by Elena Monroe
“I’ve heard things have been going smoothly for you…” I didn’t miss the fact that his voice was full of shock.
It didn’t matter if I won first place every time; nothing was good enough for this man.
I’ve known that from a young age, but yet here I am, still hellbent on winning. Riddle me that.
I want unconditional love.
I want to make the people who despise me, love me.
I want to be all the evil I am to win his approval.
There’s something about the ability that parents have to hang shit over your head for life.
“Almost sounds like a compliment,” I scoffed, already wishing this dinner was over when it hadn’t even begun. This was just drinks on the patio.
“Don’t get smug under my roof. I don’t need these boys taking after you.”
The bastard children.
The half breeds.
The children he loves more than me.
“They should consider themselves lucky to take after my drive, my motivation, my obedience.” I felt those traits swell in my chest as I took down my scotch that I would need for the punishment coming my way.
No one talks back to my dad. I’ve seen him pop Bowen for his sharp tongue with very little guilt afterwards.
“You have enough; let your brothers have some,” he said, without explaining. I knew exactly what he meant: Let them be their own people, because clearly I’m such a full disappointment.
The original family disappointment.
My mind reeled, going down some dark paths, circling the same thought: He thought this was a fucking gift? The Clave? The deaths and torture? The headaches? The hate for myself was a gift?
A gift would have been wearing a condom and avoiding this exchange right now.
Our heads turned towards each other when we heard my stepmommy shriek in the way she did at almost everything, but it still set off our internal alarms anyways.
Both standing up at the same time, we followed the sound to the front door, where she stood with the door wide open, pulling someone in for a tight hug.
Not just anyone, someone with pink hair.
“It’s so good to finally meet someone Vic is interested in!” Stepmommy was in her feelings and suffocating Justice.
Just seeing her reminded me of how pissed I actually was still.
I made no moves towards her. I was planted where I was with my drink still in one hand and a cigar in the other. “What are you doing here?”
Stepmommy pulled away, squeezing her hand. “It doesn’t matter why. You’re here now, and I’m gonna set an extra place for you at the table. Do you like steak?”
In unison we spoke, our words overlaying: “She’s vegan.” “I’m vegan actually.”
My stepmommy paused, taking in her response and snapping her manicured fingers. “No worries! Jacque will make you something.” The only good part about her was how she could read the room when she dragged my dad out of the room with her.
“I didn’t mean to barge in... that’s a lie. I did. Khaos told me you were here, and I wanna talk.”
“I said all I wanted to say, Justice.”
I watched her sway her hips slightly, like standing still wasn’t something she could do. Being vulnerable and forfeiting the battle wasn’t easy for her.
That made my lips pull to one side, appreciating that about her.
“Vic, I don’t want to go into the gory details of my past until I figure out what this is…” Her voice was a gentle nudge.
“Friends, right? Crystal clear.” I wasn’t feeling very forgiving. I walked away, inhaling my cigar, making it clear I was done talking.
She wanted to figure what this was? Well, tonight, I’ll make shit real clear.
I’m her boss.
I’m not her friend, fuck buddy, or whatever the fuck else my feelings were trying to morph this into.
Her footsteps stayed behind me, following me through the house to the huge kitchen my stepmommy begged my dad for when they celebrated their tenth anniversary. She loved hosting, and it not being all boys this time had a light in her eyes I hadn’t seen before.
Setting my glass down, I poured another two fingers over the stones sitting at the bottom, before I found my dad in the room looking at her like she had invaded his space and he wanted her gone. He didn’t trust anyone, especially women, after my mom up and left us.
“What’s your name again?” he asked, with his eyes still focusing on her with too much intention.
“Justice Fritz.” She offered a hand, like a well-behaved individual, when we both knew I had better descriptors for her behavior.
Too friendly.
Too inspiring.
Too much of a turncoat.
Too slutty.
My dad didn’t even respond, letting her stew in the room with her hand out, waiting for him to meet her halfway.
It was a failed impression on her part: uninvited and... the hair. Neither would win over a Rockefeller the way she might have hoped.
“She’s my assistant. She is also the reason Sam is dead.” I threw it out like a match, and she was the gasoline. I was going to let her burn right here in the middle of the kitchen.
Why would I care? She was my employee, not someone I should protect from the snake I called Dad. She blushed, like the room actually got hotter and flames were licking her legs.
She stammered around the words and tried to explain, but failed for the second time. My dad was a chairman, on the board, and above my pay grade. There wasn’t much he didn’t know, and this was a safe space to speak freely the way she wanted to.
Always fighting for information.
My dad’s eyes were stuck on me when he spoke, and I knew somehow I had overstepped. You can always tell by the way your stomach twists and turns. “Shut your mouth, Victory. It’s not polite, bragging about your wins. I taught you to take the win, not demean it later.”
Turning to Justice, he offered his hand, shaking hers as an equal, instead of making her kiss the ring. “Nice to meet you, Justice. Someone needed to grow the balls to get rid of that airhead.”
Scoffing, I headed to the dinner table to escape their bonding. I didn’t need to watch my dad love someone else more than me for the millionth time in my life. I was well enough aware.
Everyone soon followed—Justice, Dad, Stepmommy, and their kids all poured into the room in a disorderly fashion.
My half-breed brothers were 7, 13, and 16—all impressionable and outside the Clave completely. They didn’t have the right to be included with their mom’s blood circulating through their veins. I offered to drain them out when they were all much younger and she seemingly couldn’t stop getting pregnant, despite my dad not being a dad type.
Correction: He was a great dad, just not to me.
Don’t worry… Mom got some credit for fucking me up too. She’s just not here to take the lashing.
With everyone around the table, trying to pick seats, while I was already sitting and finishing my cigar, my dad barked, “Be a fucking gentleman and pull out her chair!”
Great, now I was forced to be nice to her, when all I wanted to do was show her my fangs.
Pulling out her chair, I waited for her to settle in before I could sit like the gentleman I was trained to be—gracious winner and traditional gentleman, with a face that begged you to not see the bad in me.
As we passed the salad bowl around the table, I felt Justice’s hand squeeze my thigh under the table, making me jump ever so slightly, not physically, but my attention certainly got yanked by her leash.
Whispering in a low tone, she leaned in, “We need to talk. Can we go somewhere?”
“You want to talk, then we’ll talk. What about?” I wasn’t matching her hushed tone at all, and I could sense my dad’s ears perk and his listening skills get turned up. “Is this about how I called you a slut or about how Rodriguez knocked you up when you were younger and you felt like I didn’t need to know? Or is it that we’re j
ust friends, and I’m reacting differently than expected? Is this not the mask you want me to wear? Who should I be, Justice?”
“Don’t do this in front of your family, Vic… please.” She wasn’t a woman who begged, even when I was nine inches deep, but she sure did now.
“They don’t care, Justice. Hasn’t that been clear since you walked in? I’m a foot soldier with a bad sentiment, and I’m forced to be the guy I hate. Now you can hate that guy too.”
Justice sat still, scarlet red, with her eyes watering so much I could see them rimmed in red already. Shooting up, I snatched my drink, ready to blow off dinner, when my dad’s fist hit the table with so much force it rocked my commitment to being this guy tonight.
Not who I wanted to be when I was alone with her.
“Sit the fuck down and apologize.”
Ignoring him, I was a grown man who decided I was leaving, and this was going to be the one time I didn’t comply. I downed my drink before setting the glass on the small slender table against the wall, just before I felt myself get pulled back by the shirt and my flat features crinkled up into a grimace at the aggression.
The kind of raw aggression my dad brought to the table was enough to jolt your adrenaline awake and get your fists ready to throw punches.
Gaining some of my balance back, he stopped, making his point clear.
“No, thanks, Dad. I’m good. Lost my appetite.”
His ring collided with my chiseled out cheekbone, and I felt the skin break under his heavy backhand. I was almost positive his ring left a branding behind, also making it clear that I’m just property of the Clave.
Unwinding my jaw, I tried to loosen it up and ignore the sharp pain in my face as I pulled out my chair and slumped down. I didn’t mean to be sulking, but I could feel Justice’s concern engulf me. Her witnessing this was making it so much more embarrassing.
“What, are you gonna sulk all fucking night? You’ve always been a sore loser. You never learned how to lose, even to a woman like Justice. Cheers to our winner tonight.” He laughed, eating my pain and swallowing my pride whole.
Stepmommy Dearest caught my eye with her sympathy stare, trying to prove just how unlike she was from him, this world, and the monsters it creates. She still married him, though, so her sympathy was lost on me.
“I heard you had a conflict with Dante…” He moved on, after a moment of silence, and the only noise was silver against china.
I sat up straighter, cutting my meat when one of their “house managers”—apparently calling them maids was now a political issue—set down Justice’s special meal, topped with chickpeas. “We can blame your winner for that too.”
The white noise in the room seemed to go even more silent when he held his knife in my direction. “And who gave you permission to fire one of my employees?” Staying silent, I knew he wasn’t done. My dad loved answering his own questions, in a true Rockefeller way. “Always losing focus of the bigger picture. Know your place, and from that vantage point, you’ll see why I’m so hard on you.”
Standing up again, I pushed out my chair, letting it scrape against the hardwood floors, letting it topple over as I stared down at him. This vantage point was more to my liking. Leaving, I grabbed my suit jacket off the coat rack by the door and fished my keys out of the pocket. There was no point in overstaying my welcome.
Hearing Justice speak up against my dad, I stilled, listening closely: “I know it’s not my place, and I don’t know the dynamics at work here, but your son works very hard at what he does, always wins every battle, and he’s always so tough, even if he doesn’t want to be. He’s forced to be this version of himself that leaves all his uniqueness behind for you. The only reason he hurt Donte was because he assaulted me, so blame me, because he was being a son that you should be proud of.”
My chest swelled hearing her desire to argue turn into something completely unexpected. She was defending me, saving me—the way I did for her.
My head was turned upside down, and I was trying to see straight with her words fogging up my anger, smearing it away.
Finding me still by the door, her footsteps faltered, suddenly surprised to see that I had overheard her. She didn’t even need to be close for me to feel the transitional place we were trapped in starting to betray us. Her cheeks were still pinched pink, and her hands fiddled against each other out of sheer nervousness.
When she finally spoke, it was soft and delicate—the opposite of what I defined her as: “What was that about? Why is your dad like that?”
“It’s a chapter of my book I skip over. It’s easier that way. Now I live only in epilogues that capture the fallout.”
“Maybe I don’t want to skip chapters anymore. We need to fight this out before we can move on.”
Taking her hand, I dragged her out of my parents’ oversized house, which only seemed to be getting more empty every time I showed up for a Friday dinner.
“Don’t you think you owe me an apology, friend?”
The driveway was empty, all except for my Porsche, that both of us were on either side of.
How fitting. Opposite sides.
She threw her hands up in the air before shouting, “You know what, Vic? This is toxic! We are toxic! We can’t even fight like normal people! This is abuse!”
She started walking down the steep driveway, ending on a note I didn’t like.
I hit the top of my car, smacking the metal in frustration when I shouted back, “It’s not abuse if you can both take it! We can both take what we dish out and what we are served with!”
Justice wanted the last word, and me having it forced her to spin on her heel, now even more pent up.
“I’ll apologize for lying, but I’m not sorry for fucking him or what I chose to do afterwards. I’m not sorry that I have a past.”
Crossing my arms and legs, I waited to hear those magical words that I swear would bury my mask when I heard them. I normally didn’t want to know people were sorry because that means they’re committed to doing better next time, and I’d rather see people give up on the next time.
Justice made me wanna hear them.
Don’t give up on me.
“You need to apologize too. For the word slut, you man whore.” She took a few steps closer, enough to push her shoulder into mine and lean right next to me.
“What’s an apology? Don’t use big fancy words around me.”
Our hands were dangling at our sides when the back of them touched. Then our knuckles scraped against our fingers, until I clutched her whole hand in mine.
“Count of three?” she countered.
“1… 2…” I said the words slowly, but got right with the idea that I was going to say the words whether I liked it or not.
“I’m sorry,” tumbled from my lips, like a goddamn professional, and I watched her mouth turn up into a smile without holding up her end of the bargain.
“I just wanted you to say it first. You were tonight’s loser, so I didn’t wanna give you whiplash by all of a sudden making you a winner.” She giggled at her own burn, and I wanted nothing more than to keep her forever.
Slamming our mouths together, our lips dragged along each other's, waiting for one of us to give up and let our tongues tangle. Wrapping my arm around her waist, I pulled her flush against me, and she gasped, giving me the opportunity to slip inside.
I was falling in love with Justice, both kinds, and it was the only thing in this life that scared me.
I wasn’t afraid to fuck, fight, or kill, but when it came to the girl standing up for the guy with a list of bad shit I’ve done in my life, I was just a power tripping asshole being brought to my knees.
I was at her mercy, losing the battle against my feelings.
Our lips still touching, she pulled away for only long enough to whisper between us, “I’m sorry.”
And just like I knew it would, she buried my mask with another layer of dirt. Eventually, she would put the darkest parts of me six feet deep.
> JUSTICE
Fighting came as naturally to me as much as it did to Vic. That was the scary part: He had the back of the Clave, and I had the restless people on this street ready to do what it takes for change.
We both had our own armies.
Meadow had her hands on her hips, staring at me sitting on the concrete, trying to think of a solution for not having our posters. Everyone else did their part, and as their leader, I failed them this time.
“What was more important than this? We can’t march without the point being clear.”
“I left them at work, Meadow. I didn’t do this on purpose. It’s been crazy at work.”
“I thought your boss didn’t need your help, and you sat around all day…?” Her tone made it clear that I fucked up.
The meet up parking lot was filling up, with even more cars still pulling in, and my leg bounced out the anxious energy, just as someone pulled up right next to where I was sitting.
Once I looked in that direction, I saw the off white Porsche I knew all too well, and every other car I knew the lame-ass boy band to have. All except Khaos, who jumped out of Vic’s car before he did.
“What up, ladies? We brought provisions and some manpower.” Dropping his board, I knew he was going to be trouble, but my anxiety seemed to settle just being near Vic.
Opening the front of his car, he showed off a trunk full of boxes, including shirts and signs ready for the Rape Axe. Without being able to truly comprehend any of this, I shot up and wrapped my arms around his neck.
He whispered into my ear, only for me, “You saved me, and I don’t like unpaid debts.”
Grimm was next to Vic with Bowen when I finally pulled away. “Thanks for coming, guys.”
Bowen threw an axe over his shoulder, using his hands to light a joint, when he must have seen all of our eyes widen. “The text said it was about an axe. I didn’t have protest shit ready to go for this moment.”
“Not a real axe. The Rape Axe, it protects women from being raped. It grips onto the rapist upon forced entry and doesn’t let go and has to be surgically removed. It’s illegal in the states.”