Loyalties Read Free

even less high. When he stepped off the chair, his toes would be only inches from the floor. He didn’t want to screw this up, didn’t want to give his instincts a chance to kick in and fight.
    Knot over the carotid. He spun the leather, placed it carefully. Just like a sleeper hold. He’d be out in seconds. Dead in a couple minutes. And with any luck—any at all—it would be Nikolai who came in and found him, Nikolai who’d first get to see the fruits of his twisted efforts. Would he look at Mat’s limp body and see a person ? A life lost? Or just a waste of a million dollars and several weeks of his time?
    No. Don’t think about Nikolai. Not now. Don’t give him that.
    Happier thoughts. Happier. There’d been a time when he could call up such memories so easily. Everything seemed so far away now, so out of his grasp.
    He curled his toes into the seat of the chair. Pressed a palm to the wall. Smooth and cool beneath his fingers. Tried to ignore the touch of the leather around his throat. Focus.
    The taste of homemade lemonade.
    The day Knockout had stumbled, hungry and wet, onto their porch, stared warily at Mat, and started meowing. Can we keep him, Mom? Never any question she’d say yes.
    Christmas with Dougie, the year they’d gotten a Super Nintendo and played it so obsessively that their mother had to lock it away.
    His first kiss. The taste of cigarettes—the forbidden stacked on the forbidden—sticking to his lips.
    His first state championship, Mom and Dad and Dougie cheering wildly from the bleachers when the last bell rang.
    His first KO in a pro MMA fight, just forty-five seconds into round two, Mom and Dad and Dougie hugging and fist-pumping from the front row.
    The look on Dougie’s face when he’d opened his acceptance letter to his first-choice undergrad school—the letter he’d left unopened for four whole days so he could do it with Mat instead of Pattie and Mike.
    Dougie’s college graduation, Mat sitting with Mike, so full to bursting with joy and pride he didn’t even care if the whole crowd saw him cry.
    Yeah, he’d had a good run. Right up until the end, almost, despite everything that’d happened. He could let go now. He wouldn’t be hurting anyone. Not anymore.
    “I wish you wouldn’t do that.”
    Mat whirled around so quickly he almost fell off the chair. A moment of sheer panic as his hand shot out, found the chin-up bar to steady himself, chest heaving, heart thrashing. He blinked down at Roger’s open, wounded expression, at his half-outstretched arm nearly close enough to touch Mat, and felt a laugh crawl up his throat at the absurdity of it. He’d been preparing to step off the chair on purpose; why so much fear at falling accidentally?
    And how had he not heard Roger come in?
    “I really wish you wouldn’t do that,” Roger repeated. He sounded like he meant it, too—not for Nikolai, but for himself , like he’d miss Mat, or maybe took it as a personal affront that Mat would choose to leave him.
    Or maybe as a failure. Maybe he thought he hadn’t taken enough care of Mat.
    Which was bullshit. The way he’d come in every day, morning, noon, and night, with fresh food and bandages and antibiotics and painkillers and soft hands and softer smiles and more patience than any one man had a right to. The way he’d picked up after Mat’s hurled trays and hurled insults without complaint, without so much as a squinty glare. The way his mere presence had shouted, day after day, I understand. I care. It’s all right.
    “Yeah,” Mat said, but it came out on a croak, like the leather jump rope was already strangling him, so he cleared his throat and tried again. “Yeah. All right.”
    He didn’t know why he was saying that. Hadn’t meant to. Didn’t seem to have any control over his fingers, either, as they reached up to his throat, loosened the slipknot, pushed the rope up and off himself. Lost control of the rest of himself as his legs and feet took him off the