Juliet scrambled to cover her body as tears filled her eyes.
I jerked a sheet from the bed and pulled it over her. Throwing on my slacks, I charged toward him in a rage that felt so powerful I was actually prepared to kill him, smiling while doing it.
“Get the fuck out!” I shoved him against the wall. “Now!”
He stumbled back. He was fit for his age, but he stood no chance against me. Calmly laughing, he buckled his pants up. “What? You used to like my observations, my corrections, my suggestions.”
“I’m not asking again.” I slammed the wall with my hand. A picture crashed to the floor as drywall flew all around us. The one of me and my mom. “Say another word, and I will kill you.”
His smile was cruel, arrogant, punishing, locking eyes with me. “So you’d add another murder to your record? To this poor room?” He looked past me toward Juliet. “Scary, isn’t he? When he’s not controlled… Know you always have a safe space with me.”
“Troy!” I roared. “Out! Now!”
“Hmm.” He held up his hands in innocence, smile still in place. “It seems she is different… How very…”—his right eyebrow arched—“wonderful for you.”
Bullshit.
I clenched my teeth as he backed away and left the room.
Everything came out of me in a rush, crumbling on top of my head. The memories. The pain.
The fear for her, then for Juliet.
Never for myself.
Troy was out of the room, but I could hear his footsteps and his last words. “Once a murderer, always a murderer…”
And I was gone.
Stuck in a world I’d purposefully forgotten. Stuck in a state of repeating history and needing a desperate escape.
“Donovan.” Juliet was at my side in an instant as I stared at the wall, down at the blood still on the floor, then back at the wall.
It centered me.
Sometimes that was life, right? You had no choice but to subject yourself to memories that threatened to destroy you.
Relive them.
Watch them.
Own them.
Knowing that you would do nothing different in the end, that the outcome would be the same, and hating yourself when you realized that you brought more players into the game when all you wanted was a safe place.
An escape.
Pain.
Pleasure.
Her.
I shook my head.
“Donovan,” she stressed my name again, the same way my mom used to with that same care, that same tenderness—concern. It killed me, burned my soul into fucking flames.
“You killed her!” I screamed. “You fucking killed her!”
Father threw his head back and laughed. “Oh, son, what else was I supposed to do with a pet I no longer needed? A product that was past its shelf life?”
I couldn’t think.
Couldn’t even speak.
I just saw the cat o’ nine tails and gripped it in my hand, ready to strike. I wasn’t a boy anymore hiding in the closet. I was a nineteen-year-old man, and this was my vengeance.
His smile grew. “Are you going to finally grow a set of fucking balls and hit me? You gonna make me bleed, son?” He held his hands out wide. “Do it.” His nostrils flared. “I dare you.”
“Donovan, where did you go? What’s going on? Are you okay?” Juliet rocked me in her lap.
I recounted the memory to her in a harsh whisper. “It was dinner time.”
“Okay, okay.” She caressed my face with her knuckles, pulling the sheet over my body as I shivered. “What else, baby?”
Baby?
I would have scoffed, but I was frozen.
“It…” I started. “It was … bad. He was different, like her death broke the last sane part of him, even though I watched it. I saw it. It was his fault. She was so pretty.” I kept the tears in. “Her eyes were still open, and he made me close them. I prayed to a god who never saved us. To a family who she said would rescue us and nothing, nothing … because everyone always lets you down, Juliet.”
“Not everyone,” she expressed quickly.
“Yes,” I murmured. “Everyone.”
My head fell back against her lap as I was brought back into the memory like I was right there in the present time.
My body might have been with Juliet.
However, my mind, heart, and soul were with my father.
“Whip me,” he taunted. “Do it, just like I punished your mom. I’m so proud of you, Donovan, finally coming into yourself, the family business… HIT ME!”
So I did.
Again and again.
Enjoying the pleasure.
As I enjoyed inflicting pain.
I reached into the back of my jeans and pulled out a knife. The sickest part? He seemed to enjoy the fact that I was trying to threaten him, that I wanted to kill him; in the end, he was breaking me to become just like him.
Forget hugs.
He wanted blood.
So I would give it to him.
“Kill me. I fucking dare you to even try.”
I counted.
I counted how many times the whip gripped into his skin, how many times it made the slick sound of skin getting churned.