Monsters & Angels (Cate & Kian Book 7) Page 14

  Kian cursed. He hated that his wife’s beautiful, pink lips had been polluted by that bastard’s name. “He told Sam that if he told anybody else about what he’d just seen that he’d get him kicked out of the Academy and no other club would want him.”

  “When he got home that night, he told his mum what he’d seen in the locker room. She told his dad and he was so angry he got in his car and drove straight to the Rovers Stadium and demanded to speak to the Chairman. He thought that they’d be horrified, that when they heard about what their youth team coach was doing, they’d immediately call the police. Instead, he was led into the boardroom. The Chairman got out his cheque book and asked how much it would cost to make this “little problem” go away. At first, Sam’s dad didn’t want to take the money but the Chairman reminded him that they had the power to make or break his son’s career and so he took the cheque for £50k and arrangements were made for Sam to join City’s Academy.”

  “They knew?” Kian gasped. “Rovers… they knew what he was doing to us and they didn’t try to stop him?”

  “Yes,” Cate said softly. “I’m so sorry.”

  Still reeling from this new information, Kian got up from the sofa and stumbled down the hallway to the men’s bathroom. He’d barely made it to a stall before he started retching. It kept coming; the vomit streamed out of him like a magician was pulling brightly-coloured cloth from his mouth.

  They fucking knew! He couldn’t believe it. He’d spent so many years living with that desperate, clawing guilt that if only he’d said something, he could have stopped it.

  He heard the door creak open. “Kian?” It was Cate. “Are you OK?”

  “I’m in here,” he croaked. He flushed the toilet and closed the lid.

  “Hey,” she sat down next to him on the floor. “Will you tell me about him – Liam?”

  “When we were boys, Liam and I looked almost exactly the same. It was only after he left Rovers that he started bleaching his hair blonde. We even had the same haircut, short at the black and sides and longer at the top.” Kian reached up and scratched the back of his head. “When we started out, we were both central midfielders. It used to piss me off because I was the better player but coach seemed to like Liam more than me. After matches on a Sunday, he always used to stand at the side of the pitch and chat with his mum and dad.”

  Kian hung his head, “It’s stupid really but I used to be so fucking jealous of Liam. He was definitely going to make it as a professional, I mean; he had this huge Rovers legend fawning all over him.”

  “A couple of nights a week, he’d keep Liam behind for extra training sessions. Afterwards, we’d pester him, trying to find out what they did in these sessions. If it was anything we could try and replicate at home. “We just work on different parts of my game,” Liam would shrug. It really pissed everybody off, we all wanted to make it as professional footballers and Liam was being given an unfair advantage.”

  “His dad couldn’t stop bragging about it, he told my dad that coach had said that Liam could be a future England captain if he kept working hard and had the “right attitude”.”

  Kian lifted up his arm and pressed Cate against him. If he was going to talk about what had happened to him, if he was finally going to give words to the darkness and depravity that had haunted him for over two decades, he needed Cate’s strength, her purity, her goodness.

  “I’m here,” she said softly, linking their hands together again.

  “Liam was sick…” He’d spent so long trying to keep it secret that it was hard for him to get the words out at first. “They thought it was the flu but it turned into pneumonia and he was admitted to hospital.”

  He looked down at his and Cate’s linked hands. “I don’t know if I can do this. I want to tell you everything, I do but I’ve blocked it out for so long.”

  “It’s OK,” she gently reassured him. “Just tell me what you can.”

  “I remember they used to have these really horrible grey tiles in the showers at Rovers. They looked as if they were always dirty. Maybe that was the point. I mean, if they’d been white or black, it would have been too difficult to keep them looking clean all the time. I’m starting to realise that image was very important to Rovers.”

  “I’d just come out of the showers and coach came over to me. He’d been in a really bad mood ever since Liam got sick and we joked that he was missing his teacher’s pet. He said that I wasn’t clean enough and I needed to get back in the showers. I didn’t understand. I’d showered just the same as I did every other day. But he could be really scary when he got angry. I was just a skinny, twelve-year old boy and he was a big, tall man. I went back into the showers but I was pissed off because he’d embarrassed me in front of my team-mates.”

  “I was facing towards those horrible, grey tiles when I felt his hand on my hip. I asked him what he was doing and he said that he wanted to make sure that I got really clean this time. He wrapped his hand around my cock and lifted it up. It hurt so I asked him to stop. “I think this needs more soap,” he chuckled and it was the most awful fucking sound. He leaned into me as he reached for the shower gel and I felt his erection against my bottom. “I’ll have another shower when I get home.” I tried to get away from him but he shoved me harder against the tiles. He kept rubbing his hand up and down my cock. I knew it was wrong but there was nobody I could call for help; all of the other boys had gone home by then. My dad was working late that night so I was supposed to get the bus home after training.”

  “I stupidly thought that if he got me clean enough that he’d let me go. But when he kept rubbing me and I didn’t get hard, he got really angry. He gripped my cock so tightly; it made me cry and hearing that seemed to calm him down for a minute, the fucking sadistic bastard. Eventually, he got so frustrated that I wasn’t going to come for him that he shoved me to the floor. He looked down at me, lying naked on the floor and his shadow seemed to go on forever. He said that it didn’t matter what other people said about me, I was a useless piece of shit and I’d never be as good as Liam.”

  “I tried to crawl towards the end of the showers but he kicked me in the stomach so hard, my whole body lifted up off the ground and then slammed back down. He said that if I told anybody about what had just happened that he’d end me.”

  He couldn’t look at Cate. He couldn’t see the revulsion that she must surely be feeling. How could she possibly still love him even after she’d heard all of that?

  But, like a fool, he continued. “Despite his threats, I knew what he’d done was really wrong and I needed to tell someone. I had to take two buses to get home from the training ground and I was waiting for the second one when Dad drove past on his way home from work. He was surprised to see me because I should have been home by then. I told him that coach had kept me behind after training and you should have seen the pride on his face. I wanted to tell him but I didn’t know what to say. We were sat in his car on the driveway and I lifted up my t-shirt and showed him the bruise on my abdomen from where he’d kicked me.”

  Kian gulped. “He said… I needed to toughen up if I wanted to be a professional footballer.”

  Cate sniffled and when he looked up, tears were streaming down her beautiful cheeks. He still couldn’t look in her big, black eyes. The blindfold had completely slipped away now. He wasn’t and could never be, the good man she thought she’d married.

  When his dad died, Cate had realised that she was in love with Kian when she’d felt his pain as acutely as if it were her own. She’d always thought that she carried a piece of his heart inside her ribcage, right next to her own beating heart. She reached up and gently pressed her free hand to Kian’s chest, right above his heart. If she carried a piece of his heart then he carried a piece of hers and she needed that piece of her heart inside his chest to beat furiously right now, to grasp onto the broken pieces of his and keep them together.

  His eyes wouldn’t meet hers. She thought back to when she’d been suffering from prenatal d
epression and she’d been so ashamed that she’d thought about killing herself and their unborn child. Kian had encouraged her to talk to him but even in the comforting warmth of the bath, surrounded by gently flickering candle light, she still hadn’t been able to open her eyes. Her own life didn’t matter but the fact that she’d been prepared to take away the life of their daughter was the most shameful thing that she’d ever done. It was a permanent scar.

  He’d asked her to open her eyes and when she’d eventually plucked up the courage to look at him, she’d been so overwhelmed by the love and acceptance in those dark, chocolate-brown eyes. She wanted to do the same for him now. She needed him to see the truth, that what he’d just told her didn’t make her love him any less. If anything, it made her love him even more because she knew that he was braver and stronger than she’d ever thought possible.

  “Will you look at me?” she asked softly.

  “I can’t,” Kian shook his head.

  “Please,” Cate begged.

  She placed her hand gently on his cheek, his stubble rasping against her palm. “I love you.”

  Kian tried to pull away, “how can you say that after what I’ve just told you? How can you love somebody who’s so broken?”

  “Maybe because I’m broken too? I’m not an angel, Kian. When I told you about how I thought about killing myself when I was pregnant with Sierra, did it make you stop loving me?”

  “No, of course not,” Kian said fiercely. “It wasn’t your fault. You were ill.”

  “What that bastard did to you…” she felt him flinch. “It wasn’t your fault either. You were just a boy, Kian.”

  “I should have said something.”

  Cate shook her head, “it still might not have stopped him. He was a Rovers legend. You heard what happened with Sam; it sounds like the club were determined to protect him, no matter what.”

  Now that the guilt had lifted just a little, Kian was overwhelmed with sadness. He’d been so afraid that his own secret would be exposed that he hadn’t allowed himself to think about Liam, the boy he’d been friends with before all of the bad stuff happened.

  “Liam’s dead, Cate,” he choked out.

  “I know and it breaks my heart but you, Liam and Sam, you were just innocent, young boys who wanted to become professional footballers. You didn’t do anything wrong. There are so many people with blood on their hands right now but you’re not one of them. The bastard who did this to you, Rovers for getting out their goddamn chequebook instead of calling the police, your dad…”

  Eamon had been like a father figure to Cate while she was growing up since her biological father had left them before she was born.

  “I should have told him.”

  “He should have already known,” Cate spat out angrily. “He was your dad; he was supposed to protect you, Kian. If Mats or the girls came home one day with nasty bruises on their bodies, would you really just tell them to toughen up?”

  “Of course I fucking wouldn’t,” Kian grunted. “If anybody even thinks about hurting any of my children, I swear to God I will hunt them down and fucking kill them.”

  “I know,” Cate said, “and that’s just one of the countless things I love about you.”

  Kian looked up at her for the first time. Despite what she’d told him, he was still startled by the love and acceptance in her beautiful eyes.

  “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now.”

  Cate reached for his hands and tugged him up to standing. “The children are staying at Liv’s tonight.” She felt really nervous all of a sudden. “I’ve got a room at the Edgewater. Will you, um… stay with me?”

  Kian sighed. “It’s OK,” she said quickly. “I know it’s probably too soon for… I just thought you might not want to be on your own but you’re probably right. You’ve had a really rough day, you should get some rest.”

  She went to turn away but Kian wrapped his hand around her delicate wrist. “I want to be with you, Cate.”

  “I don’t want to put any pressure on you.”

  Kian spun her towards him until her chest collided with his. She hated that even after everything he’d just told her, when she should be focused on comforting him, her nipples still peaked inside her bra. He gulped and she wondered if he could feel them and if he was thinking it was really inappropriate too.

  When she looked up, his eyes were dark and fiery again and she realised that maybe it was OK.

  He gently stroked his knuckles down the side of her flushed cheek. They were so close that she could feel his chest pushing against her heavy, aching breasts every time he took a breath.

  He slid his hand into the depths of her inky-black hair, tilting her face towards him until their foreheads were pressed together and all she could see were his dark eyes.

  “I want…” his breath teased her lips. She darted out her tongue to wet them and she felt the jut of his erection against her belly. “I want to take things slowly, angel.” His words didn’t fit with what she was feeling in his body. “I don’t want to hurt you ever again.”

  Cate gripped the front of his shirt; she wanted to hold on to him in case he decided to make a run for it.

  “But I can’t,” his head dipped down and she jumped when she felt his lips on her neck. “I can’t walk away from you.”

  “Then don’t…” she whimpered a little. He kissed that perfect spot just below her ear. “Come back to the hotel with me. We don’t have to do anything.”

  He looked up at her and for the first time in ages, she saw his lips quirk up at the corners.

  Before he could say anything else, the bathroom door swung open and one of the cleaners walked in. “You do realise that this is the men’s bathroom,” he chuckled; seemingly unfazed by the fact that Cate and Kian were so intricately entwined. “If you really want to get jiggy with it, the women’s bathroom down the hall is a much better option, more sanitary too.” When he saw their shocked expressions, he laughed, “hey, I do my best but you know what men are like.”

  “We should go,” Cate blushed.

  “You might want to wash your hands first,” the cleaner whistled, ducking into one of the cubicles.

  After they’d washed their hands, they rushed down the hallway to Kian’s office so he could lock up.

  “Why did you pick this hotel?” Kian asked as they walked along the front towards the Edgewater.

  Cate smiled, “I’ve always wanted to stay here. This is the hotel where the Beatles fished right out of their hotel room window.”

  “That’s kind of cool,” Kian smiled back. It was chilly so he tucked Cate into his side.

  When they got to their room, Cate looked uncomfortable for a second. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s nothing,” she plastered on a fake smile. “I’m just going to nip to the bathroom.”

  She was so relieved when she walked into the bathroom and saw that it was painted dark-red and white and the tiles around the shower were different shades of brown and beige. He’d said that the showers at the Rovers Academy were tiled in grey and so was the shower at the Chatsfield.

  “Are you OK, angel?” Kian asked, gently knocking on the bathroom door.

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you sure?” He walked into the bathroom and caught her still staring at the tiles around the shower.

  “I wanted to make sure that they weren’t grey,” she said awkwardly. “The tiles at the Chatsfield were grey, weren’t they? I mean, that’s why you thought I was…”

  Kian turned her around to face him, “it wasn’t just the tiles. A couple of months ago, Richmond called me. I hadn’t talked to him since he’d left the Academy and I didn’t realise he knew anything. He wanted to warn me that people were snooping around, asking questions about Hunter. He was worried about Liam, he wanted me to try and talk to him.”

  “I couldn’t do it… I’d managed to block it out for over 20 years but suddenly I felt this noose tightening around my neck. I couldn’t risk anybody finding
out what had happened, what I’d done. I told him to fuck off and leave me alone. He must have talked to the cops and given them my name because one of the detectives flew out here. That’s why I asked you to come back from the beach clean-up that day. I didn’t want it anywhere near you and the children, our home so I met him at the office. I thought it would be just a quick chat, I could deny everything and apologise that he’d wasted his time by flying all the way from Manchester to Seattle but he knew, Cate. He knew what Hunter had done to me.”

  “I felt so trapped. I can’t… I can’t even imagine how Liam must have felt. It was four days later that I got the call from Yoakey that he’d killed himself.”

  “About a year after… Hunter got a job as first team coach at one of the Championship clubs in the Midlands. He stayed there for a couple of years and he did OK, he got them into the play-offs but then they were bought out by a consortium from America. The new owners wanted a big-name manager so he was given the sack. Rovers…” Kian felt bile rise up the back of his throat. “They must have felt sorry for him because they gave him his job back at the Academy.”

  “No?” Cate gasped. “How could they do that, knowing what he’d done?”

  “I can still remember the 1st time I saw him back at the training ground, I snuck between two of the first team players’ cars and vomited until there was nothing left in my stomach. While he’d been gone, I’d got bigger and taller – I wasn’t the scrawny, little boy he’d left behind. I’d like to say that he was intimidated by me but I don’t think that’s what it was. I’d never been his first-choice, the only reason he’d tried to touch me that time was because Liam wasn’t there and I looked just like him.”

  “We didn’t look much alike anymore. While I’d had a growth spurt, Liam was still short and really skinny. Sometimes, when he ran, his legs looked like pieces of string. It was obvious that he wasn’t going to make it as a central midfielder but he was really fast so the coaches decided to see if they could make him into a winger instead. Hunter had been a right-winger when he was a player at Rovers and so he offered to give Liam extra-coaching.”