Foster Siblings 3: Brokedown Hearts (37 page)

Without another word, Ben pulled up his hoodie, zipped the black sweatshirt, and jogged across the street. Once he reached the building, he didn’t bother with the big metal doors out front. Whoever had put this party together certainly wouldn’t let in anyone over twenty-five, if that, let alone a foreign-looking guy in his late thirties. And if Ben started flashing Mikael’s picture and asking questions, everyone would scatter, Mikael among them, and Ben might not see him in the crowd.

Ben circled the three-story building and spotted the answer to his problem on the far back end. Not exactly a swanky fire escape, but rather a flat metal ladder attached to the building, and it went all the way to the top floor. Not letting himself think about how many stairs that would be to climb—it made the most sense to go all the way to the top and work his way down on the inside—Ben strode over to the ladder and hauled himself up onto the first rung.

Rather than focus on the endless rungs on the ladder, Ben concentrated on the grid-search method he’d use once inside the building. He then let David’s encouraging last text sink in and reaffirm that he would successfully find Mikael. The kid would be fine, and they would be back on a plane heading to Florida before lunchtime tomorrow. Logically Ben knew he could have handled this whole mess with Mikael on his own, but knowing he had David at home keeping good thoughts and being a cheerleader made each step of this task so much more bearable. From halfway across the globe, David helped keep Ben believing he would get a good result and his brother safe at his side.

Ben reached the top of the ladder, and music blared through from the other side of a grimy window. He jiggled the frame, but it didn’t budge.
Locked
. He’d expected that, but he’d had to at least try to open it by the least conspicuous method possible. Feeling lucky that nobody had noticed him from the ground yet, Ben held his breath, jammed his elbow against the windowpane, and shattered the glass. Some shards fell into the building, but big pieces plunged to the wet concrete and split into even more pieces upon impact. Fortunately the music drowned out a lot of the noise. Ben used his hand, covered by his sweatshirt, to knock out the rest of the glass so he could climb inside.

After carefully hoisting himself over the window frame, Ben pulled a small flashlight from the pocket of his hoodie and clicked it on. Almost total darkness sat oppressively on this level of the warehouse, but an occasional kid here and there had a phone held close to his or her pale face, probably texting or maybe Snapchatting or FaceTiming; who knew for certain. None of them bothered to do more than glance up when Ben had crawled inside, and all had quickly gone back to their phones. Ben moved the flashlight beam across each face, momentarily lighting glassy stares, but none of them were Mikael, and none of them acknowledged Ben’s existence any further.

A fast search of the rest of the occupants of this floor exposed three couples making out, as well as the scurrying rats Ivan had mentioned. There was no door to a rooftop and only one narrow opening that led to stairs.
Time to move on.

Out in the stairwell, slightly better lighting allowed Ben to check the faces of the young people littering the steps without the aid of his flashlight. He pushed his way through the horde, flitted his focus from one kid to the next, but did not see his brother among them. With each step Ben took, the music blared louder and louder, shaking the walls and concrete beneath his feet.

Before reaching a small landing on the second level of the building, Ben stopped, fished his disposable earplugs from the plane out of his pocket, and fitted them into his ears. The overwhelming volume of the techno music immediately softened, and Ben patted himself on the back for remembering to hang on to the squishy little yellow foam tubes.

Psyching himself up once more, Ben bobbed and wove his way through a crush of people into a big open space on the second floor. Rapidly moving and blinking strobe lighting blurred his vision and stopped him in his tracks. Locked in place, Ben forced himself to concentrate on the red, yellow, green, and blue lights illumining the giant room. He tried to find a good level to keep his sight line, one that would block some of the flashing lights from above but still allow him to see faces.

Someone shoved Ben from behind, shouted something in Swedish, and the gesture kicked Ben back into his search.

This level of the warehouse had the DJ and the dance floor, and it was wall-to-wall packed with people.
Fuck
. Digging in, Ben walked the length of the nearest wall, checking faces on his left and right. When he reached the end, he turned, started back in the other direction, and worked the room as if he had to follow a velvet-roped, cordoned-off trail that wound back and forth across the club.

The deeper Ben moved into the crowd, the thicker and more cloying the air became, and the freer the dancers behaved with their partners. Sweat and perfume attacked Ben’s olfactory senses and made his eyes burn, and intense body heat prompted him to remove his hoodie or risk overheating and becoming light-headed or passing out. As Ben tied the sweatshirt around his waist, he glared at a wannabe gangster boy grinding up against a half-naked girl; the girl had her skintight dress pulled up around her waist, exposing herself. Ben honestly couldn’t be sure the guy wouldn’t have his dick inside the girl within the next two minutes. He wished he could pull the girl away, but she was one of the few kids whose stare didn’t appear glazed by booze or drugs, and if she wanted to have sex with a poser on the middle of a dance floor, that was her business. Moving on, Ben meticulously searched, using too much precious time scanning the crowd, only to wind up on the other side of the room without finding Mikael in the group.

With frustration welling, Ben pushed his way back out onto the landing, checked the bathrooms on the other side of the stairs, found wall-to-wall sex happening in every stall, and then scanned the groups on the stairs as he moved to the first floor.

Poorly lit and smoky, the ground-floor level looked like a makeshift lounge. Lots of people either stood around drinking and smoking or lying on giant beanbag chairs in tangles, in various stages of undress.

Like before, Ben worked the room in long, narrow chunks, but with each additional line he searched, wherein he didn’t spot Mikael, Ben’s anxiety and aggravation grew. He swiped beads of sweat from his forehead and the back of his neck, and he itched to move faster, to tear through the place like the Hulk, but knew he couldn’t. If he did that, he would send everyone scattering, and his time tonight, as well as Ivan’s all day, would have been wasted.

A sense of impotence made Ben want to rip out of his skin, but then David’s sweet hug and kiss this morning, his “I love you too” and words of support and faith washed over Ben like a cool dip in a lake on a steamy day. An image of the devoted, loving man smiling at him refocused him on his task.

With a half dozen more steps, Ben completed another line on the grid. He did an about-face to begin his search in another row, deep into the sea of bodies, and wondered if this place had a basement to search. There weren’t that many more faces to look at on this floor. Before Ben took his first step to start his final scan, he glanced ahead.
Oh shit
. His heart squeezed the life out of him, and he died inside. Ten feet away, Mikael, as naked as the day God had put him on this earth, lay on a beanbag on his side, one guy in front of him and one guy behind him, both grinding on him, with another guy kneeling near his head, fucking Mikael’s mouth with his cock. And Mikael, his stare glazed, appeared mentally on another planet.
Jesus, no.

Slammed through to his core, Ben rushed to his brother and yanked the first guy off Mikael’s ass. “Get off him. All of you.” He shoved the guy in front with his boot, knocked him to the floor, and jammed both hands against the chest of the guy with his prick in Mikael’s mouth, careening him into the wall. “Get away from him now.”

One look at Ben, and the three young men scrambled to get away. When they did, Mikael feebly grabbed for one of their legs. He spoke Swedish, his tone weak and soft, but Ben understood him say, “Where are you going?” He rolled onto his stomach and watched them run away. “We’re having fun.”

“Mika.” Squatting in front of Mikael, Ben grabbed the kid’s leg, flipped him over, and snapped his fingers in front of his brother’s face. “Focus.” After removing and pocketing his earplugs, Ben felt around the floor and under the beanbag and asked, “Where are your clothes?”

Mikael batted Ben away like a gnat. “I don’t know. Why?” Rolling onto his side, he stretched his arms in the direction the guys had run. “I want those boys back.”

“No, you don’t. Come on.” Desperate to get Mikael to pay attention, Ben jerked him upright and shook him. “This isn’t the way.” The kid’s blond, shaggy hair half covered his eyes, and Ben pushed the greasy locks out of his face. Ben hurt for his brother, but he spit out, “You don’t pay your dad back by having sex with as many guys as you can as fast as you can just to prove he isn’t going to tell you how to live your life,” hoping to shock the boy out of his fog.

Mikael struggled against Ben’s hold. “How do you…” Suddenly he stopped, and a hint of the milky shadows cleared from his pale green eyes. “Ben?” Mikael touched Ben’s head and arms, and his lip began to quiver. “Are you really here?”

“Yes, Mika.” Ben squeezed his brother’s hand, grateful as hell he seemed back with the living, but still aware as hell of the time. “It’s me. But we need to get out of here.” Abandoning the search for Mikael’s clothes, Ben undid the hoodie from his waist and worked his brother’s arms into the sleeves. “We need to sober you up if I’m going to get you onto a plane with me as soon as possible.”

As Ben zipped up the sweater for Mikael—it would hang long on the kid and have to do to get him outside to the car—Mikael squeaked, “You’re taking me on a plane with you?”

All gritty on the inside, Ben nodded sharply, and a brusque roughness filled his tone. “Yes. It’s time for a change. You’re going to come live with me in America. I want you with me.”

Mikael’s mouth gaped, and then he covered it, and he finally folded over and burst into tears. Terrible, racking sobs came out of the boy and tore straight through Ben’s heart.

Gutted clean through, Ben pulled Mikael into his arms, where the boy burrowed against his chest. “Shh, shh.” Ben rubbed his brother’s back and promised against his ear, “It’s okay. Everything is going to get good real soon.”

Mikael clung to Ben and said thickly against his neck, “He said he would kill you if I ever talked to you again.”

Son of a bitch
. “He’s not going to kill me.” Gripping a clump of Mikael’s hair, Ben pulled him out of hiding. “Do I look like I would die that easily?”

Shaking, Mikael wiped tears from his cheeks. “He said if I couldn’t straighten out, he would kill me too.”

Ben bit back a string of curses. “That’s not even a little bit okay. I’m sorry it’s working out this way, but I promise I’m not going to let your father hurt you or me. You’ll be with me all the way in Florida. He won’t be able to get close enough to hurt you. You’ll be safe. And you won’t have to hide.”

Even as Mikael nodded, more tears spilled down his face. “I love Sweden.” His voice cracked, and he whispered, “I love my home.”

Shit
. Ben pulled Mikael to his feet and tucked the kid under his arm. “I know you do. But I hope you’ll give me a chance, and in time you’ll love the States too. But if you don’t want the move to be forever, it doesn’t have to be.” After a quick scan of the area, Ben gave Mikael a nudge and got them moving. “But right now, we really have to get out of here.” Keeping hold of his brother, Ben led the way through the crowd. “I don’t want your father finding us.”

“Now that I ran away,” Mikael mumbled against Ben’s arm, “he won’t care enough to do anything about it.”

“I don’t want to stick around and find out.”

Holding firmly to Mikael, Ben pulled his brother through the rest of the partyers, through an entry area, out the front of the building, and past a pair of muscle heads who muttered something to him. Ben kept his head down and replied, “We’re leaving,” in English, hoping the pair wouldn’t want to cause any trouble.

Once Ben had guided Mikael through the door to the wet mist outside, he gave a thumbs-up in Ivan’s general direction, not able to see the guy but confident he was there. He started to pull Mikael into a run toward his car, but before they could get going, a car swerved onto the street, barreled toward them, and slammed to a stop just as Ben shoved Mikael against the side of the building.

Two men jumped out of the car. Ben cursed as he recognized the giant, thick-haired blond in the three-piece suit from their handful of meetings five years ago.
Fuck.

Ben moved in front of Mikael and took a step toward their father. “Goran—”

“Get away from him!” Shouting in the deepest, most thunderous tone, Goran raged at Ben in a heavy accent, making his words difficult to decipher. “You’re disgusting. A deviant.” The man spit at Ben, and Ben certainly understood that. “A pervert.”

Mikael pushed against Ben’s hold, but Ben held his brother behind him and bared his teeth at the man who’d given Ben half of his DNA. “You had your chance to accept him.” Hints of the anger and pain Ben had buried so long ago slipped through fissures in the wall he’d erected around himself and infected his cool. He snarled and spit back at his father, “He’s coming home with me.”

“I’ll have you arrested,” Goran stated, full authority in his tone. “This is my country, not yours. You’ll get lost when I put you in jail. No one will ever be able to locate you to get you out. Good-bye forever.” Goran snapped his finger at his guy. “Do it now!”

The younger, suited man took a step toward Ben.

Ben whipped his hand up, and like a foot soldier trained to obey all authority, the man stopped. Ben knew, however, this would be short-lived, and he had to talk fast.

“If you even try to imprison me, my guy”—Ivan made a noise from the alley to alert the group to his presence, exactly as Ben had known he would do—“will take a statement to the press about Goran Enquist’s bastard baby he left to rot in the United States when he was a young man. This statement will tell of how Goran ignored the child, a child who had nobody when his mother died when he was barely more than an infant.”