Betrayed by Truths (Truth or Lies 2)

Prologue

Enzo

My eyes open before dawn. Not because I’m an early riser or enjoy watching the sunrise. But out of necessity—survival.

My feet hit the ground before my body is fully awake. My senses put out feelers in every direction, trying to determine any threat before it ends me. I pull the gun from under my pillow and aim it around the room. I no longer sleep without it. Not after my father’s last “test” left me fighting off a dozen men with nothing but my thirteen-year-old body’s scrawny muscles to defend myself.

I still my breathing and heartbeat as I focus. But I know immediately there is no one in my bedroom but me. The room is silent and dark.

I put my gun in the back of my jeans. Yes, I sleep in jeans. I’ve gotten too many early wake-up calls needing me to be ready to fight. And I’d rather fight with pants on than in my boxers. My junk feels better protected with another layer of clothes on, even if in the end it makes no difference.

I grab the black T-shirt that lies on the chair in the corner of my room and pull it over my head before stepping into my work boots. Then I slink to the window, thumb the drapes open just enough to see out through the thin slit in the fabric to the early morning sky. The sun is hovering on the horizon bringing with it the light.

I let the drapes fall closed, and then move with silent feet through the house—through corridors and down staircases. Through the house I will inherit someday when I become the king of evil incarnate and take over from my father.

Demolishing the house will be the first thing I do when I take over. I hate this fucking house. I hate its thick brick walls. The cold, drafty hallways that weren’t built to accommodate air conditioning. The gargoyle statues that seem from another time, not meant to stare out over the seas of Miami. It’s like my father lifted this house from medieval France and plopped it on a hillside in Florida. It’s completely out of place here among the rows of beach houses.

And to me, it feels like a prison I have no hope of ever escaping.

I stumble to an abrupt stop when I reach the kitchen. My father’s eyes sear into mine, and I know my fate from the way his nostrils flare at the sight of me.

“What are you fucking doing? You think you deserve to eat breakfast before even putting in an hour’s work?” he asks, lifting a cup of coffee to his lips.

Yes, I fucking need to eat breakfast! I don’t know how he expects me to pack on muscle if I never get to eat.

I don’t say that. It might make me feel better for a second, but in the end, it would earn me a beating.

“Just awaiting your orders, sir.”

That pisses him off more. Dammit, what did I say?

Father stands from the stool he’s been sitting on while, waiting for me to make a mistake. His grip on the mug tightens until it shatters and hot coffee spills from the broken mug. The liquid must burn my father’s skin, but he doesn’t notice nor care.

I eye the broken shards, knowing my father could use it as a weapon against me at any second. I count the pieces preparing for an attack.

But I should know better than to think my father would be predictable.

Instead, he marches to me with all his furry behind him. Oozing from his pores as steam shoots from his nose. His face darkens to a shade of red that can only be used to describe the devil. All he’s missing are horns and pitchfork.

“Awaiting orders?” He reaches for my neck, a move he’s done countless times. I escape with ease, darting around to the other side of the kitchen island.

“Awaiting fucking orders?! Really, Enzo? Have you learned nothing from all our years of training! No son of mine awaits fucking orders. You give them! You rule them! You never take them!”

My father launches himself at me before I can escape. I may be quick, but he has years of experience, thick muscles, and more rage than I ever thought one man could contain behind him—while I live in fear.

He pins me against the cabinet with his forearm shoved against my neck, and his leg shoving hard into my stomach. He grabs my gun and quickly disarms me, tossing it to the floor behind him.

I’m powerless. He could kill me right now, and there is nothing I could do about it.

He won’t. He needs me.

That’s what I keep reminding myself every day.

I can’t die. He can’t kill me.

But sometimes, in the gloomy pain that encompasses my every day, I wish he would. Eternal sleep has to be easier than the torture I go through every day just to survive.

I don’t flinch as his fist pounds into the side of my head. I jolt into the cabinet ensuring a dent in the wood as my head makes contact. The familiar taste of blood coats my mouth, but I don’t think he knocked any teeth out this time.

Who needs coffee when you have dear old father to jolt you awake with a good morning jab to the face?

“Look at me, son.”

I whip my head back to face him with nothing but disdain.