown.

It was the type of place dreams went to die.

But it was substantially better than The Wonder. It was certainly cleaner.

Unhooking his bag from around his shoulders, cairo marched into the change area and made a beeline through the rows of metal lockers and wooden benches.

His locker was tucked away in the far, left corner, away from the showers, the door, and the bathrooms.

The alcove held three other lockers owned by three other women Taehyung had never talked to, not once in four years.

But he was fine with that. Friends required a level of dedication he didn’t have time for.

Grease and sweat left over from his six hour shift at the diner slicked the dial on her lock as he fumbled to get his locker open.

It didn’t seem to matter how hard he tried, the oily sensation never left his skin.

The lock gave with an audible click and he wrenched the metal door open.

His purse was carelessly hung on one of the spare hooks while he kicked off his shoes and reached with his free hand for the maid uniform.

The simple grey and white ensemble was a drastic change from his scratchy waiter one.

The material was softer and comfortable with a neat little collar that matched the cuffs on the short sleeves.

The flat, pearly buttons slipped easily into each hole from hem to throat.

He dusted a hand along the front before tying his apron overtop and starting round two of his day.

Being a room attendant took no real brain power, but the manual exertion of it was exhausting.

Most of the customers weren’t too bad, like the older couples who were neat and orderly and only required minimal attending.

It was the frat boys, the rich and sleazy assholes who partied hard on their daddy’s dollar and thought they owned the damn world that he couldn’t stand.

Walking into one of those rooms always made him want to dress up in a hazmat suit first.

Used condoms, discarded panties with questionable stains, filthy clothes, dug things, the stench of sweat, pot, and s*x were just some of the things that greeted him when he opened her first room.

It was policy to shut the door behind them while they worked, for their own safety as well as the privacy of their clients, but the smell was just unbearable.

He wasn’t sure he’d survive being locked up in there.

Going against the rules, he propped the door open with his cart and got to work stuffing everything into trash bags.

Personal items were put aside or tossed into the laundry pile.

The bed was made, all surfaces wiped down and the floors vacuumed.

But it was all done with a quickness he normally didn’t show in his work.

Each room would take an hour, two if it was really bad, but he usually took his time and made sure he did everything perfectly.

He didn’t have time for perfect.

Checking the rooms off his clipboard, he grabbed his cart and hurried way back down through the service elevator.

His foot tapped anxiously on the sheet of metal as he watched the numbers descend.

On five, the doors opened and one of the servers pushed his empty food cart in next to his. He took ages aligning it perfectly.

“Busy night, huh?” the guy said unexpectedly as the car started its descent once more.

“Yeah,” cairo mumbled absently, eyes never steering away from the blinking numbers overhead.

“Are you almost off?” he asked.

He looked at him then, taking in his boyish face, mop of golden brown curls, and sparkling green eyes.

Practically still a baby, he thought, judging his age to be roughly nineteen.

“Almost,” cairo answered.

They approached their level and the boy let him out first.

Inwardly, he grimaced. “Thousand.”

“Jesus Christ!” The joints of his chair shrieked when he threw himself back. “What the hell do you need that kind of money for?”

“I told you, it’s an emergency or I wouldn’t be asking.”

“Christ!” Johan said again, rubbing his palm over his pudgy face.

“No. Absolutely not. I am not going to be responsible for you paying that kind of money back.”

“I’ll pay it back!” cairo promised. “You know I will. Come on, Johan. I’ve been a model employee. I’m always on time. I finish my work. I’ve never had a complaint. My work is exemplary. You know I’m good for it.”

Johan kept rocking his head from side to side. “Can’t do it. Not only because I won’t, but because payroll will never agree to that amount. Are you crazy?”

“Well, what about three thousand?”

Johan sighed. “The most I can do is maybe five hundred bucks.”

“Five hundred?” Disbelief and outrage rang through his voice even as dread coiled in the pit of his chest.

He felt the urge to burst into frustrated tears and swallowed it back quickly. “Fine.”

Five hundred bucks wasn’t enough to pay what he owed, nor was it enough to appease Lucan when he came knocking.

But maybe it would be enough to give him a few days to come up with the rest

By the time he shuffled home to the only place he’d ever lived, the clock was sitting at well after three.

Shadows spilled along the walls like black paint, obscuring the worn, second hand furniture he’d picked up from street curbs and dumpsters.

The original items had been sold off to pay for the overdue mortgage.

He hadn’t gotten nearly as much as his parents had paid for them, but it had kept the bank off their backs for a little while.

The only things he hadn’t gotten rid of were his and Olivia's bedroom sets.

Both had been birthday presents and the last gift their mother had given them.

But everything else was gone, leaving empty rooms throughout the house, giving it the appearance of abandonment.

Maybe in a way, it was.

cairo certainly no longer lived there.

It was a place to keep his things mostly.

But it was the one piece of his old life he fought desperately to cling on to.

Careful not to make a sound, he started up the stairs.

He knew from the discarded backpack next to the stairway, that Olivia was home and already in bed.

His entire body ached.

There was a numbness behind his eyeballs that he was certain wasn’t normal and all he wanted to do was curl up and sleep.

Instead, he staggered his way into the bathroom, careful not to make too much noise as he locked himself inside.

The bags beneath his green eyes had bags and each one was a darker shade of purple.

They stood out against the dull, lifeless honeyed complexion.

Dirty blonde wisps stood in erratic, frizzy waves.

He’d taken a shower that morning, but the strands were dull and lanky from sweat, humidity, and grease.

He rubbed a hand on his face pulling the unruly curls back before shoving away from the mirror to undress.

His waiter uniform hit the floor and was left there as he turned away to climb into the tub for a quick shower.

It was after four in the morning by the time he fell face first across the bed.

True to his promise, Johan had left a note with the accounting clerk regarding his five hundred dollars.

The check was waiting for him when cairo returned to the hotel the next morning.

He signed for it before making his way to the staff lounge and the coin operated phone mounted to the wall.

cairo didn’t own a cellphone. It was an extra expense that he couldn’t afford.

olivia had one and only because it gave cairo some piece of mind knowing his sister could use it in case of an emergency, even though, at the end of the month, she racked up a bill fit for six cellphones.

But cairo had no problem using a payphone if he really needed to.

He very seldom ever had anyone to call anyway.

There were still three hours before his shift started at the arcade and fun pit.

Thankfully, unlike his commute from the diner on the outskirts and the hotel smack dab in the very heart of the city, the arcade was a reasonable twenty minutes from his house by bus.

The bank was ten minutes.

But he still had to call Lucan and hopefully talk him into taking the five hundred for the time being.

The very thought made his insides writhe.

The staff lounge was occupied by one other person, a woman in a maid’s uniform.

Realistically, for the amount of time cairo spent at the hotel, he should have at least known some of the others.

Some he did recognize on sight, but others were new or he never paid attention.

Maybe that made him an antisocial weirdo, but he rarely found time to sit down and have a proper meal, never mind an actual conversation .

The woman never glanced up when cairo hurried across the worn carpet to the tiny alcove cut into the other side of the room.

The phone booth hung over a small, wooden table containing a tattered phonebook.

It was flipped open to a cab company ad.

The number was circled with a bright, red pen.

cairo ignored it as he snatched up the phone, inserted fifty cents and punched in lucan's number.

After seven years, it was as clear to him as his own name.

He didn’t even need to look at the dial pad.

A man answered on the fourth ring. “Yeah?”

cairo had to swallow hard before he could answer.

“This is cairo falicius. I need to speak to Lucan please.”

The gruff man said something away from the phone.

There was some scuffling and then lucan's voice was in his ear.

“cairo. Do you have my money?”

Nausea soured the contents of his empty stomach.

The plastic handle squished beneath his clammy palm as he gripped the phone harder.

“Not exactly,” he murmured unsteadily. “I have some of it, but—”

“cairo.” Feigned disappointment crackled between them in the single exhale of his name. “I don’t like hearing that.”

“I know, and I tried, but it’s a lot of money to get in a single night.” lucan sighed. “How much do you have?”

More and more, it was becoming increasingly harder to breath around the sickness climbing up his throat.

Dull, gray fingers had begun to creep up around the edges of his vision and he had to struggle not to pass out.

“cairo.”

Oh! how he hated when that goon called his name like that, in that sing-song manner.

“Five hundred,” he said. “I have … it was all I could get.”

There was a hiss of air being sucked through clenched teeth.

“Oh that isn’t what we agreed to at all, is it, cairo? That isn’t even half.”

“I’ll get the rest—”

“You know, it’s not about the money, cairo. It’s about keeping your word. I was really good to you, wasn’t I? I gave you time—”

“One day isn’t—”

lucan kept on talking. “I thought for sure we had some kind of understanding when we spoke yesterday. But maybe you just don’t care about your sister as much as you claim. Maybe you’re hoping I’ll take the hindrance off your hands.”

“No! Please, Lucan just give me a little—”

“The time for bargaining is over, cairo. I want your sister delivered to me by six PM sharp tonight or I will get her myself.

༎ຶ⁠‿⁠༎ຶ༎ຶ⁠‿⁠༎ຶ

"cairo"?” The raspy voice soaked up the silence. “cairo , are you home?”

Pulling himself together and scrubbing away all lingering signs of his weakness, cairo twisted his face into a smile and stepped out of the washroom.

“Hello Ms Edwina ! Did I wake you?”

As small and frail as a child, Ms Edwina stood barely at five feet with fine, white hair that hung in straggles around her withered face.

Her blue eyes had faded to gray, but still sparkled in a way that always made cairo envious.

She stood in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room, clad in her floral housecoat and pink slippers.

Ms. Edwina rented the one bedroom in-law suite in the basement.

It worked out for both of them, because Ms.Edwina was on a fixed budget that barely covered the cost of a matchbox and cairo needed someone to be home with olivia when he couldn’t be.

“I was up,” the woman croaked. “Joint pains,” she explained with a miserable shrug. “But how are you?” She looked cairo over. “You’re not at work today?”

The arcade.

cairo wanted to swear and kick something, but that would only concern Ms. Edwina all the more.

“I’m going in a few minutes. I came home to change.” He paused before adding. “I’ll be working a triple shift tonight. Do you think—?”

Ms. Edwina put gnarled hands up. “Don’t you worry about a thing. I’ll make my chicken casserole and make sure Little Miss does her homework.”

Grateful not to have to worry about at least one thing, cairo smiled. “Thank you.”The moment he was out of ear and eye shot, his smile dissolved.

He stumbled into his bedroom.