Don't say Stockholm Syndrome

Nothing happened

The night before

Lying down, unable to sleep, the man thinks only of Josh. He didn't know what to do. He wanted to continue to be able to see and touch the boy who ended all his apathy. Nothing and no one had made him feel this way for years.

How he wanted a miracle to happen and Josh to fall in love with him. How crazy. None of that was going to happen, least of all now. Now, what would probably happen was a role swap, where Josh would be free and he would end up in some prison. How cold he let himself be carried away by madness.

He was not a criminal. He was the son of a good family. His parents... how would they react to this situation?

He starts sobbing. In a moment, the sobbing becomes a cry. How many years had he not cried? He cries like he's never cried before.

When it finally stops, he makes a decision. In the morning, he would tell Josh everything and wait for divine mercy.

Josh gets up, looks at the time. it was not yet 2 o'clock in the morning. He takes the laptop, and decides to send an email to his father.

"Dad, I f****d up. I let madness take over my life. I was so upset that I lost touch with reality.

Dad, I kidnapped a boy, just for fun. In the morning, I will release him and he will certainly go to the police. I'm not contacting you to ask for help, but to apologize for the embarrassment I'm going to cause you. I'm sorry father, I'm sorry. Your son, Jacob"

He sends it. The father would only see it in the morning.

Then he cleans the room, makes the bed, opens a Bohemia, sits down and drinks.

He looks at himself in the mirror, blond hair, perfectly cut, almond eyes, perfect face, muscular body. He chuckles and says sarcastically: "i***t, it won't be hard to get a boyfriend in jail."

AT 6 am, he has breakfast ready for Josh, and leaves the room. It wasn't worth dwelling on any longer. He leaves and goes to the basement, where the boy who made her heart beat was trapped.

Meanwhile

Far away from the college, Anthony gets up at 5 am and prepares for another business trip. He kisses his wife, who complains, asleep, takes his bag and laptop and leaves the house.

In the street, the secretary was waiting for him.

"Good morning, sir," says the secretary, as he opens the back door of the car.

"Good morning, Oliver. Is everything ready?"

"Yes sir. The jet is ready, the hotel booked. The meeting is scheduled for 10 am."

"Great," says Anthony, making himself comfortable in the back of his Bentley.

"The traffic is calm, we should be at the airport in 15 minutes."

"Perfect," says Anthony.

Anthony is the CEO of one of the most successful multinationals in the country. His only son would soon work with him and learn the trades to replace him. Anthony was a late father, and by this time, what he wanted most was to retire, and travel the world with his wife, the love of a lifetime.

In the car, he locks his eyes, throwing his head back. I was already so tired of always running after the next deal.

"Are you all right, sir?"

"I'm just tired, Oliver. Nothing new."

"You work too much, sir."

"Some work a lot harder and earn next to nothing. Don't worry Oliver."

But Oliver worried about his boss. Anthony could be a powerful person, but he was also very generous, which made all the workers very loyal. He paid way above other companies. Their motto was 'share to collect', and it seemed to work.

After 10 minutes, Anthony decides to open the laptop and check the emails, to kill time.

When he sees an email from his son, he is happy. "Finally, you remember that you have a father?", he thinks, smiling.

When he opens the email and reads it, his heart stops.

He grabs the cell phone, and contacts the pilot.

"Harry, change of plans."

In the bedroom, Josh looked at Jacob in disbelief.

"You? How could you? You're in charge of the floor, and you've been so nice to me since day one."

In seconds, disbelief gives way to anger.

"Son of a b***h, I'm going to finish you off. How could you do it...", Josh blushes and can't finish.

"Where are my clothes?"

Jacob leaves the room and goes to get Josh's clothes, where he left them on Friday night.

He slowly puts the clothes down on the bed and, without looking at Josh, walks back.

Josh, get his clothes and get dressed as fast as he can,

"I'm going straight to the police. I hope they lock you up forever. You're a monster."

Josh walks out the room, looks around in disgust, finds the door and leaves.

Jacob sits up in bed and puts his face in his hands.

"I lost twice. I lost Josh and my life. Well done."

When Josh steps out onto the street, he finds he's not far from the dorm. He runs to his room, takes a change of clothes and hygiene products and goes to take a shower. He wanted to get rid of the smell in that room.

After bathing and dressing, he returns to the bedroom.

A door opens and someone says: "Beautiful ass"

In a rage, Josh pushes his colleague into the room and shouts, "Go f**k yourself, i***t!"

The boy, who has never seen Josh react, raises his hands in surrender and says: "Calm down, I was just kidding. I won't repeat it."

Josh takes a deep breath, leaves his colleague's room and returns to his own.

He takes some money which he had saved, and decides to start the long walk to the bus stop.

When he finally arrives, and the city bus passes, he gets on.

Josh's head was racing. What is he going to tell the police? All? He couldn't bring himself to tell all the things Jacob had done to him. He was going to start by indicating the place where he was being held, and saying who had kidnapped him, after he would see whether he tell everything or not.

When Josh arrives at the police station and says that he wants to report the person who kidnapped him, the two police officers, who were in front of the reception desk, look at each other.

"Please follow us.", they say.

Josh is taken into an interrogation room, where he is told to wait.

A short while later, a man in a Tom Ford suit, which, by the looks of it, cost more than Josh's entire tuition, walks in and sits down across from him. The man crosses his legs, pulls out a cigarette and lights it.

"Good morning, my name is Anthony Mills. I'm the father of Jacob Mills. I think you know him."

Josh turns pale.

"You're the father of that monster? What do you want from me? If you think you intimidate me, you're wrong. I'm going to report him."

Anthony takes a long drag on the cigarette, and when he expels the smoke, he does it towards Josh, who waves his hands furiously in front of his face.

"Son, I have already informed the commissioner of the police, who is a personal friend of mine, that a colleague of my son, envious of some girl my son met, threatened to denounce Jacob for kidnapping. All measures were taken, and at this moment, I am here to find out if you want to walk out that door, as if nothing had happened, or do you want me to report the whole situation to the faculty?"

"But that's a lie," shouts Josh. "Jacob kidnapped me and did things to me."

Anthony raises an eyebrow, but quickly regains his composure, and says:

"That will always be your word against my son's. As for the basement, don't think you have evidence there. As we speak, the basement has been cleared and only the walls remain."

"Your son committed a crime, and this is how things are resolved?"

"You're right", Anthony says as he puts his hand in his pocket. He opens a checkbook, writes something down, rips off the check, gets up, places the check in front of Josh and says:

"This is the way things are resolved.", and leaves the room.

Josh stares at the door in disbelief. Then he remembers the threat of denouncing the faculty, which jeopardized his scholarship, and finally he looks at the check.

"5 million dollars," Josh reads with bulging eyes.

When the shock wears off, he picks up the check to tear it up, but stops.

He gets up, folds the check and puts it in his pants pocket, opens the door, and heads towards the front door, passing the two police officers, who look at him suspiciously.