DEAD RECKONING
CHAPTER ONE: THE ACCIDENT
I've known Sean most of my adult life. We met during freshman year of college—some orientation mixer where everyone was trying too hard to make friends. Even though I realized pretty quick that college wasn't for me, he kept at it, stuck with the grind, got his degree eventually and then his MBA. Meanwhile, I worked odd jobs here and there, but mostly at the docks. That's what you do in Boston when you don't have a degree—either the docks or you work the family's plumbing business. I chose the former.
When Sean came back to East Boston from Salem a few years later, he wasn't all that different. A little looser, maybe. Less high-strung than he'd been growing up in the neighborhood. But there was something about him that had changed, something I couldn't quite put my finger on.
Turns out—he'd met some guy who managed a hedge fund and was all 'my life is perfect' now. But I was still the best man at his wedding. I swapped ties with him when he decided to eat one of my mom's cannolis twenty minutes before the ceremony and got powdered sugar all down his front. And then, in that moment, in the back room of the church while I was helping him straighten his collar—that was the first time I kissed another man.
Yeah, it was weird as hell, but somehow—for some reason I still can't explain—it felt right. We told ourselves it was just a fluke, just two dudes standing too close together in a moment of stress. But then it happened again a few weeks later. And again. And since Patrick, his husband, would go to New York for business every other week, I'd go over to Sean's place and we'd kiss and do other stuff. Stuff I never thought I'd be doing with another guy. And then one cold rainy night…
"Cam, we keep saying this is the last time," he says as I kiss down his neck.
"Yeah, well maybe this is the last time," I say, the Bostonian accent thick in my voice.
"You're insufferable, ya know that?"
"Is that a question?" I say, sitting up to look at him.
The rain is pouring down outside—like a torrential downpour, the kind that floods the streets and makes the gutters overflow. Between that and the brief spurts of thunder rolling across the sky, the candles he's lit around the room flicker and dance. I'm no romantic, but this? This is nice.
Sean is lying on the couch beneath me, naked, his body warm and inviting. His dirty blonde hair is messed up from my hands running through it, strands sticking up at odd angles. Those perfectly symmetrical lips are parted slightly as he breathes, each exhale coming a little faster than the last. His body is toned and tight, the ridges of his abs catching the dim light from the lamp across the room, the way his torso contours into that perfect V-shape that leads my eyes downward. His smooth pubes, trimmed neat, and his cock—damn, his cock.
I never knew I was attracted to guys until I met Sean. I'd been married once—big mistake, dated a bunch of women I had no business dating, or so my ma says. And all that time I felt straight, thought I was straight. Never questioned it, never wondered. But with Sean, it's different. Like he brought something out of me. Something different, something new. Something that was maybe always there, just waiting for the right person to unlock it.
I grab his cock and slowly stroke it, feeling the heat of him in my palm. His precum is—fuck, he's leaking like a sieve, slick and warm. He moans as I stroke it, his hips shifting slightly, pushing up into my hand. I use my thumb and rub it across the head, spreading the wetness around. His body jerks at the contact, a sharp intake of breath. It's a reaction that makes my own cock twitch with anticipation.
I use my free hand and pull my boxers off, tossing them somewhere on the floor. My cock is hard as a rock, aching. I sit up on the couch and spread his knees further apart, positioning myself between his legs. He moans underneath me, his eyes locked on mine, pupils blown wide with desire.
"You want me to stop?" I ask, my voice rough.
He doesn't even hesitate.
"I want you to stop teasing me and fuck me," he says, his voice breathy but demanding.
"You want me to fuck you, huh?"
"Is that because you're a dirty little slut?"
“No,” he says, flashing that almost menacing smile that makes me a little harder every time. “Because I’m your dirty little slut.”
“Hell yeah, you are. You’re my filthy dirty little slut—”
He reaches up, grabs me by the neck and pulls me into a kiss. It’s sloppy and desperate, our chests crashing together. Our hard cocks are trapped between our stomachs, grinding against each other. Both of our precum mixing together, making this wet, sticky, warm mess between us, and I love every second of it.
He pulls out of the kiss, and he’s serious now. I can see it in his eyes—those eyes that remind me of the ocean. Not that Boston ocean, all gray and cold, but the ocean where the water is so blue and clear you can see right to the bottom. He wants me to fuck him. He wants me to fuck him hard. And I’m not gonna hold back.
I spit in my hand and slick up my cock, coating it thoroughly. He spits in his hand, reaches down and rubs it across his nice pink hole, pushing two fingers in to loosen himself up, working them in and out. We’ve fooled around a bunch, but this is maybe the third or fourth time we’ve actually had sex. Each time feels like the first all over again. I line my cock up with his hole and push in slowly.
I’m met with a gasp, a powerful gasp that catches in his throat.
“Fuck! Cam—Fuck!”
“Call me sir, you dirty little slut!”
“Fuck, sir! Your cock feels so fucking good.”
He wasn’t wrong. If his hole felt this good, the way it wrapped around my cock and consumed it. The way his whole body reacted to mine. It wasn’t just my cock getting pleasured, it was every part of me. The muscle and meaty parts. It was my soul.
“Fuck man, Sean, you too. Your hole feels good, man!”
I thrust harder, snapping my hips, allowing my cock to fill him out completely. Every inch of me was inside every inch of him. And in that moment I didn’t wanna be anywhere else. I just wanted to keep fucking him. Keep drawing his body into mine.
“Ohhhh, fuck!!” I cry out.
“Yeah, baby, just like that—that’s fucking great! Fuuucck!”
“You like that, baby?” I ask, thrusting harder and faster.
He only made that sound when I was hitting that spot, the spot that made his vision blurry, made his eyelids flutter, made his eyes roll into the back of his head, made his toes curl. I’m not usually down with the lovey-dovey talk, but something about Sean brought it out of me. Fuck, he drives me crazy. When I’m with him, he’s all I think about. When I’m not with him, he’s still all I think about. What the fuck is that all about? This was supposed to be just about fucking, busting a nut and getting the fuck outta here before Patrick gets home.
Sean says I should come over and get to know him, but he’s never liked me. Not since the time I got drunk at one of their cookouts and jumped into the pool. For the record, I’m not drunk.
Sean fists the sheets, his knuckles white, his breath coming in ragged gasps. And I know—fuck, I know—I’m not walking away from this unscathed.
His breathing changes—it’s heavier now, the sound not so much ragged as it is filled with something unfamiliar to me, maybe even to him. There’s a rawness to it, a vulnerability I haven’t heard before. And the way his body responds to mine, arching and trembling beneath me, is sending me every which way but right.
“Holy fuck, Cam! Fuck—fuck me! Fuck me!”
His moan gets drowned out by a crack of thunder, the sound rolling through the room like the sky itself is coming apart.
He grabs his cock and starts to stroke it, his hand moving in rhythm with my thrusts. Watching him stroke himself like that—man, fuck. It’s one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen. The way his fingers wrap around his shaft, the way his hips buck up into his own grip while I’m buried deep inside him—it’s almost too much.
I lean down and kiss him, deep and consuming. My lips press against his, and for a moment, everything else falls away—the storm outside, the risk we’re taking, all of it. There’s just him and me and this moment that feels like it’s been building for years without either of us knowing it.
When I pull back, the words tumble out before I can stop them.
“Fuck! Sean, I fucking love you.”
The confession hangs in the air between us, raw and terrifying. I don’t know where it came from, don’t know if it’s the heat of the moment or something that’s been buried deep inside me all along. But it’s out there now, and I can’t take it back.
He looks back at me, and I’m staring into those eyes—those impossibly blue eyes—and all I see is the bottom of the ocean. Deep and endless and pulling me under.
“I love you too,” he whispers, and the words hit me harder than anything I’ve ever felt.
My chest tightens. My throat closes up. I smile—can’t help it—and this time when I move, I slide into him more gently, savoring every inch, every breath, every second of this.
Then the door opens.
Patrick stands in the doorway. Still in his suit—navy blue, perfectly tailored. His tie is loosened, his collar undone. He’s holding his phone in one hand like he was checking something when he walked in.
For one long, horrible second, nobody moves. Nobody breathes.
Patrick’s eyes move from Sean—naked, frozen beneath me—to me, still buried inside him. Then to the bed. The tangled sheets. The evidence.
His face doesn’t change. That’s what gets me. He doesn’t yell, doesn’t gasp, doesn’t even look surprised. He just stands there, and something in his expression goes very, very cold.
“You unimaginable bastard,” he says quietly.
Then he turns and walks out.
I pull out and scramble off the bed, grabbing for my jeans. Sean’s already moving—faster than me, naked, not even bothering with clothes. He’s out the door before I get my pants halfway up my thighs.
By the time I make it to the hallway, Sean’s already caught up to Patrick at the top of the stairs.
“Patrick, please!” Sean’s voice cracks. There’s a desperation in it I’ve never heard before—not in all the years I’ve known him. Not even close. It makes something twist in my gut.
Patrick stops. Doesn’t turn around. Just stops, one hand on the banister, his shoulders rigid.
“Please what?” His voice is quiet. Controlled. That’s worse than yelling. “Please pretend I didn’t just walk in on my husband getting fucked in our bed?”
“Patrick, I—”
"Two years." Patrick turns now, and his face is a mask of cold fury. "Two fucking years you've been doing this. Don't insult me by pretending this was the first time."
Sean reaches for him. "I can explain—"
"Explain?" Patrick's laugh is sharp, humorless. "You're going to explain how you've been fucking him in our house? In our bed? While I was working in New York to pay for this goddamn life you wanted?"
I'm still in the doorway, shirtless, jeans unbuttoned, watching this unfold. The hallway's long—maybe fifteen feet from the bedroom door to the stairs. Crown molding, expensive wallpaper, recessed lighting that makes everything look like a fucking museum. Sean's standing between Patrick and the stairs now, blocking his path.
"Patrick, please, just listen to me—"
"I knew." Patrick's voice drops. "I fucking knew something was wrong. The way you looked at him. The way you'd find excuses to see him. I told myself I was being paranoid. That you wouldn't do this to me."
"Baby, please—"
"Don't call me that." Patrick moves to step around Sean, toward the stairs. "Don't you fucking dare."
Sean grabs his arm. "Wait. Please. Just wait."
Patrick jerks away. "Get your hands off me."
"I love you—"
"You love me?" Patrick's voice rises now, the control starting to crack. "You love me? You just told him you loved him! I heard you! The whole fucking neighborhood probably heard you!"
Sean's face goes white. Guilty bastard.
"Patrick, I—"
"Move." Patrick tries to push past him.
Sean blocks him again, hands up, pleading. "Please, just give me a chance to—"
"A chance to what? Lie to me some more?" Patrick shoves Sean back. Not hard, but enough to create space. "I'm done. I'm going to my brother's. When I get back, I want all your shit out of my house."
"Our house—"
"My house!" Patrick's shouting now. "My fucking house that I paid for while you were busy fucking your little dock worker!"
That one lands. I see Sean flinch.
Patrick moves for the stairs again. Sean grabs him—both hands on Patrick's shoulders, pulling him back.
"Let go of me!"
"Please, just listen—"
They're grappling now. Patrick trying to pull away, Sean holding on, both of them too close to the banister. The staircase is open—no wall on the left side, just the railing and a straight drop to the marble floor below.
"Sean, let him go." My voice comes out steadier than I feel. I'm moving down the hallway now, calculating distances. Ten feet. Eight.
Neither of them hears me.
"I said let go!" Patrick wrenches backward, and Sean stumbles forward, still holding on.
They're right at the edge now. Patrick's back is to the stairs, Sean's hands still gripping his shoulders. Patrick shoves him—hard this time—and Sean's grip tightens reflexively, pulling Patrick with him as he staggers back.
"Sean!" I'm running now.
Patrick breaks free—twists hard and rips himself out of Sean's grip. He turns toward the stairs, already moving, and Sean lunges after him.
"Patrick, wait—"
Sean's hands find Patrick's chest. Both palms flat against him. Not grabbing. Pushing.
"Just listen to me!"
But Patrick's already off-balance from the turn, one foot too close to the edge, and Sean's shove—desperate, panicked, trying to stop him from leaving—sends him backward.
Patrick's arms windmill. His mouth opens.
I'm five feet away. Too far.
Sean's hands are still extended where Patrick's chest was a second ago.
And then Patrick's not there anymore.
Just empty space where he was standing.
And the sound—Christ, the sound—of a body hitting marble fifteen feet below.
Sean just stands there, his arms still outstretched, shaking uncontrollably.
"Pat...Pat..."
He's trying to say his name, reaching for every part of him that knows desperation all too well. I never in a million years would have seen this coming, but it's happened, and a million thoughts flood my mind.
Sean moves toward the stairs.
I grab his arm and yank him back. Hard.
"Don't."
He's not hearing me. His eyes are glazed, fixed on the empty space where Patrick was standing. He tries to pull away, but I tighten my grip, fingers digging into his bicep until he flinches.
"Sean. Look at me."
"I have to—I need to—"
"Look. At. Me."
His eyes finally snap to mine. Wild. Terrified. Already seeing the rest of his life collapsing.
Good. He should be terrified.
"Listen very carefully," I say. My voice is steady. Calm. Like I'm explaining something simple. "When the cops get here, you're going to tell them I did it."
"What—"
"You're going to tell them we were fighting. That Patrick tried to break it up. That I pushed him."
Sean's shaking his head, but it's not disagreement—it's shock, disbelief, his brain trying to catch up to what I'm saying.
"Cameron, no, I can't—"
"You can and you will." I pull him closer. Close enough that he can see I mean every fucking word. "You pushed him. I saw it. But that's not what happened. What happened is I lost my temper. I shoved him. It was an accident, but it was me."
"I can't let you—"
"You don't get a choice." My grip shifts to the back of his neck. Possessive. Final. "You think I'm letting you throw your life away? Everything you've built? For what—a stupid fucking accident?"
His breath is coming in short, panicked gasps. "Cameron—"
"I'm taking the blame. That's how this goes. You're going to let me."
"Why would you—"
"Because you're mine." The words come out flat. Matter-of-fact. "And I protect what's mine."
His eyes search my face like he's looking for the catch, the angle, the part where I'm lying. But there isn't one.
This is the simplest thing I've ever done.
"When they ask, you tell them the truth—up until the moment Patrick went over. Then you tell them it was me. You tried to stop me. You couldn't."
"I can't—"
"Yes, you can." I lean in until our foreheads touch. "And you will. Because if you don't, we both go down. And I'm not letting that happen."
He's crying now. Silent, helpless tears that make him look younger than he is.
"You're going to be okay," I tell him. "You're going to get through this. And when I get out, we're going to have the life we should've had from the start."
It's a lie.
Or maybe it's not.
Right now, standing here with his husband's body cooling on the marble downstairs, I genuinely believe it.
"Cameron—"
"Say it."
"I can't—"
"Say you understand."
His jaw works. His hands come up to grip my wrists, holding on like I'm the only solid thing left in the world.
"I understand," he whispers.
"Good."
I kiss him. Hard. Claiming. Sealing the deal.
Then I let him go and pull out my phone.
"Now call 911."
The cops arrive in under ten minutes. Two uniforms first, then detectives. The house fills with the sound of radios, footsteps, the coroner's team moving Patrick's body with the efficiency of people who've done this a hundred times before.
Sean sticks to the story. His voice doesn't shake—I made sure of that before they got here. He tells them Patrick came home, caught us, things escalated. I pushed him. It was an accident. Patrick lost his balance at the top of the stairs.
The detectives watch him like they're waiting for the lie to crack. It doesn't.
I give my statement in the same flat tone. Confirm everything Sean said. Apologize for the affair, for the violence, for Patrick's death. Play the part of a man who made a terrible mistake and knows it. The detectives take notes. They ask follow-up questions. I answer them all the same way—consistent, remorseful, cooperative.
The coroner examines Patrick's body on the marble. Broken neck. Blunt force trauma. Consistent with a fall from the second-floor landing. No signs of struggle beyond what we've already explained. No reason to suspect anything other than what we've told them.
By the time they leave, it's past midnight.
Sean and I don't speak. We sit in the living room while forensics photographs everything, while the house becomes a crime scene, while the life we were building gets cataloged and documented and filed away as evidence.
Two days later, they come back with an arrest warrant. The detectives are polite about it. They read me my rights in Sean's living room while he watches from the kitchen doorway, his face carefully blank. I don't resist. I don't make a scene. I just let them cuff me and lead me out to the car.
Before they close the door, I catch Sean's eye. Hold it for a second. A reminder: this is what we agreed to. This is the price.
He nods, barely perceptible.
Then they drive me away.
A lot of people do a lot of talking over the next six months.
Detectives. Lawyers. Reporters who smell blood in the water—wealthy hedge fund manager's husband killed by his lover, the kind of story that writes itself. My public defender is a tired woman named Marissa Chen who looks like she stopped believing in the system around the same time I was learning to tie my shoes. She's good, though. Competent. She tells me the DA is offering a deal: plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter, accept ten years, avoid the circus of a trial.
"They don't want this in front of a jury," she says. "Affair, crime of passion, wealthy victim—it plays badly for everyone. You take the deal, you're out in seven with good behavior."
Seven years. Ten years. The numbers don't mean anything yet. They're just words.
Involuntary. Wanton. Reckless. Manslaughter.
Clinical terms that sound like they belong to someone else's life. Someone who made different choices. Someone who didn't stand at the top of a staircase and watch the man he loved push another man to his death.
I take the deal.
The sentencing hearing is in a courthouse that smells like floor wax and old wood. Sean sits three rows back, wearing a charcoal suit that probably cost more than my entire legal defense. He doesn't look at me when I'm brought in. Doesn't look at me when the judge reads the terms of my plea. Doesn't look at me when she says the words that will define the next decade of my life.
"Ten years in the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Cedar Junction, with eligibility for parole after seven."
Ten years.
The number finally lands. Settles into my chest like a stone.
I'm thirty-two years old. I'll be forty-two when I get out. Maybe older.
The judge asks if I have anything to say. I stand. Look at Sean for the first time since I walked into the courtroom. His face is blank, carefully composed, but I see the crack in it—the way his jaw tightens, the way his hands grip the edge of the bench in front of him.
"I'm sorry," I say. Not to the judge. Not to Patrick's family, sitting on the other side of the aisle with their grief and their rage. To Sean. "I'm sorry this happened. I never meant for any of this."
It's the truth. It's also a lie. I'm not sorry I took the blame. I'm not sorry I protected him.
I'm only sorry it came to this.
The bailiff leads me out through a side door. I don't look back.
They let Sean visit me in the holding cell before transport. Five minutes, supervised, a guard standing just outside the bars like we're going to make a run for it.
Sean looks worse than he did in the courtroom. His eyes are red-rimmed, his hair disheveled like he's been running his hands through it. He stands on the other side of the bars and doesn't say anything for a long moment.
"Ten years," he finally says. His voice cracks on the second word.
"Could've been worse."
"Cameron—"
"You promised me." I step closer to the bars. Close enough to reach through if I wanted to. "You promised you'd wait. You promised you'd visit. You promised you'd be there when I got out."
"I will." He says it fast, desperate. "I will, I swear—"
"You promised we'd have the life we should've had from the start." I wrap my hands around the cold metal. "You promised me, Sean."
"I know." He's crying now, tears streaming down his face, and Christ, I want to reach through these bars and pull him close. Want to kiss him. Want to remind him what this is all for. "I know, I promise, I'll be there, I'll visit every week, I'll take every call—"
"You better." I don't say it like a threat. I say it like a fact. Like gravity. Like something that simply is. "Because I'm doing this for you. For us. You understand that?"
"Yes."
"Say it."
"I understand." His voice is barely a whisper. "I'll wait for you. I promise."
The guard clears his throat. Time's up.
Sean reaches through the bars. His hand finds mine, fingers lacing together, and for five seconds we just hold on. His skin is warm. His grip is tight. It's the last time I'll touch him for years.
"I love you," he says.
"I know."
Then the guard steps forward and Sean has to let go. He backs away from the cell, his hand still outstretched like he's trying to hold onto something that's already gone.
I watch him leave. Watch the door close behind him. Listen to his footsteps fade down the hallway.
Then I sit down on the bench and wait for the transport van.
Ten years.
I can do ten years.
As long as Sean keeps his promise.
FIVE YEARS LATER
The sky is too big.
That's the first thing that hits me when I walk through the gates at Cedar Junction. Not the freedom, not the relief—just the sheer fucking size of the sky. No bars cutting it into sections. No razor wire framing it. Just open blue stretching in every direction like it's trying to swallow me whole. It's six in the morning. They do that so they can save on a breakfast.
CO McCarthy escorts me to the final gate, his keys jangling against his belt with each step. He's been working this shift for the entire five years I've been here—seen me come in, now he's seeing me out.
"See," he says, gesturing to the world beyond the chain-link. "It pays to know people."
I stop walking and turn to face him. "McCarthy—shut up. And let's hope our paths never cross again."
He grins, that same shit-eating grin I've seen a thousand times during count. "You sure that's a bet you wanna make? Recidivism rates in the Commonwealth are staggering. Most of you guys are back within three years."
"If I ever see you again," I say, stepping through the gate as it buzzes open, "it'll be too soon."
The gate clangs shut behind me. That sound—metal on metal, final and absolute—should feel different from this side. It doesn't.
The air smells wrong. Clean. No piss, no industrial cleaner, no bodies packed too close together. Just October in Massachusetts—cold and sharp with a hint of something rotting—leaves, maybe. I breathe it in and my lungs don't know what to do with it.
The noise is different too. Cars on the highway. Birds. Wind. Inside, sound was contained—echoes in concrete, metal doors slamming, voices bouncing off cinder block. Out here, everything just dissipates into nothing. You never understand how prison fucks with your senses. Okay, maybe no one says that, but it's true. The sounds, the smells—everything is different out here.
I'm thirty-seven years old. I've got two hundred dollars in gate money, the clothes I was arrested in that don't fit right anymore, and a bus ticket to Boston. No one's here to pick me up. I didn't expect anyone.
Sean stopped visiting three years ago.
The calls dried up around the same time. At first it was once a week, then every other week, then once a month. Then nothing. I wrote letters. He didn't respond. I left messages with his assistant. She stopped taking them.
I didn't understand it at first. Thought maybe he was scared, maybe the guilt was eating him alive, maybe he just needed time to process what we'd done. I made excuses for him the way you make excuses for someone you love when they're hurting you.
Then I heard through Marcus—a guy I knew from the docks who ended up inside on a possession charge—that Sean had met someone. Some guy who looks more like arm candy than a serious boyfriend. Marcus saw it in the Globe's society pages. Sean in a tuxedo, arm around a man with dark hair and a smile that probably cost ten grand in orthodontics.
The caption called Sean a "rising star in Boston's financial sector."
Rising star.
I sat in my cell and read that photocopied clipping until the words stopped meaning anything.
Sean moved on. Built a life. Found someone new. And I was still counting down days in a six-by-eight cell, surviving on the promise he made and then broke without even having the decency to tell me to my face. I had to learn to live by other means, with a will I never knew I possessed. I was a dock worker with a semester of college under my belt. Prison took a lot from me, but it also gave me things—some of which I wouldn't be able to use until now.
The bus to Boston takes forty minutes. I sit in the back and watch the world scroll past the window—strip malls, gas stations, neighborhoods I don't recognize. Everything looks cleaner than I remember. Newer. Like the whole city got a facelift while I was gone.
I get off at South Station and walk to a diner on Summer Street. Order coffee and eggs. The waitress doesn't look at me twice. I'm just another guy in clothes that don't fit, trying to figure out what comes next.
I pull out my phone—it’s an older model iPhone that was already several years outdated when it was taken away from me after I got locked up.
I look Sean up.
It takes thirty seconds to find him. Sean Whitmore, Managing Partner at Whitmore Capital Management. The hedge fund he used to work for under Patrick’s connections—he took it over. Grew it. There are articles in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Forbes. Profiles talking about his “aggressive growth strategy” and “innovative portfolio management.” Photos of him at galas, conferences, charity events.
He’s worth millions now. Maybe tens of millions.
And he’s still with the guy from the Globe clipping. I find their Instagram—private, but the profile picture is both of them on a yacht somewhere tropical. Sean’s smiling. He looks happy.
He looks like a man who’s never spent a single night in a cell.
I set the phone down. Drink my coffee. Stare at the eggs congealing on the plate.
Five years.
I gave him five years of my life. Took the blame for a crime he committed. I survived unimaginable degradation and hunger and violence because I believed in the promise he made. Believed we’d have the life we were supposed to have.
And Sean used that time to become powerful. To build an empire. To fall in love with someone else.
He didn’t just break the promise.
He thrived because I kept it.
The rage doesn’t hit me like an explosion. It’s colder than that. Sharper. It settles into my chest like a blade sliding between ribs—precise, deliberate, perfectly placed.
Sean owes me.
And the list of things he owes me is longer than my arm.
He owes me everything he built while I was inside. Every dollar, every success, every moment of happiness with his pretty new boyfriend—all of it exists because I took the fall.
I pull out a pen. Grab a napkin. Start making a list.
First, I need to see him. Not to talk or reconcile—nothing so civilized as that. But to let him know I’m out. To let him see my face and remember the promise he made. To watch the color drain from his cheeks when he realizes I haven’t forgotten.
Second, I need to understand his world. His business, his money, his relationship with this new guy. The mechanics of his life. You can't dismantle something if you don't know how it's built, and I plan to understand every bolt and beam.
Third—and this is the part that makes me smile for the first time since walking out of Cedar Junction—I need to make him explain himself. I need to hear him try to justify it. Why he abandoned me. Why the promise meant nothing. Why I was so easy to discard.
Because five years ago, I made a choice based on nothing more than the fact that I was thinking with my dick. That version of me—young, stupid, desperate to protect the man I thought I loved—is so far behind me now it's almost laughable. I am not the same Cameron who walked into that courtroom and pled guilty to manslaughter.
Prison has a way of clarifying things. Of burning away everything soft until only the bones remain.
I finish my coffee. Leave a five-dollar tip—muscle memory from a life I barely remember. Walk out into the bitter, cold October air.
The sky's still too big.
But I'm starting to get used to it.
Sean still lives in the house. The same house where he killed Patrick and where I, in my infinite fucking wisdom, came up with some half-cocked plan to save him from what he'd done. The house that should've been a crime scene but instead became his castle.
And there he is.
Seeing him in the newspaper clipping was one thing—a photograph, distant and abstract. But seeing him with this guy in real life, in the flesh, standing in the driveway of the house where it all happened? That's something else entirely.
I'm standing across the street, partially hidden behind a row of hedges that line the neighbor's property. The rage in my chest is damn near palpable, a living thing with teeth and claws. He moved on. He built a whole new life. He abandoned me to rot in a cell while he played house with someone new.
And for what? I saved his life. I gave him everything. And this is how he repays me.
Sean Whitmore, you and I are going to have a reckoning, and it will be beautiful.
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