First chapter from Sins of the Father (Patreon)

Hey guys. I wanted to share with you the first chapter from my next dark contemporary romance called Sins of the Father...and yes, there is a priest ;)

$5 and up patrons are getting the whole first chapter. $1, $3 patrons and newsletter subscribers will get only part of the first chapter. Please don't share anywhere. This is also unedited.

Thanks for all you do!

Chapter One:

The angel sat in his usual spot on a ledge in the back corner of the nave. Today he wore faded jeans and a button-down shirt.

Track lighting threw out halos of gold and crimson glinted of the stained-glass window at his back casting streaks of red in his silvery brown hair. 

Hidden in the confessional box, Dorian allowed himself to pretend the young man was there because he wanted to see him and not because he came there with the man he worked for. 

Most days Aiden waited on the church steps while Kovak made his confessions. But on rainy days, cold days, or close to dark, he waited inside. Sometimes one of the other prostitutes Kovak ran would keep him company. That night, the black haired boy covered in freckles and with big green eyes accompanied Aiden. 

Even after years of watching his angel, Dorian wasn’t sure about the color of his eyes. Because when close enough to tell Dorian worked very hard to ignore him and the screen on the door of the confessional made it impossible to see such details.

A small sacrifice to make to keep Aiden from knowing Dorian watched how he laughed, smiled, and moved his elegant hands carving out conversation with his friend in American Sign Language. 

The bench creaked. Fabric shuffled. Sweet tobacco mixed with faint cologne. It could have been the soap Kovak used but it was still a pleasant change from the parishioners who bathed in their chosen perfume.

The tight confines did not contribute to good air flow.

“You are staring at him again aren’t you, Father.” Kovak’s silhouette shifted on the other side of the partition separating the two halves of the confessional box. “He is beautiful isn’t he.” 

“Yes.” And why Aiden would always be an angel in his mind.

Kovak chuckled. “Yes, you are staring, or yes, he is beautiful? Or perhaps it is yes to both.”

Heat burned Dorian’s cheeks. At least in the dark no one would see it. “Both.”

“I will let you fuck him if you like.”

Dorian choked. 

Kovak laughed.

“I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“He’s my whore. He’ll spread his ass for anyone I tell him to. And I do not tell him very often. I prefer to keep him to myself.”

He might not have shared Aiden often but Kovak had brought many beautiful young men to meetings with Dorian’s father, Christo.

As a boy, his father’s office with its closed doors had simply held secrets he wasn’t old enough to see. As a man, he’d learned the real reason why his mother cried in the bathroom at night. Protecting Dorian from the truth about that room, the horrors behind those doors, had taken her to the grave far before her time.

It wasn’t the sex that broke her but the knowledge of who her husband destroyed. Knowing blood spilled so he could fill his bank accounts, buy his cars, and his villas in Italy. Facing the truth she’d married a monster, and not a man, had cut her life short.

“Did you hear what I said?” Kovak leaned closer to the divider. “Or are you daydreaming about him again?”

“Are you here for confession or to pry into my private thoughts?” Dorian forced himself to look away from Aiden.

Kovak clicked his tongue. “Can’t I do both?”

Dorian exhaled a measured breath. “I’m a priest, or haven’t you noticed.”

“And you’re leaving the church, when? A week? Two?”

As soon as the papers were signed on the building three blocks south, near the textile mill. The apartment overhead wasn’t stunning but it wasn’t a part of the church. And the garage under it would let Dorian do metal work to support himself.

Dorian had put off long enough leaving a place he never belonged.

A place he stayed because he’d been too much of a coward to walk away for fear of what his father would expect of him. Dorian’s brother had told the man no, and in an act of defiance joined the police department. Less than a year later, he’d been shot in his patrol car after stopping to offer help to someone on the side of the road.

Before they dug the grave to bury him, Dorian’s mother sent him to seminary school. Becoming a priest had given him reprieve from being forced to follow in his father’s footsteps. 

But after his father’s death, the man’s business associates hadn't been as forgiving.

Sweat trickled down the back of Dorian’s knees, soaking into the pads of his prosthetic legs.

“You do realize it’s normal for a man to have a crisis of faith. Even a priest,” Kovak said.

“This isn’t a crisis.” Dorian pressed his thumb against the fresh cut on his right thigh.

“Then what is it?” There was no mockery in the man’s tone.

“More of an epiphany.” The ache blossomed into a sting.

Kovak made a thinking sound. “Africa.”

Dorian flinched. Dampness clung to the pad of his thumb, painting the tip red.

“You don’t talk about it.”

“There are some things better left buried.”

Children laughed. Their footsteps tapped the floor of the nave. They ran past the confession box, and the screen on the door broke apart a pink dress and miniature gray suit.

Ghosts of village children wearing worn out T-shirts and shorts followed.

Copper replaced the scent of tobacco.

The hum of flies filled the air.

Dorian clenched his eyes shut but it only stripped away the here and now leaving the wide expanse of savannah and the small white missionary church with its clinic.

The screams.

“Father Gill told me you won’t see anyone.” The bench squeaked from Kovak’s side of the confessional.

Africa disappeared, leaving Dorian behind in the two-hundred-year-old wooden box tucked against the wall of the cathedral.

“But I cannot blame you. Head doctors are useless. Drugs are useless. Nothing more than primer to cover up the stains of mold you hope won’t make its way back up through your new coat of paint. And even if that coat of paint succeeds it does nothing for the soul.”

No, it didn’t. Talking to psychiatrists hadn’t given Dorian a moment of relief. But neither did sitting here while Kovak tried to dig into the fifteen years of Dorian’s absence from home.

The only reason Dorian didn’t walk away was because he owed Kovak for burying his father’s legacy and convincing the Sokolov family there was no one left to pick up where Stephan Christo had left off.

“Please, I’m here to absolve you, not talk about me.”

“Yes, I suppose that is true.” There was enough sadness in the man’s tone to make Dorian pause. “I give to you my transgressions, Father Dorian. I have lied no fewer than a dozen times in the past week, I have deceived, and I have wallowed in the pleasure of flesh. The first two I regret because they can get innocent people hurt. The last, I do not.”

Dorian laughed a little. “Then why bring it up?”

“In case God might make an exception. I admit I am wrong, but I will not lie about regretting it.”

“If you don’t regret it, then technically God can’t forgive you.” Dorian smiled even though the man wouldn’t see it. Even though the expression held no happiness.

“Technically.” And Kovak said the word as if it held all of Dorian’s secrets. Kovak had been around almost twice as long as Dorian had been alive so perhaps it did. And he’d survived into old age for a reason. He didn’t need to wave around his strength to prove himself to his enemies. 

He quietly chose to eliminate them.

Although Kovak did not have the bloody reputation of most men in his circles. 

Unlike Dorian’s father.

“Father, do you ever find yourself afraid of something you never feared before?” Vulnerability laced Kovak’s words. 

“Yes.”

“There are things I must do.” Kovak sighed, and it was impossibly loud in the small box.  “And I must do them because there are people who will destroy others if I don’t. They are not innocent, but they are not deserving of the kind of death those people are capable of.”

The kind of people who’d served Dorian’s family and later turned on them. Faceless names except for one.

“I’m sorry.” Dorian had no idea what else to say.

“Tell me, Father, what do you fear?”

Dorian rested his head against the wall. There were so many things. His father’s voice, his mother’s screams, the face of his dead brother.

The faces of his dead friends.

Instead of any of those, Dorian said, “Silence.”

Not the quiet found in the calm before sleep, reading alone in a room, when walking by himself in the park. Those kind of places churned with the background noise of life. There was the soft hum of traffic, the slide of his fingers against the paper, wind in the trees. The world moved. People moved.

The silence Dorian feared came when the parishioners knelt, doing their best to not breath too deep, move too much. When they covered their coughs for fear of disturbing someone next to them. That long pause where they moved their lips, folded their hands, bowed their heads.

Where they waited, not knowing if their prayers would be answered.

Or worse, believing they would be if they were good enough, deserving enough, humble enough.

Willing to suffer for the chance of peace.

“Why?”

Dorian rubbed his face. “Because silence is what happens when you’re either too afraid to act or too late.”

Kovak moved closer to the divider. The shadows broke behind the mesh, and his features hovered on the others side of the screen. “Then don’t wait. Do whatever it takes to live. However you want to live. ” He drew back, transforming into the phantom again.

Could Dorian do that? Did he even know how? Was he brave enough? There’d been a time in his life where he thought he might, but now? It would seem as if leaving the church was the first step in his decision to find his own way, but he knew better. The tiny apartment was another place to hide and forget.

At least try to.

“Do you accept my confession, Father?”

Dorian had no right to hear anyone’s sins, let alone the right to forgive them. And no right to let them believe anyone ever would. But some people needed to hear the words. Even if that’s all they were.

“You’re forgiven. I’d tell you to go and sin no more, but...”

Kovak laughed, the sound oddly soothing. “All the same, thank you, Dorian.”

The door opened on the other side of the confessional. For a moment, Kovak’s wide frame blocked Dorian’s view of the angel, then he turned and headed up the aisle, taking the long way around to the other side of the nave.

Aiden’s gaze remained on Dorian’s door until Kovak waved a hand and Aiden’s friend tapped him on the shoulder. Aiden signed his goodbye and kissed the other young man on the cheek before dropping to the floor and following Kovak from the church.

*****

Aiden caught up with Kovak at the bottom of the steps.

The man stood lighting one of his sweet smelling cigarettes. Some sort of tobacco rolled in paper. Red flared at the end of the brown stick and Kovak exhaled a cloud of gray. Lights edging the walkway cast hints of yellow before the smoke caught a breeze disappearing into the approaching night.

“Did he ask about me?”

Kovak cut Aiden a look from the corner of his eyes. He turned just enough for Aiden to read his lips. “No.”

Disappointment threaded through Aiden.

Kovak hooked his finger under Aiden’s chin. “He is a priest and you are a whore. You have nothing he wants.” He pushed back the waves of Aiden’s bangs. “Did you talk to David about the client I want you two to see?”

He nodded.

“Good. You should make sure to shave. He likes you bare.”

Because it made Aiden look younger than he already did. He hated when the Johns wanted him stripped of masculinity. At least Kovak didn’t offer him often and no one fucked him without Kovak’s explicit permission.

The last man who broke that agreement wound up with his balls shoved down his throat.

Kovak placed a kiss on Aiden’s forehead. “Let us go home you need to eat and I need to make a few business calls.”

Aiden fell in beside Kovak. Traffic rolled past on the right. On the left, iron bars holding the local park captive. 

A woman ran past with her dog on a leash. Air stirred carrying the grilled meat from the bar up the road, exhaust, and the rain soured asphalt. 

Aiden huddled in his jacket. 

The high walls of the church shrank until it disappeared all together behind the trees of the park they leaving only the halo of lights to hover over the green space.

Soon that too was gone. Illuminated windows, street lamps, cars, butchered the arrival of darkness. Its shadowy remains cowered in the alleys where people clumped to exchange money.

If it hadn’t been for Kovak, Aiden would be one of them. 

He didn’t remember where’d he’d been born but he had faint memories of a sister. According to Kovak she’d been his twin. She’d died on the trip to the United States and they’d dumped her body overboard along with several children who’d succumbed to sickness.

If Kovak knew her name he’d never said.

Just one of many secrets he didn’t share. But the man had many. His and those of his colleagues. 

Secrets Aiden delivered.

The Johns he met had very little fear of talking business in the presence of a deaf man. All Kovak’s boys were hearing impaired but none of them were as trusted as Aiden. Kovak only sent him to people he needed information on and Aiden had learned from a very young age how to read it from a person. Not just their lips, or with ASL, but their body, their eyes, even how they smelled.

The only person Aiden had never been able to truly read was Kovak.

But unlike the man who owned Aiden, Father Dorian conveyed so much in every gesture, glance, or step. Aiden might not have been able to hear the words he spoke but if stood close enough the vibrations of his voice would tap against his skull.

Something had happened to Father Dorian but Kovak would never tell Aiden what. He couldn’t even be sure if Father Dorian had ever told Kovak. All Aiden knew is when Father Dorian appeared in the city four years ago, Kovak had showed concern. There’d been weeks where the man had been on edge. Then whatever tension Father Dorian had brought with him, was gone.

During that time Kovak had spent many hours talking to Dorian at the church and Aiden had waited at a distance too far to read their conversation from their lips. Perhaps if he’d tried harder he could have, but Kovak would have found out and Aiden would have been punished.

While the man never mistreated Aiden the way a lot of others handled their boys, he wasn’t shy about addressing disobedience. Because in Kovak’s world it could mean the difference between life and horrific death.

Aiden had left their discussions between them but it hadn’t stopped him from staring at the Priest. A man who didn’t seem all that extraordinary. Average height, build, dark hair, mossy green eyes. He kept a scruff over his chin and jaw. Like he hadn’t shaved in a couple days. But the neat edges and sculpted shape belonged to someone self-disciplined.

To Aiden there was no man more beautiful than Father Dorian: his kindness, his innocence.  How he watched the world with wonder was only outmatched by the shadows of sadness in his gaze. Pain that, for no logical reason, Aiden wanted to erase.

He had no idea when he fell in love with the priest. Whether it was in those first few weeks or years later. But Aiden had and every minute he watched Dorian from a far he lost a little more of himself. 

And it left Aiden aching in his very soul.

Because Kovak was right. Aiden was a whore and Dorian had no interest in interacting with a person like him. 

Aiden didn’t care if the man never touched him. He just wished he’d not try so hard to ignore him. That maybe, just maybe if Dorian wasn’t so afraid, they could at least be friends.

A sharp sting snapped against the shell of Aiden’s ear stopping him mid-step.

Kovak frowned. “You need to get your head out of the clouds and pay attention before you get run over.”

Aiden rubbed his ear. Cars whisked by at the intersection tossing up a fine mist from the wet street and puffs of exhaust. 

The red light on the corner went from red to green.

They crossed the street to the apartment building where Aiden lived with Kovak. The foyer was empty and so was the elevator. After Kovak pushed the button to his private suite he turned to Aiden. Words formed on Kovak’s lips and carried through silence.

“I will be out tonight but I want you to stay in the apartment. No clubbing, no movies, you will keep your phone on hand.”

Aiden knew better than to ask why.

“You will sleep in my room. I have left the glock in the headboard with an extra clip.”

Aiden furrowed his brow.

“Things may get dangerous for a while.” Kovak cupped Aiden’s cheek and ran a calloused thumb over his lips. “So it is important you watch the people around you.”

The lift stopped. The doors opened.

Kovak removed his coat before he crossed the foyer. Aiden took it and carried it to the closet.

When he turned Kovak watched him. “Run me a bath and bring a bottle of red wine from the cabinet. Top row, the ***. And two glasses.”

Aiden removed his shoes and left them by the closet. Kovak sat on the large chair overlooking the city and dialed his phone. The blue light threw his reflection against the glass.

The master bath was divided into two sections.  One side a shower with glass doors and marble walls, the other an in ground tub with just enough lip to create an edge around the base. In an alcove on the opposite side a toilet and bidet separated from the bathing area by a door.

Aiden turned on the water in the tub and closed the drain. He waited for steam to curl from the spigot before adding cold testing the temperature over his fingers with each small twist of the knob until the temperature was to Kovak’s liking.

The man favored a few mildly scented oils. More so now than he had in the past. His aging skin tended to crack easier in the winter. Especially his hands and feet.

While the water ran Aiden collected the towels, then went back into the kitchen to retrieve the bottle of wine and two glasses.

Kovak had abandoned his chair and stood at the window. Tension creased his shoulders. He opened and closed his hand resting on the glass as if he could claw it. 

Aiden returned to the bathroom.

Water chugged into the basin each surge producing a throb under Aiden’s feet so subtle, aside from the rhythm, he could have mistaken it for his pulse. He checked the temp and boosted the hot water.

Kovak hadn’t requested candles but Aiden collected several from the closet along with the box of matches. He arranged them at the foot of the tub against the wall and lit them.

Aiden added oil to the bath giving it a moment to mix under the churning water before he turned it off.

He unsealed the wine and removed the cork. The trash went into the receptacle beneath the sink.

Kovak’s reflection flickered in the mirror over the vanity. Aiden stepped aside and waited for the man to undress. Gray had replaced most of Kovak’s black hair. Veins drew shadowed lined under his thinning skin mottled with dark patches.

But didn’t let his age stop him from waking up every morning at four and running seven miles on the treadmill. Three days a week Kovak attended ***(martial arts) classes. Those same three days he would have Aiden spar with him in the training room. If time allowed for it he swam in the afternoon in the apartment pool on the roof.

His fitness routine let him maintain an impressive amount of muscle for a man close to seventy years of age.

For a very long time Aiden thought vanity drove Kovak to keep in shape until he witnessed him kill a man who’d crossed him. Kovak had sent Aiden out before he took care of the fellow business man’s group of foot soldiers.

It was obvious then Kovak stayed fit to stay alive.

While other men who ran boys instilled weakness, Kovak taught Aiden and his boys to fight so they could protect themselves. Just like he paid them well enough they had more than they needed. His rules were simple. No outside work, no outside relationships, no drugs, they never spoke to police. And if there was a problem, they came to Kovak.

Failure to obey and he’d leave them with nothing.

Kovak patted Aiden’s cheek. “The candles are very nice, thank you.” Kovak climbed into the tub and Aiden collected the dirty garments and put them in the laundry basket.

Kovak parted his lips, and closed his eyes as he lowered himself into the water. Aiden poured him a glass of wine, setting it within reach.

With his eyes closed Kovak signed for Aiden to undress. He did. When he returned to the tub Kovak waved to the ledge beyond his feet.

Kovak rarely swayed from what he liked and disliked. By the time Aiden knelt and leaned back,  spreading his knees and pressing his shoulders against the marble wall, his cock jutted from between his legs.

Kovak slid his gaze to the several bottles of oils in the corner on the ledge. Aiden held the man’s gaze and reached over. Kovak watched. Aiden walked his fingers over the lids, some round, some flat, others with fancy stoppers. He touched the ruffled edge of the bottle in the back.

The corner of Kovak’s mouth twitched.

Aiden picked it up and poured a generous amount in his palm. He replaced the bottle and drizzled the lubricant over his stomach.

Kovak tracked the movements of Aiden’s hands, that calculating gaze both cruel and fair.

The rivulets slid downward in cool lines. There was just enough hair around the base of his dick to slow the droplets to a crawl.

Aiden circled his thumb over the flared head. The thrill of contact tightened his skin.

Kovak sat straighter.

Heat wove through Aiden’s muscles and he played his touch down to the base of his cock then up taking his time to ease his grip around the end, squeezing hard enough to darken the pink flush close to purple.

Kova’s pupils expanded and he flared his nostrils.

Aiden flexed his hips pushing his length through his fist coating it in oil until his skin gleamed with stripes of firelight.

Kovak shifted his position. His left knee broke the surface of the water, his right arm moved forward. Ripples chased the rise and fall of his arm, enough to flash his elbow before lowering again.

Aiden smiled at the man but he didn’t smile back.

Aiden pumped his hips until the tide of pleasure rose snatching the air from his lungs. He stopped letting go of his cock so fast it slapped against his stomach.

Kovak parted his lips, his breathes quickening crimson crawling up his neck to his cheeks.

Aiden scooted forward bringing his feet out from under him lifting himself a few inches until his body bent in a low squat. Supported by the wall at his back, he wouldn’t have to worry about his balance.

He traced his cock, slipped his fingers over his balls, tugging one then the other, before reaching between his legs. He angled his ass forward exposing his hole and he pushed in two fingers. The lack of preparation stole his breath in a silent cry. He pumped his digits in short deep bursts twisting his hand to find his prostate.

Hot and cold set his nerves on fire the muscles in his legs bunched and danced. Kovak pulled up on his knees jacking his thick cock in time with Aiden’s thrusts.

Kovak fluttered his eyelids. His Adam’s apple bobbed.

Aiden tugged his cock with his free hand while continuing to finger fuck himself his entire body heaving with each violent penetration.

Kovak’s movement stuttered, his hips jerked and the second the head of his dick broke the surface of the water ropes of cum pumped from the slit.

Sweat matted down the hair at Aiden’s temples. His entire body twitched and rippled caught in the whirlwind of euphoria. His rising released slammed into his chest and ropes of cum shot across the water falling a few inches short of Kovak.

Aiden rocked riding out the aftershocks until he was left spent on the edge of the tub.

When he opened his eyes Kovak held out a sponge. “Now, come and wash me.”