A strung out seventeen-year-old boy sat against the wall, sunken McCray eyes looking up at him through a mess of tangled curls—a shell of the brother Colin had once known, and it made him unable to breathe. The sight of Graham struck Colin with immense relief and shock. He was alive, and would soon be safe.
Graham registered no response to his older brother. Colin knew that he himself had changed greatly in the past seven years, but it killed him that Graham didn’t recognize him at all. He knew better than to expect a happy reunion, but he’d never imagined his brother would be so lifeless.
Hiding his fury of emotions, Colin paid cash to the fuck-faces and they seemed glad to be getting rid of Graham, even smug, as if they’d pulled one over on Colin. He memorized their faces so he could kill them in the future, but at that moment all he could think about was getting his brother the fuck away from there.
On the private jet, flying back to Scotland, Colin couldn’t get Graham to speak. His brother cowered in a seat by the window with his arms around his stomach, eyes dead, unresponsive.
Colin couldn’t take Graham’s catatonic state anymore. He went to him, grabbed him by the shoulders and shouted, “For fuck’s sake, Graham, wake up!”
The boy skittered out of Colin’s hands with a whimper and fell to his knees on the cabin floor, fumbling to undo the belt at Colin’s waist.
“What are you…? Oh, shit.” He grabbed Graham’s hands and wrenched them away. His own brother was trying to give him a blowjob. The realization of his diminished mental state made Colin want to cry for the first time since he was sixteen. Those fuckers had stolen his little brother’s life—his childhood and innocence, and who knew if he’d ever be able to live a normal life now?
Colin fell to his knees and took Graham’s face, forcing him look at him. “It’s me, Graham. Your brother, Conall.”
Graham’s eyes glazed and he began trembling. With each passing second of witnessing Graham’s agony, Colin’s hatred and vengeance grew, morphing into a strong beast inside his chest. He spoke through gritted teeth, trying not to scare his brother with his angry passion.
“You’re free now, and I swear to God I’ll kill them if they come near you again.”
Colin had no idea if Graham comprehended what he’d told him. All he knew was that the boy needed serious help. He watched in horror as his brother began to cry and shake, curling up and rocking, pulling his hair like he was going mad.
That’s when Colin knew saving his brother from captivity was not enough. They’d ruined the boy’s life, maybe permanently. He would bring the fuckers down, and spend the rest of his days finding people like them, and making them pay. Somehow.
His opportunity soon came in a different form than he’d expected...a legal form.
One thing Colin and the authorities agreed on was not to make Graham McCray’s rescue public, especially since he’d been found by Colin and not the government.
Colin was grilled for information, and the local police brought in MI-6 agents, personnel of the Secret Intelligence Service. They wanted to know every step of his process, starting from the moment he’d been put into foster care, but Colin was no fool.
“I need a legal statement that you won’t hold this information against me. Informant protection. And I want protection and help for Graham.”
The agents pawed through his record, no doubt seeing his plethora of misdemeanors, fighting and drugs, nothing to earn himself prison time. They agreed to his terms and he told them everything, hoping they’d fucking learn something from it.
He saw their eyes lighting up, and their hands speed-writing information as he gave years’ worth of illegal knowledge. The agents often shared knowing glances and nods, as if Colin’s information were confirming certain suspicions.
“We tried last year to take down this group in Dublin, but they’d moved by the time we got there.”
“That’s the problem with government shite,” Colin said. “You spend too much time talking, and mucking about waiting for permissions. You give them time to catch wind and escape.”
“Our success rates are actually quite high,” one of the agents told him.
“You didn’t find my brother in the seven years he was missing, so fuck your success rates.”
The room of officers and agents stilled as they watched his gunpowder eyes, and not one of them had a retort.
The door swung open and a man with a serious, lined face walked in. His dark hair and the scruffy partial beard on his face were graying. The others stood, which signaled to Colin that this was a high-ranking official. The man cocked his head toward the door and said, “I’ll take over from here.”
Everyone filed out and the man took a seat across from Colin, leaning his elbows on the table.
“Agent Abernathy,” he said as way of introduction. He motioned toward a mirrored window. “I’ve been listening, and I’m damned impressed by what I’ve heard, Mr. Douglas. We failed you.”