sam

singularity.

a point where things become undefined, chaotic, or radically transform or the state, fact, quality, or condition of being singular

Lando

The Singapore air is thick enough to choke on. It clings to his skin, heavy with humidity and the stink of petrol, fried street food, rubber ground into tarmac. He tastes Canada in the back of his throat, Silverstone in the marrow of his bones, an engine dying in his hands, Monza pyrrhic—a scar that won’t stop itching. He carries them all. Tiny coffins nailed shut, stacked behind his ribs. Oscar carries them too—he knows, he sees it in the cut of his mouth, the way his eyes never quite meet his anymore. Clipped sentences. Perfunctory nods. Conversations pruned down to data and strategy and nothing more. 

Oscar doesn’t look at him the same anymore.

He always thought Oscar liked him more than he liked Oscar. He’s not stupid—the ‘heart-eyes’ in comments, Max’s offhand he’s always asked about you in Renault, the too-long stares—Oscar needs needed him.

To the cameras they are papaya symmetry. To each other they are rot disguised as partnership. The journalists smell blood, of course. Every press conference a minefield: “How’s the relationship with Oscar?", “Do you still trust each other wheel-to-wheel?” and Lando laughs, he grins, he tells them racing incidents happen. Tells them anyone would have done the same. Inside, something black coils tighter.

Media vultures circle, not elegant birds but hungry, ugly things that want narrative meat. “Two number ones,” the clips said. “Championship duel.” They loved the symmetry and missed the jagged edges.

He heard that Oscar turned his radio off.

It was a small, private slap that landed public. Lando felt it like a temperature change. The podium champagne tasted of something sticky and rotten shortly after; the roar had been replaced by a long, private silence that clung to hte ribs. 

He goes out because staying feels like waiting to be examined. Because the season had been an exercise in compression, and he needed a place things could break against loudness.

The club is a heat cloud. Max had dragged him here—Max and Magui, bright laughter and perfume and neon lights slicing the night open. The bass hits like a defibrillator. Vodka, tequila, whatever burns. The room bends and blurs until it’s all pulse and sweat and strangers’ hands brushing too close.

He drinks to forget, but the forgetting never lasts. Under the strobe, Oscar's face keeps cutting through. The radio silence, the surgical stare, the weight of victories that taste like ash.

Magui leans in, lips at his ear, a joke lost to the music. He smiles back but it feels borrowed. Hollow. He's bone-tired, guilty for feeling nothing, guilty for feeling everything.

He is noisy and bright and performative, because performative is easier than honest. The crowd eats it. Shame arrives in fits—a hot, inconvenient animal—whenever someone mentions the race in the same breath as his name. Envy is a quiet ache that the bottle can’t drown. The season has worn him thin: he is raw around the seams and can feel the stitches give.

By midnight he’s unraveling. Stomach sour, head spinning, chest tight. He leaves, Magui protesting lightly, but he kisses her cheek, mumbles something about needing air. Outside, the Singapore night is thick and wet, sticking to his skin. He walks fast, drunk, disoriented. The city blurs past in streaks of light. 

He misses Oscar. His Oscar. Not the polished, PR version of him that doesn’t know how to look at him anymore. 

His shirt sticks to his back. His phone pings ??? from Magui. His brain’s doing that thing where thoughts loop and tangle—Oscar, the podium, the celebration, the way Oscar's mouth went flat when they shook hands. He tries to shove it down, but the alcohol keeps dragging everything back up.

He stumbles through the Conrad lobby on autopilot, nodding at no one in particular. Too quiet. Too clean. It makes him feel filthy just standing there, sweat-slick and vodka-soaked. He fumbles with the elevator buttons like they’re puzzle pieces. By the time the doors close, it’s just him and the dull hum of machinery and the way his heart keeps tripping over itself.

His room smells like aircon and fabric freshener when he staggers in. He drops onto the bed, head spinning, shoes still on, staring at the ceiling like it might give him answers, but all it gives him is Oscar. Always Oscar. The shape of his jaw when he’s pissed. The look on his face when the cameras stopped recording. The fact that he turned the radio off.

Lando groans into his palms, rolling onto his side, restless. Everything is loud inside him and too quiet outside. He tries water. He tries pacing. He tries telling himself to sleep it off. It doesn’t stick. His chest aches like a pulled muscle. Somewhere between a sigh and a laugh, he mutters, “fuck it.”

He’s up before he can talk himself out of it, stumbling into the hallway with his shirt still half open, no real plan except the warm, stupid pull in his gut. It’s pathetic, he knows. Drunk and emotional and chasing the one person he probably shouldn’t. But his feet are already taking him down the corridor, straight to Oscar's door.

He is undone, and he knows there is only one person left to confront, the only one who has ever made him feel simultaneously vital and hollow.

The corridor is too bright. He almost turns back. He knows how ridiculous this is—how infantile—to chase one look, one syllable. 

He knocks.

The door opens, and there is Oscar, looking at him like he has never before. 

Lando wants to beg for forgiveness. “Couldn’t sleep?” he asks instead.

Oscar doesn’t answer. His gaze drags over Lando slowly, catalogueing the mess: the smell of alcohol, the half-buttoned shirt, the flushed skin. He cracks the door open a fraction wider, and Lando takes it as an invitation, closing the door behind him as he follows Oscar into the room. A reckless decision, heart pounding from something other than the walk.

The apology tries to force its way out. It comes tangled—guilt, frustration, envy, shame all fighting for space in his throat. “Osc–” he starts.

“Don’t,” Oscar cuts in, voice like a blade. “Don't do that.”

“Do what?”

“Pretend it’s something you can fix with words.”

The silence after is heavy. Something fractures between them, finally. The air goes sharp, electric.

Lando leans forward. “You think I wanted that? You think I liked watching you walk off like I stole it?”

“Didn’t you?” Oscar's tone is calm, but the venom lives in the precision. “Because you took it.”

“Because it was mine! I didn’t even know you wanted the place back–” Lando snaps, heat rising. “I drove that race.”

“You almost put me in the fucking wall, Lando.” Oscar spits, deathly still.

“I earned it.”

“And I didn’t?” Oscar's voice barely rises, but it lands like a punch. “You let them give it to you.”

The words lodge in Lando's chest. He wants to scream. wants to shake him. Instead, he stands, steps closer. Oscar doesn’t move. Neither backs down. Their anger is the same temperature now, molten and brittle. 

It’s a stand-off until it isn’t. Because Lando’s breath starts to hitch—just slightly, embarrassingly—and the defiance he’d gathered in his chest doesn’t hold. It leaks, bleeds into something smaller, weaker. His fingers twitch uselessly at his sides. He wants to keep glaring, to keep his chin up, but the longer Oscar’s gaze stays steady, the more he feels himself folding. All the things he’d meant to say knot in his throat, congeal into silence. He looks away first. Of course he does.

And once he’s looked away it’s over—the posture, the pride, all of it. He’s chewing his lip now, shifting his weight like a scolded kid. His anger curdles into shame so fast it makes his head spin. What right did he have to stand here like this? To talk back, to accuse? He’s the one who let it happen, isn’t he? He’s the one who always lets it happen. His shoulders slope. His spine loses its stubborn line. He’s shifting his weight, fidgeting like he’s trying to shrink under it all, like he’d crawl closer if he could. The words he had ready rot on his tongue, taste sour now. Every accusation he’s ever thrown feels childish in the face of Oscar’s stillness. Because Oscar did fight, he always fights, and Lando just let them hand it to him. Maybe he always has.

Shame prickles beneath his skin, hot and crawling, and with it comes the desperate, ugly urge to be forgiven for something he can’t name. His fingers flex at his sides, then curl into fists like he’s trying to hold himself back from reaching out, from touching, from kneeling, from begging. He wants to say don’t hate me, wants to say I didn’t mean it, wants to fold himself small enough that Oscar might stop looking at him like that.

The apology arrives clumsy and human, tripping over itself: "I didn't mean—” he starts, then stops, then starts again. There are words he can’t find because they have been gnawed down at the edges by pride and by the stupid, useless need to justify. Envy leaks into his sentences like ink, unplanned and visible. “It wasn’t like that,” he says. In hsi chest, the trophy suddenly feels like something someone else could have stolen because the only thing that would have made it pure is if Oscar had been smiling with him. Something in Lando unspools—the apology snaps in two and becomes a confession, then a demand, then a plea. The air between them curdles with all the words neither has ever allowed themselves to say: I resent you, I need you, I hate you for being better when I was trying, I love you in the way that will forever be unhelpful.

“It was exactly like that.” 

“What was I meant to do? Hand you the fucking trophy? Christ, Oscar, it’s called racing. I’m fighting for this championship too!”

Oscar laughs, and it’s an ugly, rueful thing. “But of course I give the place back when the golden boy’s pitstop is screwed.”

“Golden— Osc—” Lando flounders momentarily, before Oscar has him against the wall.

His smile is mean and his eyes are dark, and Lando is vaguely reminded of a shark hunting its prey.

The first touch isn’t soft. Lando grabs Oscar's wrist; maybe to stop him, maybe to keep him there. Oscar shoves him, hard, and there is burning pain searing through his left shoulder. 

“You know what I think, Lando?” Oscar's voice is hot against his face. “I think you’re a little bitch.” 

Lando makes a strangled sound, something bitter congealing his throat, and suddenly he is too aware of how much he has drunk. He imagines throwing up on Oscar, imagines kneeling before him, imagines his cock in his mouth and blood down his back and repenting repenting repenting. He wants it cruel. He wants it messy. There is the sound of someone crying. He thinks it's him.

He reaches for Oscar not with the tentative politeness of teammates but with a greedy, fumbling need. It is an extension of confession. His hands find Oscar's shoulders, the lean planes he knows like trim on a car. The contact is a kind of assertion: proof he exists in Oscar's orbit, that he is not entirely erased by the ten seconds, the headlines, the sterile congratulations.

And Oscar does not pull away, and anger tips into something rawer, uglier. Lando’s mouth forms Oscar’s name, and then there is a hand around his neck and a mean mouth on his. Not a kiss but a massacre, teeth catching lips, blood drawn, fingers pressing plums into the meat of his neck.

Oscar licks into his mouth, tongue laving over the raw, ragged bits Lando’s chewed off his inner cheek. It’s frantic, disjointed—rivalry, envy, guilt and that dangerous something adjacent combusting all at once.

They kiss like they’re trying to cut each other open. Lando's teeth on Oscar's lip, Oscar's hands in his hair pulling too hard. It isn't forgiveness. It’s punishment.

Lando’s head cracks against plaster, he gasps, but doesn’t stop. Oscar shoves him harder, chest against chest, both of them vibrating with rage.

Clothes are stripped without finesse, torn more than removed. Zippers catch. The air tastes like iron and vodka.

Lando bites Oscar's throat, savage, just to feel him buck against it. Oscar digs nails into Lando's spine, scoring lines like tally marks, proof of contact, proof of damage. “See?” He hisses into Lando’s mouth. “Little bitch.”

Every movement says i hate you / i need you / i’ll destroy you if i can’t have you.

Lando lets it happen.

He lets it all happen. Shirt torn, pants shoved down, the hard press of Oscar’s thigh between his legs and the humiliation of how quickly he responds.

His hands are rough, because softness is reserved for things you respect. Lando is not respected.

He is offered.

The bed is cold. Lando’s back hits the mattress with a graceless thud, his legs spread wide. Oscar’s weight is sharp, not comforting. 

"Always so good," Oscar sneers, fingers trailing down Lando's chest, nails scraping over nipples until they sting. “So fucking obedient. Whatever the team wants, huh? Like a dog.”

Hands dig into Lando’s thigh, prying him open. He hears the slick pop of lube, Oscar’s only concession to mercy, and then his hand drifts between Lando’s legs and don’t hesitate—two fingers, pressed cruelly against the soft ring of muscle and shoved in.

Lando chokes.

It hurts—of course it hurts—but his cock jumps anyway, twitching against his belly. Shame flashes across his face, but he doesn’t stop Oscar. Pain blooms like honesty. It feels like being gutted. If Oscar wants to hurt him, it must mean he still feels something.

“Slut,” Oscar whispers. “You like it when it hurts?”

He scissors his fingers, twisting inside until Lando keens, arching off the mattress with a high, choked sound. There’s no rhythm, just force—the stretch of muscle, the rough push of knuckles, the scrape of nail against the tender heat inside him.

Lando breathes in stutters. His thighs shake.

Oscar adds a third finger. No warning. Just shoves them in, filling him wide and brutal.

“What would your little girlfriend think, hm?” Oscar murmurs, voice low and poisonous against his ear. His fingers curl cruelly, pressing deeper until Lando’s spine bows and his breath breaks apart. “What would the team think? Their precious Lando Norris, fucking himself on my fingers.”

It’s humiliation dressed as a question. Shame crawling under his skin, hot and corrosive. It sticks to the inside of his throat, burns behind his eyes. Lando wants to snarl something back—fuck you, or don’t stop, or both at once—but nothing comes out. His mouth is useless, all noise stolen by the heat that coils, traitorous and tight, low in his belly. 

Because it’s true. Because he is. He’s grinding himself down on the same hand that once held his thumb too tight in handshakes before it all went to shit.

Oscar twists his wrist, slow and deliberate, forcing another sound from him—this one raw, broken, desperate. And somewhere in the white-hot humiliation, there's a hunger that terrifies him, a need that makes him ache. He hates Oscar for it. He hates himself more.

Oscar fucks him open with those fingers, curls them just so, and Lando jerks—hips bucking, cock leaking.

“God,” Oscar mutters, almost to himself. “You’ll take anything.”

Lando nods, barely conscious of it. Eyes glassy. Lips parted. He looks fucked already, flushed and pliant, slick with sweat and precome.

Oscar pulls his fingers out, slow and wet. Lando whines. The absence is worse than the pain.

“Get on your knees.”

Lando does.

The carpet burns against his shins. The bedframe creaks as Oscar stands, undressing. His cock stands hard and heavy, flushed dark at the tip, already beading. Lando stares not with hunger, but reverence.

Oscar grips him by the hair and shoves. No patience. Just forces himself into Lando’s mouth, past the teeth, the tongue, until he hits the back of his throat and keeps going.

Lando gags, hands scrabbling at Oscar’s thighs. But he doesn’t pull away.

Oscar fucks his mouth like he owns it, like he’s not a person but a space carved out just for him. He uses Lando’s skull like a handle, dragging him forward and back, rhythm brutal, hips snapping. Saliva spills from the corners of Lando’s lips. His eyes water. He mewls.

“Yeah,” Oscar pants. “Just like that.”

He pulls out with a wet pop and shoves Lando back onto the bed.

“You don’t mean to do anything apart from take what was given, do you?” Oscar had said to him at Monza, after Lando had told him he didn’t mean it, that it was the team.

Oscar positions him, fingers ramming back in between his legs. Now he takes what he’s given. Lando’s mouth slackens. He could tell him the chronology: how he had been driving and doing nothing but driving, and how the car in front had opened a seam and he’d entered. He could say that the pitwall is law. He could say that the ten seconds were not his doing, that regulation is regulation. He doesn’t. 

Lando bites his fist before he does something stupid like beg him, or thank him. He’s so fucking pathetic. He wants it worse. The ache sharpens everything. Makes it feel earned.

“So fucking easy,” Oscar mutters, voice clinical. “You love this. Don’t you?”

Lando whines. He doesn’t trust his voice. It would come out soft. Stupid. Loving.

Oscar pulls his fingers out and replaces them with his cock. No warning. No buildup. Just the breach, the stretch, the ruin. “Say it, Lando.” His voice is rough, and Lando prides himself on how he’s made Oscar sound.

Lando’s whole body arches. His throat makes a broken sound. He tells himself it’s good. That it means something. That being split open is proof of something holy. “Y-yeah. Love it—Osc, please—”

It’s humiliating. Oscar fucks like he’s angry at himself. At the world. But mostly at Lando—for being here. For taking it. For needing him anyway.

Lando thinks that if he takes it all, maybe Oscar will stop hating him. Or himself.

Maybe they’re the same.

The pace is fast. Deep. Punishing. Oscar drives in with no grace, no care, just raw intention—hips slamming forward, angle cruel. Lando cries out, high and thin, and Oscar laughs. Actually laughs.

One hand grips Lando’s hip tight enough to bruise, the other slips beneth the arch of his back and claws down—raking nails like a punishment. Skin tears. Lando shudders. He doesn’t beg. He’s too far gone for that. All he does is take it, like worship. Like this is what devotion demands.

Oscar twists Lando’s leg higher, forces him into a new angle that makes it harder to breathe, easier to break. He’s folded in on himself now, thighs shaking, mouth slack. The pressure in his throat is building—Oscar’s hand back around it, thumb pressing in steady pulses, not enough to cut off air entirely, just enough to make the humiliation linger. To hold it there.

“You’re so fucking good like this,” Oscar snarls. “Just need to keep you like this, huh?”

Lando moans. God, that’s all he’s wanted to hear. You’re good. He believes it. Not because it’s true, but because Oscar said it. Because if Oscar says it, it must mean something. 

He’s crying. He doesn’t remember when it started. The tears slide down his temples into his hairline, silent and stupid.

Oscar’s hand closes tighter around his throat, thumb presses under Lando’s jaw until his vision sparks.

“You fucking deserve this,” Oscar says.

Lando nods mindlessly. Of course he does. That’s the whole point.

His cock is hard. He hates that. Hates that he’s going to come. That his body doesn’t understand what’s being done to it. Or maybe it does. Maybe it understands better than he ever could.

Oscar sees it. Of course he does.

He spits into his palm, strokes Lando's cock once—rough and unkind—just to make him jerk. Then lets go. Watches it twitch against his stomach. Smiles, mean.

“You gonna come?” he says.

Lando manages a breathless sound. A confession.

Oscar shoves into him harder. Faster. Each thrust feels like it’s scraping the inside of him raw, like there’s no room left and still Oscar is making room—carving space that isn’t there, claiming something he already owns.

Lando’s body breaks open around it. His climax hits, violent, shattering. He lets out a choked sob, untouched, his whole body locking. It hurts. It’s so good.

Oscar finishes seconds later. Doesn’t slow down. Just ruts through it, gritting his teeth, breathing hard, nails sunk into Lando’s hips deep enough to bruise purple. When he spills inside him, it’s with a final punishing snap of his hips and a low groan that sounds more like hate than pleasure.

He pulls out slow, watching the mess leak out of Lando, watching his hole flutter, gape. He presses two fingers back in, just to see him twitch. Then leaves him open, ruined.

Lando doesn’t move. His body is trembling. His chest rises and falls like he’s been exorcised.

“Do you hate me?” Lando asks. The words come out soft, shaky, pathetic—like a dog whimpering for scraps. He hates the sound of himself.

Oscar turns, head cocked, expression unreadable. His eyes are dark, ringed with something that looks almost feral. Lando’s blood is drying at the corner of his mouth.

“I could never hate you, Lando.”

His voice is soft. Too soft. It slides under Lando’s skin like a knife. Lando makes a noise he doesn’t recognise—a small, broken thing—and tucks his face into Oscar’s chest, breathing in the sweat and the sex and the faint metallic scent of himself. Relief loosens his spine. He feels Oscar smile into the hollow of his neck. Good. He loves making Oscar smile.

“Love you,” Lando whispers, before he can stop it. The words are barely formed, as if saying them too loud will shatter the fragile air between them. He isn’t sure if he’s allowed.

Oscar tenses. Shit. Straightens. “You’re not a victim.”

I know.

“You’re easy.”

Lando nods. It’s all he can do. He watches Oscar dress, cross the room, each movement precise, unhurried.

Rose was still in the hospital when hearing Jared's advice, and not his own resentment, James went to search for his cousin Aron Walsh. Aron was the only son of his uncle Benjamin who died when him and Jared were toddlers. Jay wasn't born yet. Aron was 13 when that happened and left Dublin with his mother to go to London.

Eventually Mr. Walsh and his three sons moved to London too, although by the time they did it Aron was studying economics and barely had time to see them except some days during his summer vacations, but being in his early 20s meant three kids between 13 and 8 years old didn't interest him a lot beyond the fact they were family. It was there when the resentment James towards him began because having the possibility to help them, Aron did nothing. James couldn't understand why Jared and Jay couldn't see Aron the same way he did.

Yet, there he was on his way to humiliate himself in front of someone who never was going to be a friend but if that meant his wife was going to be safe, then it was fine.

It was hard to understand how an economist with a bright future ahead of him ended being the head of an Irish mob but that was happened. Jared had said that Aron was bored, said that got tired of seeing the English mocking the Irish, even himself, so he did something about that. What started as a little revenge ended up with a whole group that followed Aron and what he said as if he was the new Jesus and apparently he enjoyed that position.

Jared mentioned that Aron worked with his gang in the East London, not far away from Bethnal Green where Rose grew up. Famous Jewish neighborhood that happened to be inhabited by Irish immigrants, too. Not always having a friendly relationship but by the time Rose was born, most of conflicts between Jewish and Irish Catholics were part of the past.

The red brick wall the warehouse had wasn't very different from the factories around the zone. Dirty windows, the smell of smoke filling the air, barefoot children running around and three or four pairs of eyes looking at him distrustfully. Men resting a leg on the wall, smoking and wearing the typical bowler Irish hat, maybe asking themselves who that unknown tall man was. Wearing a suit that seemed to be out of place in a neighborhood like that, shoes too clean for that muddy ground.

"English," yelled one but James ignored him. "Aye, English, you're not welcome here!!" The man walked to him, blocking his way and lifted his head to look at James in the eyes "You're not welcome here, English, I said."

"Not English, don't you dare to insult me like that again," he said and his thick Irish accent made the other recoil. "Tell your boss that James is looking for him."

"James who?"

"Walsh, but these days I use Coldwell. I'm his cousin, lad."

"Shit. I'm sorry. You're Mr. Jared's brother. Fuck, I'm sorry."

The younger man that probably was trying to prove himself ran through the dirty alley and crossed a door. James noticed that the other members of the gang that initially were looking at him like he was a menace now found a new thing to pay attention to.

"You must forgive my men," Aron said coming from a side door James didn't notice. "Some are too young."

"I couldn't call that one a man," James said pointing at the one who tried to face him before. "Just a boy."

"But his father is a man and he will be one, one day. James, your brother warned me that maybe you could come. Please follow me. How's your wife doing?" he asked as both men walked into the building that inside was nicer than James expected.

"Better. She's conscious now, she wants to leave the hospital tomorrow."

"Glad to hear that," he said. While they kept walking James heard some screams and turned around to see where they came from but Aron simply kept walking. "Ignore it, James. Soon, it'll be quiet again, just let my men do their work. Just an insect that it's treated as such."

Aron's office was warm with several paintings hanging on the wall and a beautiful rug probably from Arabia decorating the floor. The fireplace was on and above it James could see a picture of his cousin and mother who had died at least fifteen years ago. Aron poured some whiskey in a glass and offered it to James who accepted it.

"It's Irish, of course," he said. "So, James, I'm not going to pretend I don't know what are you doing here. Jared told me."

"Jared should learn to shut the fuck up," James replied, shaking his head. "If you know, then I'm not going to lose my time here more than the necessary because I want to go back with my wife. Jared says Rosie needs extra protection. She needs the kind of protection men working on politics have and he suggested you."

"Does she agree?"

"Yes. We talked about it the last days. We talked about the pros and cons, how this could affect our lives and she agrees."

"And you?"

"I want my wife safe, that's what I want. We don't know who the fuck did this to her but Rose's friend suggested that maybe was a rival. We're not sure. How much money are you asking for?"

"You offend me, James. Some things aren't about money."

"I doubt you're altruistic."

"I'm not, but family is different, cousin. We discussed about this with my closest men and you know what? Some of them remembered your woman. Rose Coldwell, the young unionist. Some of them grew up in the same place she was: Bethnal. Even if they didn't cross paths, even if she didn't hear of them, they heard about her. Some worked in places your wife led strikes, the factory she worked in joined others they were. It was quite a surprise for them hearing the name Coldwell again and even more when they knew she married my cousin. So she is my family, too. They owed her that. They could do it for free. Even if she is English."

"She is Jewish, too."

"I know. But she is English and these men aren't happy with those who were born here. They don't like them, but James… this is a different story. If tomorrow your wife leaves the hospital, me personally, I'm going to be there. She's going to be safe when leaves the hospital. And I'm going to investigate who did that to her."

The following day, as the newspaper showed the face fo Aron Walsh, the leader of the Black Shamrock, was behind her.

-------------

The next days in Thorn House, both Rose and James began to adopt to their new life. He presented his resignation letter and even when the Oxford authorities didn't agree with that, they accepted it. Thirteen years in one of the most prestigious universities the world had, finished the night a bullet almost killed Rose. For James, it was the most valid reason of all to finish that chapter of his life.

"Ruth asked me to prepare a speech for the school inauguration we're invited to. I need to send her this before the end of the week," she said to her husband, while both were sitting together in their library "but I can't do it because you're distracting me, ketzele."

"I'm trying to help, love," he said with his head on her neck and his arms around her waist.

"Are you?"

"Yeah. I call it motivation," James said kissing her shoulders and pressing her body against his. "Pleasure helps to write."

"Maybe to write some erotic novel, Jamie, but do you think it will help with a speech?"

"There's only way to know it," he said taking off the papers from her hands and throwing them on the floor. She just chuckled and let him to settle in top of her. Rose wasn't paying attention to what she was writing anyway, no when for the last thirty minutes he was distracting her with his kisses and hands exploring her body.

Although this time, unlike the previous ones, a knock on the door interrupted them. James cursed his luck.

"Mr and Mrs Coldwell," the voice of Mrs Hudson said, "Mr. Aron Walsh is here. He's waiting and wants to talk to you two."

"Fucker," James mumbled, still on top of her, but this time louder. "What the fuck you want, Aron?"

"I want to talk to you, cousin, I have answers," this one replied "I'm not that stupid to don't know what you and your wife are doing there so I'm giving you time to dress before entering."

"I'm going to kill Jared for this," James whispered to Rose while both of them started to fix their clothes. "He had that stupid idea. Now I can't even have sex with you in our own house."

"That's not true, Jamie," she said. "We do have sex… a lot."

"That's not the point," he replied, still mad. It was rare to see him like that, but it was one of the effects his cousin had over him and Rose couldn't help but chuckle.

"The fastest we talk to him, the fastest we can continue where we left," she said kissing his cheek.

Aron found the couple at the desk they had in the library. The mahogany wood shone reflecting the sunshine that entered through the window. Both men nod their heads, while the newcomer kissed the hand Rose offered to him.

"It's nice to see you again, Rose. I see you're feeling better."

"I am. My head still hurts and I need my medication but at least I feel like myself again and I don't look like a monster anymore which is something I'm grateful about. How are you? And please, sit."

"Thank you so much, Rose. I'm fine, thanks for asking. But if you're wondering what I'm doing here, it's not to interrupt your marital activities as my cousin could think," he said and James rolled his eyes, "but to bring you answers. It took us some days, but we discovered who did that to you."

"What? Already?"

"If you know where to start, things can be done pretty quickly," Aron said, taking a little notebook out of his pocket. "His name was Harold Bryson. Is it familiar to you?"

James and Rose exchanged glances before she answer "Bryson? Are you sure?"

"Definitely. A shoemaker, living in the south. My right hand found him. A question here, a question there… the man sung. He said you, Rose, killed his brother. I'm quite surprised, I must say."

"No, I didn't."

"Rose, I need the truth if we're going to do business. I need to know who your enemies are before another thing happened to you."

"Are you going to snitch to the police?"

"That's not how I do business, Mrs. Coldwell. I couldn't do that and definitely I don't want him," he said pointing at James "removing my head from my shoulders with bare hands."

"Fair enough, then," Rose said and proceeded to tell Aron about the Brysons.

Ernest Bryson was the first men Pebblebrock claimed. His wife was a nice woman called Bonnie who went there a rainy afternoon, covered in mud and shaking like a leaf. Rose, Annie and the main staff Pebblebrock had, already had seen women like her before but that was the first time one had an ankle broken and didn't know how she managed to go there, far away from her home. They gave Bonnie all they needed from food and a bed to medical treatment. A month later, she was like a new woman. But not everything was nice.

Her husband knew where she was living now and went there asking for her. Not once, or twice but several times and the answer was always the same: No. No men meant no men, and Mr. Bryson wasn't the exception.

The day Bryson was killed in Pebblebrock was the day that Rose came back to Thorn House with tears in her eyes and seeking for the comfort that only James could provide. Bryson was killed because Rose gave the order after he managed to get in her estate and almost killed one of her assistants. Bryson was out of control and it was Annushka, after Rose approved it, who ended with his life. The body ended six feet underground, with pretty flowers above the improvised grave.

"…that was seven years ago. This bastard! His brother! He had seven years to seek for revenge. Why the hell did he do it now?"

"I don't know. Maybe tried to find you before but couldn't. Maybe guessed what happened to his brother… damn it, you sealed his fate. Did you know?" Aron asked this time looking at his cousin.

"Of course, I knew," James replied. "I was worried about it, but as the time passed, I thought that was it. It was over."

Aron stood up and looked at the couple. "It's never over and believe me when I say that it's always chasing you. Okay, let's do something: I want a list. I don't care how many men you killed or sent to hell. We need to know if anyone still misses them or they are already forgotten. So, tell me, Rose…. How many?"

"Maybe ten, less perhaps. We were cautious! None of them had kids, none of them were precisely a valued member of society but all of them were assholes."

"I don't doubt that. Still, I want a list."

"I can get you one at the end of the week."

"Fine. Police probably will come soon telling you about this. He committed suicide, they'll say. Harold Bryson wrote a letter saying that it was him who attacked you because you're a woman and he preferred men sitting in the House of Commons."

"You did that. You made them believe it was a suicide."

"A fine work, I must say," Aron said, smirking. "Not for the first time. I'll back for that list and see if something else can be done. I need to go soon but first, James, do you have a moment to talk alone if it's possible? Will you allow it, Rose?"

"It's fine with me. I'll be here finishing this speech if you need me, love."

"I'll be fine, Róisín," James replied kissing her forehead, then opening the door inviting his cousin to follow him.

---------

"Such a little house you got, James," Aron said looking around. "You lucky bastard, you're having the best life next to a beautiful woman. Jared told me you had a nice place but this is a palace."

"It's just something Rose deserves."

"Yes, I can see that. You know? I remember her and you when you two were kids. Two or three times I went to visit your father when I had my holidays and I saw you with her usually sitting under the tree in your old house. You always seemed to be different when she was there. Happier. Your father believed you were going to marry her. He was right."

"Well, it happened the bastard was right about something. You and my father got along."

Aron paused for a moment "I didn't know, James. There was no way I could have known what that fucker was doing to you and your brothers. Hate me all you want, but it's true!"

"We were kids! You were an adult! How the fuck you could not see that!"

"I couldn't."

"You didn't want to."

"No, I simply didn't know. I was 22, James! Even if I knew! There was nothing I could do! How was I going to take care of three boys? What was I supposed to do?"

"Jared did it when was 18. Your excuse is bullshit, but it's fine Aron we're not here to talk about something that happened twenty years ago."

"Jared was always different. Jared is the best Walsh, better than me and you. Better than Jay. I'm not surprised he did what he did with you and your brother, how he took care of you," Aron lightened up a cigarette and let the smoke fill his mouth before continuing "or what he did with your father. Don't look at me like that, James, because I know and it's a secret will die with me."

"Yes, I know. There's no one I know that could betray Jared."

"No. I could never betray my family, James. Including your wife. My men and me are going to make sure that she's safe wherever she goes and you too. Many politicians died before they could put a feet in the Parliament but it's not going to be her case."

"In exchange of what?"

"In exchange of nothing yet. This is some investment. I know about numbers, cousin. I know you have money. More than you'll be able to waste in your life, but it's not that what I want from you. Let's make sure she makes it into the office, then, we talk."

Aron left Thorn House with the promise of coming back soon. James returned to the library where Rose was only to find her sitting on the desk only wearing his jacket that was left on the sofa.

"I thought you were working on your speech."

"I need a break. And so do you."

The fire in his blue eyes was everything she needed to confirm that was right. James approached her and took her face in his hands, kissing her. "If anyone interrupt us now I'm going to kill that person," he stated as she unbuttoned his pants and stroke his manhood.

"No more killings."