The Camp (Chateau 2)

I purposely walked up to Alix and put him on the spot. “Any news to share with me?” I got so close to him that he was forced to take a step back. Of course, I moved in again, just to make him uncomfortable. The beating I gave him was more than enough retribution for what he had done to me on so many occasions, but I would never forget the sound of my woman’s screams, forget the way she woke up in the middle of the night and stared right at the door, like he was coming for her. I’d publicly humiliated him when I made him bloody and made him ask for mercy, but would that ever be enough after what he did to her?

No.

I didn’t care about what he had done to me. I cared about what he had done to her. And sometimes I wondered if I would just snap one day…and kill him.

Alix found his answer. “No. Everything has been running on schedule.”

“How’s your nose?”

He didn’t speak.

I spat right on his face, knowing I hit my mark when he jerked back slightly.

The other guards didn’t react at all and kept their eyes on the girls.

“You’re my bitch now, asshole.” I walked off and headed to my cabin, knowing no amount of humiliation would subdue my anger. He’d provoked me too many times, and then he went after the one thing I actually cared about.

Raven and I fell back into our old routine. I worked late catching up on everything that needed my attention, and when I returned to the cabin, I sat at my desk and worked on my laptop.

Raven sat on the floor, leaning against the bed to watch the TV. She was quiet, rarely talking about her day and rarely asking me anything. I knew she wasn’t upset with me. This place just infected her mood like a virus.

When she was ready for bed, she turned off the TV, brushed her teeth in the bathroom, and then got under the sheets. We no longer shared an oversize bed, but we didn’t mind being pushed together into a single person.

My back was to her, and I continued to work on my laptop.

Her voice was low as she spoke. “How did you get into this business?”

I answered as I typed. “We started as distributors on the street. We would sell a few ounces so we could make rent and buy food. The older we got, the more ambitious we became. We eventually took control of the business we used to work for, and the rest is history.”

“So, after the night when…everything happened…that was what you did to survive.”

“We had no other choice.”

“I can’t even imagine.”

I remembered everything like it was yesterday. “For the first few weeks, we lived on the street. Fender got pneumonia, and we couldn’t afford to see a doctor, so I had to rob some guy…” It was wrong, but I didn’t feel guilty about it. If I hadn’t gotten my brother what he needed, he would’ve died. “We would eat people’s leftover food from the garbage can. We would live outside in the elements, hot and cold. We couldn’t go to the police or do anything else because we knew our father would hunt us down and finish the job. It was a rough two years…until we got into the drug business. We were desperate and ambitious, and the desperation led to the empire we have now. It’s another reason Fender is so obsessed with money because he doesn’t ever want to feel helpless again.” A lot of other terrible things happened to us in that time period, but I chose not to disclose them. Everything I’d already said was heavy enough.

She was quiet, like she had no idea what to say to that.

“I don’t agree with what we do to the girls here, but I’m not ashamed of everything else I’ve done. I don’t feel bad for the people I robbed. I don’t feel bad for being, first, a drug dealer and then a drug kingpin. I don’t feel bad for the lies I told to good people because I needed something from them. When you’re in survival mode, you have to do bad things to live to see the next day. Anyone who judges me can be damned.” At this point, I knew there was nothing I could tell Raven that would make her feel differently about me. We were bound by the journey we both took to be together. We suffered greatly for each other, and that kind of loyalty was unbreakable. So, I told her everything without a filter, just so she could understand me a little better. Understand my brother a little better.

She still didn’t say anything.

The silence stretched for so long that I turned around in my chair to look at her.