Love is Always Write Anthology Bonus Volume

same time I started skimming off my own trust fund and squirreling it away. When someone finally cracked and brought the family down, I didn't want to end up poor." A manic chuckle bubbled from Daren, and he breathed like he was trying to hold back sobs. "I never thought I'd be the one to do it."
    Things started sliding into place. "You've done more than just upload the video, haven't you?"
    Daren nodded. "Do you really want to know what I've done?"
    "It'll help me know what I should be looking out for."
    Daren chuckled again. "When the thing with my cousin was just swept under the rug, just like I knew it would be, my grandfather gathered us all together and gave us a talk about the importance of loyalty to the family and fearing outsiders. And I was looking around at all these people I was related to and these creepy sunken eyes my grandfather has, and something in me just cracked. Next day I walked into the nearest FBI office and said I wanted to talk to 'the agent in charge of investigating fucked-up financial shit.' And I said it just like that."
    "That's where Agent Kim comes in."
    Daren didn't even ask how Sebastian knew that name. He started to push himself up, with much wincing. Sebastian helped and arranged some pillows behind his back.
    "Dad was always nagging me to pay more attention to the family businesses. So I did." He drew his good knee up to his chest and pressed his forehead against it. "I'm supposed to give grand jury testimony in a couple of months, but they wanted me to come in early for a day or two to give preliminary statements."
    "Shouldn't they have been offering you some kind of protection?"
    "They did. Technically, my family doesn't know about my defection, but you can't trust my family. I let the FBI put me in a crappy little hotel room with two agents. One went to go get ice, and the other one casually stepped out for a second, and I clued in pretty quick that I'd been intentionally left alone. I grabbed my wallet and jacket, left my phone so they couldn't track me, and ran. My cousin's goons must have managed to follow me from the hotel. They jumped me in that bathroom."
    "So your cousin is the one trying to kill you?"
    "No. No, my cousin worked out that I was the only one who could have uploaded that video. He cornered me at a family dinner and told me exactly what he was going to do to me and then sent his goons to keep the promise." Daren squeezed his eyes shut, a shudder running through him. "My grandfather will be more subtle. He'll find me first, act like he cares, like things have been forgiven. He'll find out just what I know. Then he'll set things up so it will look like I ODd, or he'll pay someone to rub raw shrimp on my dinner." Daren turned his head to look at Sebastian again, tears dripping from his large blue eyes. Sebastian brushed some away with the edge of his thumb. They felt warmer than he thought they should. "So that's who I am, Sebastian, whose last name I don't even know. Do with that information whatever you like. I'm sure the FBI still wants me. My grandfather could make you very rich."
    "My last name is Thompson, and after everything, I'm trying really hard not to be offended by that last comment."
    "I…" Daren's voice cracked and he gave a little cough. "I am sitting in the bed of a complete stranger, who scraped me off the men's room floor of a gay bar, because as long as you didn't know who I was, I was safer with you than any of the six hundred people I have listed in my phone. My halfwit, coke-head cousin managed to track me down and get to two FBI agents. I can't stand on my own two feet or manage to sleep through the night. There's no way my grandfather doesn't know I've turned on the family by now. I am a dead man walking… limping."
    Sebastian had very little doubt as to the truth of those statements. If the internet was even marginally right on this one, the Delawares had their fingers in a lot of pies, both private and government. It took a lot of balls to stand up to that. It would take even bigger balls and a lot of work to stand up to that, get knocked down hard, and stand up again.
    Growing up in foster care had meant Sebastian had to be a bit of a fighter and know how to take care of himself. He had respect for people who could take their knocks and keep going. He also had a reasonable dislike of people like the Delaware family. "Maybe we should work on that first."
    "Work on what?"
    "Getting your feet back under you." Sebastian took a corner