Our fathers beat us to be stronger.
I got that.
To take over from the family, you had to be strong. Something didn’t sit well with me, though. Emily had an older brother. She wouldn’t be taking over the family line. Her life had probably been mapped out with a husband waiting to claim her. She didn’t need to be beaten, but I’d already seen the clear signs she had been.
I swiped a hand down my face in an attempt to clear my thoughts of the rising anger, but it didn’t help.
I wanted to kill, and Emily’s father was my target.
Chapter Three
River
My parents were fighting again.
This wasn’t new news. Nothing but old. They fought over nothing. This latest one, my dad had a nice, young, twentysomething secretary. Let’s face it, he was fucking her. I listened to one of the many conversations where my parents talked and my dad was insistent this young woman was highly competent and had made his life easier.
My curiosity had been piqued, so I did no more than introduce myself to her and asked a few random, easy questions.
There was no brain there.
Just a good body, plump lips, and my dad’s insatiable desire to fuck. His needs were well-known in the Monsters’ Crew. They used him as necessary to gain information from unsuspecting women.
I believed my father loved Mom. In fact, I had no doubt. This brand-new secretary was just a means to an end. She probably worked for the enemy and he was using his position and dick to make himself all comfortable with her.
Either way, I was bored.
Getting to my feet, I walked past the office where she was once again threatening to leave. Wives did leave, for a short time, but then life as a civilian was hard work. Cops, the real ones that couldn’t be bought off, would circle like vultures, waiting to swoop down and snap them up.
Our lives were a constant balance between getting caught and being fucked. Most of the time, I liked it. When it came to my parents, if my mother left, it would throw my dad off his game.
See, love.
Odd though it was, he had it bad for my mom.
Business always came first.
Loyalty to a wife was always put on hold if the needs of the crew came first.
I slipped out of the house, breathing in the cool air. The two guards who weren’t supposed to be seen by me were already following me. They’d been guarding me for two years now. They weren’t very good at it. I often gave them the slip, and they didn’t have a clue where to look for me.
Tonight, though, with the threats surrounding us, I didn’t mind them tagging along as I made my way to Gael’s house.
Caleb’s, Gael’s, Vadik’s, and my house were the biggest four within the neighborhood. The way the streets were set up, we controlled the four corners, and the smaller houses were filled with our subjects. Our houses could be seen for miles and for most, it was nothing more than a reminder about what we could do and the power we held within our grasp. Nothing could get past us. We knew everything.
I didn’t bother to knock as I got to Gael’s house. Stepping inside, I instantly heard the cries.
The kitchen staff were engrossed in their job of feeding.
Weaving my way through, I held my knife in my grip. A look a lot of people had gotten used to. Being taken at sixteen, tortured, and filled with the knowledge you had a whole lot of enemies you didn’t know would do that for you. It happened to me, which pissed me off.
My dad caught the guys who’d slashed me up. The scars still decorated my body, and he’d handed the man to me as a gift with a giant pink bow.
I’d always been fascinated by pink. I didn’t know why. It was a color I liked. No one would laugh at me though.
Along with being taken, I’d become a keen marksman with my knife.
I didn’t have to get far to find the cause of all the moaning.
Gael sat on the stairs, trying to perfect his trick of running a lighter through his fingers. He didn’t like how I was able to do it with a knife. He’d been trying for months, and still no such luck.
Staying out of the way of the beating that was happening, I slid down next to Gael.
“What’s going on?”
“Bleeding dude tried to go to the cops. Of course, the cops delivered him here. He had a whole load of documents ready and waiting to send to the feds.” Gael winced.
I turned to look.
The file of papers was now being stapled to the bleeding man. Screams filled the air with each plunge down of the stapler. The man’s nose was already broken, as were his arm and leg. The beating had been really bad.