blood runs red ✓

XLI

'true redemption is when guilt leads to good'

- khaled hosseini

Ares

Ares Cirillo wasn't stupid. He was self-obsessed, confident, and a raging narcissist, but he was not stupid. He was ignorant, that was for sure. And he ignored August's obvious pain over and over because he didn't think it was something he had to bring up.

And he hated talking about sensitive subjects; they made his skin crawl.

So when August confessed to being abused by Ares' rival, the boxer found himself beyond angry- and not just with Sean.

Ares was mad at himself.

Because, fuck if it wasn't obvious, so fucking obvious, that something was going on with August. Not just physically, but mentally too. And Ares let himself look past all of that because the Venezuelan was a good fuck.

I'm a fucking asshole.

Ares wanted to do better, for August, but now he knew had to do better. He no longer cared about the fact that he needed August like a drug he was addicted to, but he cared about August himself. He wanted the younger man to be safe, to be okay and free from Sean. Nothing else mattered anymore.

So he dialled a number.

"Cirillo. What's up?"

"Florence, my darling, when you got August to be my physiotherapist, did you pay him?"

"No? You were supposed to."

Ares felt like slamming his head into a wall. He was an awful person. "I didn't. I didn't realise. I thought you'd do some bank transfer shit or something, I don't know."

Florence audibly sighed. "I didn't. You want me to do it now, or..?"

"No." Ares said simply. "Thank you, Flo."

He hung up quickly, coming to a whole new set of conclusions.

August was being abused, physically, possibly verbally and emotionally, but definitely financially. Whenever the two went out, August was always dead-broke, and terrified of having someone spend money on him.

It was clear to Ares that August was being restricted financially. After doing some digging (Florence did, and she sent the information to him), back when Ares had just found out about August, he found out that the physiotherapist worked for at least a year, with a fifty-thousand-dollar salary. Unless August was financially reckless, there was no way he could've lost so much money so quickly. After further digging, he discovered that Sean claimed August as his personal physiotherapist, doubling his salary, and even took August into his home.

Ares was sure that August definitely had a reasonable amount of money stored away somewhere, but couldn't access it. Because of Sean.

That good-for-nothing, abusive, vile piece of-

"Flo, darling?"

"What, Ares?"

"I need you to take out twenty, no, twenty-five, no, hmm, fuck it, take out fifty grand from my account, in cash."

The woman, despite being over the phone, was recognisably shocked. "Sorry, Ares, what the- fifty grand in cash? Are you in the Mafia? Are you drug dealing, because who the-"

"No, I, er, need to pay back August. For his work."

"Pretty un-Cirillo of you. Besides, he worked for you for like, three weeks, didn't he? That does not sum up to fifty grand."