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“You’ve just always been so unbothered by everything…almost bulletproof.”
The words ran through Blitzo’s mind the second the infestor demon lunged for him and struck him straight in the skull. He was thrown brutally backwards, black ichor blood flowing out behind him.
But it wasn’t his blood flowing away but the infestor demon flowing in – at record speed the substance sank into his skull, flowed straight down his windpipe. Blitzo tried to grab at his throat but his limbs weren’t obeying him.
Everything went numb.
He didn’t even feel it when his body struck the ground.
Blitzo’s eyelids felt like they weighed as ton as he prised them back open.
Laid out before him was the most depressing wreck of a theatre he’d ever seen – and he was chained down to a broken down seat.
On instinct Blitzo jerked, trying to pull himself free. But it was no good. Before he could even come up with a plan to get himself out of this latest mess, a strange oily substance began rising off his skin.
Next a slimy tongue sliding up the column of his neck before Rolando’s head appeared, too. The demon smirked as Blitzo tried to flinch away, his stomach turning – but with the chains binding him to the chair he couldn’t move much.
This isn’t real, he reminded himself.
“Welcome to the show, asshole,” Rolando said, disappearing and reappearing in the row behind where he obnoxiously rested his shoes on the seat and materialised a popcorn tub in his hands. “I hear this one’s a real titillator.”
An old timey movie countdown started to play.
Like all the worst nightmares Blitzo knew what was coming but was powerless to do anything but let it unfold. The movie began, the screen projecting images pulled from the carwreck of his life so far -
The circus fire. His mother’s death, father’s anger, Barbie’s sadness and subsequent substance abuse.
Fizz’s injuries.
Blitzo shut his eyes. He didn’t want to relive this. Once was enough.
Chains seized hold of his horns, yanking his head back. Rolando’s claw grabbed hold of his skull, forcibly dragging his eyes open so he had no choice but to watch.
The movie kept going, but the images were blurred. It took Blitzo a second to realize his eyes had filled with tears.
There was no escaping it, though; not as the litany of his life changed to his more recent failures – Verosika, Fizz, M&M, Stolas.
And Stolas, and Stolas, and Stolas.
There was so much of the owl prince.
It only made sense, Blitzo supposed. He’d been thinking about him almost nonstop lately. And now he’d hurt Millie in his stupid ghost-fucking funk, too…
Her face abruptly flashed up again – but she was wearing the same outfit as earlier, standing in the hotel looking down at something.
“Looks like someone’s trying to ruin our good time,” Rolando commented, something… slithery in his voice that made a pit form in Blitzo’s stomach. He knew what that tone meant. The cold dread only increased when Rolando leant in close to run his finger along Blitzo’s neck even as the imp pulled away.
The demon paid him no mind, though, turning back into ink and reappearing in front of the cinema screen. “That was a nice heart to heart you had earlier. Be a shame if you ruined it like you always do.”
Blitzo’s throat went dry as he remembered another ability infestor demons were said to have. He jerked back, pulling hard against the chains holding down his arms and legs to no avail.
Rolando turned into ink once more and flooded off the stage towards him. Blitzo tried to steel himself for another, deeper mental assault but this time Rolando didn’t reform. Instead the black ink reached the tip of Blitzo’s boot and took hold of his ankle like grasping fingers. Then it coiled up, up around his legs – getting under his cuffs to crawl over his bare flesh, sliding to his waist and under his shirt up to his neck to wrap around his whole body like a second skin.
Blitzo cried out, thrashing and slamming his body back against his chair repeatedly in an effort to crush Rolando off him. But all he succeeded in doing was hurting himself.
And Rolando didn’t stop there. The ink kept going, slithering all the way up to Blitzo’s face.
Blitzo was hyperventilating by now, his breaths short and scared as he tried desperately to angle his head away from the creeping blackness. But no matter how hard he thrashed, he just couldn’t get away – the ink was crawling higher and higher until it reached his mouth and nose.
He finally lost the battle when the ink took a different approch, instead winding around his head and horns. For just a moment Blitzo could feel Rolando’s hands again, turning him to hold him in place. He looked from the corner of his eye at the sight of familiar long black claws holding his skin, stroking…
Wait. Didn’t Rolando have grey skin?
Rolando’s claws slid back down and Blitzo just managed to pull his lips into a taut thin line before the infestor demon began to press against his mouth, having to tug at Blitzo’s jaw to force his teeth apart.
The fingers pushed inside, pushing his tongue down and making him gag at the invasion.
“Oh…don’t you want to kiss me, Blitzy?”
Blitzo flinched – he was unable to move except to look around the theatre with his eyes. That voice; he knew that voice, but it wasn’t possible -
The thought was cut off when Rolando’s claws collapsed back into ink, the substance sliding down his throat and Blitzo convulsed, choking and gagging and feeling sure he was going to suffocate -
He felt the demon seize hold of something deep, deep inside his body. The flood down his throat finally ceased but in its place was left a bone chilling cold. Blitzo’s fists clenched and unclenched, his chest heaving, his mind unable to comprehend how he was still breathing.
But then he felt an odd tugging at his arm – deeper than at his skin, in his muscles and bones. Even though Blitzo was still bound to the chair it felt like he was moving, some strange phantom sensation communicated to him through the black ink shrouding his skin.
Suddenly on the theatre screen his arm snapped into frame, hitting Millie so hard she was thrown back with a cry of confusion. Even though he was tied down Blitzo felt the impact of that punch all the way up his arm.
The pieces fell into place with sickening clarity.
Blitzo had no time to try and regain control before the crawling feeling continued – he was aware of his body being pulled up on puppet strings to stand, unnaturally yanked around by Rolando to attack Millie once again. The sensation made him want to crawl out of his own skin.
Then it happened in his throat, too – his vocal cords and tongue twisting to make him say the most awful, cruel things the demon could muster up to hurt Millie. Offhand frustrations, intrusive thoughts or outright lies – there where no depths to which the demon wouldn’t sink.
Blitzo knew it was the worst possible thing he could do but sheer panic was taking over. He’d been an absolute asshole the past couple of weeks and he knew it, but he couldn’t stand the thought of losing Millie here – then he was guaranteed to lose Moxxie and IMP and Loona and his dream with her -
“No!” he cried, but his real voice was trapped in the theatre where Millie couldn’t hear him, no matter how desperate his sobs. “Stop!”
But the demon didn’t, the words coming out of Blitzo’s mouth nothing he’d ever mean or even want to say. The sensation gave him an uncanny sense of déjà vu, but he had no idea why. He’d never been possessed by an infestor demon before, never been…violated like this.
Right?
As if sensing Blitzo’s will faltering, Rolando reappeared. He invaded his space once again by grasping his shoulders and leaning in so close Blitzo could see the spittle shining on the surface of those piranha teeth.
“Your level of insecurity is intoxicating,” he said, leaning into to inhale all along the length of Blitzo’s neck. With the demon possessing him inside and out Blitzo was frozen to the spot, wanting desperately to be sick but knowing to give in would bring far worse consequences. This feeling was familiar, too, even as Blitzo desperately tried to fight it back down.
The demon’s maw opened wide and Blitzo could feel the grin against his skin even as his neck felt numb. “I can’t wait to see how you taste when you drive away the one person left…” His finger stroked Blitzo’s neck up to his chin, “…who puts up with your bullshit.”
He leant back in but this time his jaws opened wide -
And he ran rows upon rows of wicked sharp teeth over Blitzo’s flesh, teasing what he was going to do next.
The imp’s eyes widened, mouth moving in a soundless gasp. A memory bubbled to the surface: a meeting they’d had back in the office, when Moxxie had insisted they do training on demons they might run into in the human world.
He and Loona had goofed off through Moxxie’s nerdy little slideshow, but he did remember something his colleague had said about infestor demons.
Once they got their hooks in someone, he’d said, they’d drain them dry if they found enough to feast on, killing them then and there.
Millie had asked how they could get free, but Blitzo just couldn’t wrangle his brain cells well enough to remember what he’d said in reply. He knew an infestor demon could be beaten back from the outside in the first stage, but once they began to feed? He just couldn’t recall.
Rolando bit down, hard.
Blitzo’s flesh gave way with a sickening crunch.
“Ohhh,” Rolando said, syrup in his voice. “Look at that. Your self-hatred goes even deeper than I’d hoped.”
Blitzo’s heart skipped. How? How could there still be more? Rolando had already feasted on his whole miserable life like it was his own personal buffet.
He strained uselessly against his bonds, mentally begging Millie to hit back, to hit harder, before Rolando trapped him in the mire of his own self-hatred forever.
But it was too late.
Rolando leant back just enough to look Blitzo in the eye. He made a show of licking his amphibian tongue across all his teeth before leaning back in, licking up the dribble of black blood crawling down Blitzo’s neck -
And sinking his teeth deeper into the open vein.
Then Blitzo was everywhere and nowhere.
Half of him was feeling his body being mangled around like a marionette, fighting Millie while Rolando spoke through him, saying all sorts of awful and untrue things to hurt her.
And half of him was stuck in this theatre, feeling Rolando bleeding out all his worst feelings while the infestor demon pressed up against him.
Blitzo felt himself disassociating, struggling to believe this was happening.
His mind was being eaten for every last awful thought he’d had about himself, undoubtedly dooming him to a slow, painful death. His body was being controlled, manipulated in the real world. Even his voice wasn’t his own.
“Stolas, you are better off without me. You deserve so much better than…”
He flinched. It was his own voice echoing in his mind, but something about it sounded…wrong. He didn’t have a demon in his throat then, but he suddenly felt…confused about why he’d said that.
“Because that’s the truth,” Rolando said, leaning back and swallowing. When he smiled wide, his teeth were dripping with the black tar of Blitzo’s blood. He leant back in to Blitzo’s neck, practically preening as he spoke. “And you know it, remember? He’s better than you. You’re dirt compared to him.”
Rolando chuckled, biting back down into his neck.
As he did so, his hands began to wander. The sick feeling worsened, at war with the urge to just… give in.
Let his shoulders drop. Just accept Rolando was right. Of course he was right.
Maybe Blitzo could find release in letting someone tell him what he needed to hear about how bad he really was. Maybe pleasure was just the other side of the coin to punishment.
His eyes drifted shut, memories flashing before his eyes.
He was back in Stolas’ room, at their first meetup. The prince was so enthusiastic he’d pinned Blitzo down to the bed and tried to suck a hickey into his neck with all the painful roughness of an amateur.
Blitzo had complained; he didn’t want his employees getting the wrong idea. Stolas had ignored him.
The memory faded as Blitzo squeezed his eyes shut and clung on to Stolas’ ermine cape, just waiting for him to be done.
“I told you I wanted to make a mark, Blitzy…”
The sight shook him. Why was he focusing on that, now of all times?
Another memory. Blitzo pulling on his coat to leave after a round, right before Stolas’ wheedling voice reached him. He’d taken to using that tone a lot towards the end of their meetups. He was asking Blitzo to stay, but Blitzo had been in an exceptionally bad mood that day. He was tired, couldn’t be bothered with all this. All he wanted was to go home.
Blitzo had caught sight of the two of them in his mirror. Stolas was doing that sad pity-me smile, a hand raised as he asked for more time. More time that would probably lead to another round of sex; more than Blitzo had already felt like giving.
But it was his own expression that pulled him up short.
He was glaring into the mirror, looking furiously angry. He could see it in his eyes.
He felt degraded. Used.
Violated.
Just like he did right now, with Rolando’s fangs in his neck.
Rolando growled. He seized Blitzo by the shoulders, pulling him closer. “You’re the one who led him on, Blitzo,” he growled right in his ear. “Remember? You’re the piece of shit who led him on. And stole from him.”
Right. Of course he’d stolen from Stolas, he’d never deny it, but as for the rest of it…something in him, a tiny voice way down deep, protested.
Had he really done that? If he looked back, was that really happened?
More memories, every time he closed his eyes.
Blitzo trying to confess what he was doing in the palace. Stolas ignoring him.
Blitzo telling him to cut out the dirty talk. Stolas ignoring him.
Blitzo telling him to get to the point when he was getting shot at. Stolas ignoring him.
Insisting the bodyguard job was just work and he didn’t want Stolas hitting on him. Stolas ignoring him. Harassing him.
Telling Stolas he’d come to the Harvest festival if it wasn’t a fuck-fest thing and correcting him on that goddamn nickname for the 100th time. Stolas ignoring him.
Telling Stolas he treated him like an object. Stolas ignoring him. Acting like he didn’t even understand why Blitzo was angry, over and over and over.
Nothing ever got through.
Because Stolas ignored him.
Through every no, through every attempt to fight back.
All brushed off.
Downplayed.
Dismissed.
Rolando hissed, sensing the direction his thoughts were going. “You were cruel to him, remember? You’re cruel to everyone! Besides, you saved his life because you knew he was worth it and you wanted him!”
Blitzo opened his mouth to agree, to give up, but…he couldn’t. The words just wouldn’t come out.
Something in his stomach, deep down at the bottom, further down even than Rolando had managed to dig, held him back.
And something told Blitzo to focus on it.
If he was going to die, he didn’t want to go out letting Rolando tell him who he was. Not when he knew he was on the verge of realizing something, something big.
Blitzo shut his eyes tight. He took a deep breath. Then he dived down deep where no one could find him.
…Sinking.
Sinking into blackness. Maybe Millie had managed to knock him into the pool in real life and now he was drowning. Maybe whatever it was he was trying to do was working. Either way, he couldn’t give up now.
He landed in a dark, quiet space. No one there but him and a single light – a small imp in an outfit full of patches. Just an impling, a child.
Blitzo knelt down, his throat tight. “Hey, kid,” he said, tapping him on the shoulder.
The young Blitzo turned back to look at him. He was in his teen years…probably right before the fire happened.
“I’m sorry,” teen Blitzo said. “I’m really, really sorry.”
“What for?”
Young Blitzo swallowed and said, “Because you hate me. You’ve hated me for years.”
His answer was given with such candour that Blitzo was pulled up short. He paused. He couldn’t lie, not now. “…Yeah. Yeah, I…lost a lot that day. Because you – I – was stupid and short sighted. But maybe don’t take it so hard, all right? I’m the one who’s gotta deal with it all now.”
But the kid’s face crumpled. “You mean this…is for the best?”
Blitzo was so distracted by the sight of his younger self being suddenly on the verge of tears that he didn’t catch what he meant at first.
For the best as in Rolando. For the best as in… dying here and now so he wouldn’t hurt anyone else.
He dropped to his knees and grabbed his younger self, crushing him close. He couldn’t settle his feelings that easily, but he couldn’t – couldn’t bring himself to be so cruel to a child.
A child. That’s what he’d been. Just a dumb kid who’d made a dumb mistake and spent his life running from it. Punishing himself for it. Doing nothing to make up for it, not really.
“No,” he said, tearing up again, “I don’t know what is for the best, b-but it’s not this. It’s not this.”
He held on tight, his younger self letting him weep out years’ worth of self-hatred without judgement or comment on his shoulders.
He didn’t know how much time passed but eventually his younger self pulled back, taking his hand. “Come on,” he said, “I think I know where you were tryna get to.”
Blitzo followed him to a door. There was something rustic about it, but it was familiar. And light was coming from beneath it – a familiar red light.
The imp looked down at his younger self, who nodded encouragingly. Blitzo took a deep breath, then opened the door.
He was in the top floor of Millie’s mom’s house, back in the western outfit he’d worn for the harvest moon.
Striker was by the window, aiming a holy rifle at Stolas who stood on the stage below.
Rolando’s words echoed in his head. You saved his life because you knew he was worth it and you wanted him!
The door creaked and Blitzo looked over his shoulder to see his little self shutting the door behind him. “You got this,” he said. “You know the truth.”
“The truth…” Blitzo repeated.
“The truth, Blitzo,” Striker said, rising to face him just like he’d done back then. “Why’d you stop me blowing the bird’s brains out?”
“I don’t know, I- the fuck does it matter now?”
“If it doesn’t matter,” Striker said, stalking towards him, “Then you can tell me.”
“I didn’t want him hurt, kay?” Blitzo snapped, pinned to the spot. “I-I wanted him and couldn’t admit it.”
“And the second time?” the cowboy asked, tail rattling as he circled around and out of sight.
“I knew – I thought – he could handle it. You’re not shit against the powers of a demon prince.”
“Oh, really?” Striker swooped in, pinning him against the wall. “Then why’d you call me, pardner? Why do you remember me?”
Blitzo opened his mouth to dismiss him, just like he’d been doing ever since that night. But he couldn’t.
“I…I’m not your partner.”
“C’mon, Blitzo,” he said. Just like before, he leant in close. Just like before, Blitzo swallowed a big lump in his throat. “Answer the question.”
“Because…because…” The answer dredged itself up from the depths of his mind where he’d buried it down deep. It physically hurt for him to say. “Because you’re the one person who acts like the way he – he treated me was…was wrong.”
“And?”
Blitzo thought of all the times he’d told himself it wasn’t so bad. That he really wanted it and just denied it because of his issues.
That if Stolas really believed he hadn’t looked down on him or pushed his boundaries when he talked like the idea was impossible, it can’t really have been that bad…right?
Blitzo’s fists clenched.
To hell with that.
“Because he forced me. Because I had to sleep with him even when I was tired or hurt or fucking fed up with his sad, ‘look at me I’m so sensitive’ bullshit! Because I couldn’t talk back on those days in case I risked the deal. Because I don’t even know if I ever even liked him, I was just supposed to and never got a fucking choice!” He took a deep breath, seizing Striker’s jacket in his fists and yelling into his face with tears burning his eyes. “Because he fucking raped me and he blames me every time I dare to get mad at him for it! I can’t even use the words for what he did because it’ll make him fucking feel bad!”
“Then why did you save him that first time?”
“For my business,” Blitzo said, his voice small. “I was scared of losing it. But you went and fucking hurt M&M and that was what crossed the line. It had nothing to do with Stolas – he’d exhausted all my patience that day, all right?”
“…And?” Striker looked at him, expression patient. Blitzo wondered if he could have seen that kindness in the real world, if only he hadn’t turned the snake imp away.
“And I was scared of how much I wanted to kill Stolas with you. Because if I did, it meant admitting it…admitting what he’d done to me.” Blitzo took a deep breath, about to let the dam break. All those months of pain and confusion, all of it leading to this.
“He’s everything I hate in a person. He used me to wreck his own family instead of sacking up and getting a divorce. Every time I see his daughter, she’s miserable. That poor kid runs from him just like I do! And he doesn’t give a crap that I’m a father, too – he’s never cared about Loonie; he’d be happy for her to get seriously fucking sick just so he could make me personally come deal with his bullshit! He wants to force me to be the big strong man in his life and in the bedroom cause he doesn’t want to take responsibility for his own messes, same as he doesn’t want to take responsibility for raping me! ‘Cause as long as I’m on top, there’s no problem here, right? That’s what everyone thinks after all!” Blitzo’s tail whipped with the fury of someone long repressed, his thoughts coming out in a disorganised flurry as he tried to keep up with the tidal wave of anger overcoming him. “And then he didn’t even bother considering the deal was wrong til I snapped at him over it! But does he ever bother to care about my feelings? No! He couldn’t even muster up an ‘I’m sorry I did that to you’ – he talked about the deal like we both wanted it, because it’s more fucking convenient for him now he wants to be all mature and act like he’s being the bigger person for ending it! But what happens when I don’t immediately give him what he wants? Can he take rejection like a man? No! He’s more of a fucking mouse than the ones he stuffs down his rich, pompous throat.”
He waved his hands, pacing as Striker watched him with pride.
“Suddenly I’m the one making it all about sex. Suddenly I’m the one making him uncomfortable! Suddenly I’m the one not caring if his life is in danger when he fucking couldn’t care less I was getting shot at so long as he could make me dick him down once a month!” Blitzo stopped, about to open his mouth and scream his rage to the skies, furious at how he’d been made to feel like he was crazy for feeling this way for so long –
When Striker gently put his hands on Blitzo’s shoulders. He nodded, just once. Blitzo felt his eyes burning again. Then a fat tear rolled its way down his cheek, followed by a twin.
He thought he’d cried all he could bear today.
But this one was for him.
“I don’t wanna be anything like him,” he said, his voice small and plaintive so he barely recognised. But these words were his. They weren’t coming from the twisted confusion Stolas jerking him around had wrought. “Ruining my family then not owning up to it. Not caring for my daughter right. Not gettin’...getting better. Not knowing or caring when I’m taking advantage of anyone around me.”
“You got it,” Striker told him softly. “You can take it from here.”
The room fell away, the small kernel of self-worth that had been buried so deep down inside him burning bright and fierce and really fucking indignant. Rolando flinched back and Blitzo took the opportunity to headbutt him square in the nose, managing to throw him off along with the ink at the same time.
The demon coughed and choked, turning his attention to the theatre screen right as Millie used the opportunity of Rolando’s distraction to turn the tables, the fight ending with her kicking him so hard Blitzo was slammed back down out of the theatre of his nightmares and into the real world.
He landed on his back by the edge of the pool, spewing out a lungful of black ink and months and months of baggage along with it.
When Blitzo dumped the machine into the water, electrocuting the demon, his sense of victory was muted by another emotion: exhaustion. He wanted more than anything to hide out of sight – not to sit around pining for Stolas again…but to figure out why he’d wasted a month of his life wanting him back.
“That mean you’re not going to try and be our third anymore?” Millie teased as they were closing up the van. Blitzo felt his small smile fading.
“No…not anymore.” He climbed up on his roof, sitting at the edge. Millie joined him.
“The bird got to you that bad, huh?”
“No,” he said. “I mean, yeah, but he – it’s complicated.” He had no intention to get into that can of worms right now. He couldn’t tell if all of IMP thought the same as Millie – that he was ‘bulletproof’, just ‘unbothered’ by the way Stolas had treated him while he was keeping IMP running. Or if like him they were so used to imps being screwed over they never thought twice about it. Never even considered the possibility it was wrong… just rewrote Stolas into being his ‘boyfriend’ the same way Stolas had.
Making it romantic so IMP could keep running and Stolas could get the sex he wanted was just more convenient for everyone involved. Everyone except Blitzo.
It was a lonely, terrifying thought that he might not be believed or understood if he talked about it.
Fizz couldn’t seem to bear the idea that royals could even do wrong. Millie preferred the starry-eyed romantic view of what he and Stolas had been. Moxxie constantly deferred and kissed Stolas’ ass, even when he was scared of him. And Blitzo never wanted to have to subject Loona to a conversation about what her father really felt about what he’d had to do to keep a roof over their heads.
Still, he felt like he needed the people around him, the closest thing to a new family, for support, even if he couldn’t talk yet. Even if they had some issues to get through that he needed to address. Those, at least, might be fixable.
He turned to face Millie, focusing on the one thing he could bring himself to deal with right now. “I’ve stepped on your toes for too long, Mills. I’m sorry for the all the shit I’ve put you two through. And this past month, too. I don’t know why you’ve always been so much more patient than Moxx, but…I-I don’t wanna be that kind of person who just takes advantage of that.”
Millie looked like she had no idea what to say to that. So she settled for something she was probably comfortable with: nudging him playfully with her elbow. “So…you gonna tell Moxx that you’re done stalking us all the time?”
He sighed, smiling back. “Maybe you don’t tell him and we just wait to see how long it takes til he notices. He still is fun to mess with. On top of being fuckable.”
“Yeah, he is,” she said. “I hope he’s doing OK.”
She looked up, smiling wistfully. Blitzo took the opportunity to look away. His own smile dropped.
This whole job had been a wakeup call, but not in the way he’d expected. He did have people who’s lives he’d improved, even if only a little, but they weren’t someplace else. They were right under his nose and they needed his care and attention. They needed him to look out for them, look out for their business, otherwise his next meltdown could cost them all their homes. It was up to him now, and it made him sick to his stomach to think he’d lost sight of his dream so easily.
As for Stolas…Blitzo already knew there was no justice he could get within the systems of Hell. Stolas was an untouchable royal – not impervious to harm but shielded from consequence because he’d been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. If anything bad happened to him, it’d be because Stolas had caused it to happen or pushed everyone else in his life away.
At the end of the day, maybe the prince had no greater enemy than himself, because he was the one person he would never blame when things went wrong.
Still, there were two things Blitzo was sure of. First, now he had the crystal he had protection against being sucked back into Stolas’ bullshit.
And second, if he didn’t reach out to Stolas…he knew Stolas wouldn’t bother reaching out to him. He’d be free of him, this time for real and this time for good.
The last time they’d spoken it was obvious Stolas still didn’t think he’d done anything wrong to Blitzo. Even after making out with someone right in front of him the night after telling Blitzo he had feelings for him, Stolas would assume the responsibility was all on Blitzo to fix what they’d had.
But they’d had nothing. And if Stolas was waiting for him to transform into his perfect knight to rescue him from the shitty mess of his own making, well, he could keep waiting forever.
What Blitzo could transform into – his only goal now – was the person he’d dreamt of being before Stolas ever came into his life. The accomplished businessman with friends and a family that loved him.
He didn’t know exactly how he was going to get there.
But he knew that was the only thing worth devoting his life to.