I walk up to the casino and stare up at the lights on the front of the building. Just one of so many buildings, I can’t even count all of the riches he owns on two hands. Yet none of them will ever belong to me.
“Move.” My father’s guard shoves me in the back.
“Keep your hands to yourself.” I glance at him over my shoulder. “Unless you’d like to see them bitten off.”
His face contorts with horror, and I take pride in being the cause before I step forward into a hell far worse than Tartarus ever will be.
But I have no regrets.
I knew my choices would lead me here, and I would repeat them a thousand times over.
For her.
I swallow and walk through the crowd of people with the guards right behind me. My eyes skid from left to right across each of the hallways we march through, spotting a ton more guards, all of which have earpieces in. There’s never been this many.
Are they all here for me?
I smirk to myself as we march into the dark hallways, beyond the scope of where guests are allowed, and head straight toward the door at the end where my father’s domain makes my heart throb in my throat.
This is it. There’s no way back from here.
I step inside my father’s office, and the guard behind me closes the door again.
I’m left in a room with my father and one single guard I could possibly overpower … but at what cost? I’d be killed the second I stepped foot outside this door.
No, he wants me to know I’m outnumbered.
That it’s futile to resist.
He clears his throat from behind his desk. “Sit. Down.”
With a monotonous look on my face I step forward and grab the chair, scooting it back far enough so I don’t have to sit right in front of him. I don’t care if it pisses him off.
“Do you know why I’ve called you here?” he says.
“No.”
His eyes twitch. “Take a guess.”
“I have no clue.”
WHAM!
His fist comes down on the table. “Don’t play coy with me. You know better than to act like a fool in front of your father.”
I fold my arms. “Does it even matter? We both know what you want.”
His nostrils flare. “Tell me it wasn’t you that went inside that Bones Brotherhood auction. Tell me it wasn’t you who murdered all of them.” When I don’t answer, he screams, “Tell me!”
“What do you want to hear? That I’m sorry?” I ask. “I’m not. I never will be. They deserved every inch of pain I gave them.”
The more I speak, the more my father’s face contorts. And honestly, that look on his face alone was worth it.
He stands up, planting two hands on the desk as he towers over me. “How fucking dare you?!”
I already knew I was never going to be the perfect son.
But this … his rage over the fact that he can’t control me … is what I call true perfection.
He suddenly comes out from behind the desk and grips my chin. “Tell. Me. Why.”
My lips are sealed but a wretched smile still forms on my lips, however painful this might get.
SMACK!
The hit of the palm of his hand to my cheek flushes heat into my skin.
“Tell me!”
I look up at him with nothing but disdain. “No.”
His lip twitches. “You dare to sit here in my office, look up at me with those remorseless eyes, all while taking money from my hard-earned work, mountains of work you so happily destroy for whatever fucked-up reason,” he grits. “Some of those men were personal friends. And you somehow got it in your head you had the right to take their lives.”
“They were buying and selling people like cattle.”
“I don’t fucking care what they did! They spend money at my casinos. Money that’s now gone because of the likes of you.” He taps his finger into my chest. “Do you have any idea the kind of pain the Bones Brotherhood will inflict on my business when they find out it was my son who destroyed one of their hubs? They paid for your fucking Tartarus House and these fucking clothes you wear so mightily like you’re goddamn God’s gift from heaven.”
I don’t respond even though I want to, badly.
“You are nothing. You are not a god nor a gift. You have been insufferable since the day you chose to defy me. And for what? A good conscience?” He scoffs and shakes his head. “You are nothing but a disgrace.” He leans back and looks at me, then slowly takes off his jacket. My skin begins to crawl as he places it on the desk. “Take off your fucking shirt.”
Here we go.
My nostrils flare, but I still do what he says, eyeing the guard in the corner. His gun flashes in the single light fixture above us, a stark reminder of what little power I hold inside these walls.
I unbutton my shirt and slowly take it off, throwing it to the floor, then kicking it away so it won’t get covered in blood.
His eyes glance over the engraved letters on my chest, a single word that will haunt his soul forever. This name caused the rift between us. This name reminds him of his lost son and all the ways I will never be his puppet again.
I ruined that for him.
“Get up,” my father says through gritted teeth.
I do what he says, and the guard immediately plucks the chair away from underneath me.
My father marches to his cabinet and takes out a long, black bullwhip on the end of which is a sharp metal point, the sight of which makes my whole body quake.
THWACK!
The sound of it hitting the floor has me blinking rapidly.
My father turns to me. “Turn around. On your knees.”
I stare him down, rage boiling over, not giving him an inch of my fear before I turn around. But I won’t fucking kneel. Not for him.
THWACK!
When the whip comes down on my back, I hiss from the pain.
“Do as I say,” he grits.
I stay put, grinding my teeth together as I hear it flick behind me.
THWACK!
Another painful lash makes my eyes teary, but I stay standing.
“ARES!” my father growls.
But I ignore him.
THWACK!
Each strike is harder than the previous one.
“On.” THWACK. “Your.” THWACK. “Fucking.” THWACK. “Knees!”
I bite my tongue out of sheer pain to keep myself from screaming.
“Are you so eager to hurt? Is that it, boy? Do you enjoy it when I whip you?”
THWACK. THWACK. THWACK.
Droplets of warm blood roll down my back.
I nearly cave. Nearly.
But I will not give him this fucking pleasure. I fucking won’t.
His voice makes me want to lash out. “Kneel.”
“I don’t bend for a coward who can’t even face his own fucking son while he mutilates him,” I growl back.
He grunts like a beast. “Then you are no longer my son.”
THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!
The strikes are so harsh and painful that I can barely take it anymore, but I must. I made my choice. I have to stick with it. For her. For that little bit of good that’s been injected into my life, however fucking small, it’s worth surviving for.
But at what cost?
THWACK!
The crack on the whip on my back makes me close my eyes, my knees unsteady as I suffer through the pain in both my body and my mind.
But I refuse to fucking fold, and if this is going to be the end of me, then so be it.
“I don’t want to be your son,” I say through gritted teeth. “You make me wish I was never born.”
My father pauses and rasps, “Maybe I should’ve killed you long ago.”
