by S C Jones
“But I didn’t say anything about what I actually did… You were my first, O. You weren’t supposed to be but you were.”
She glared at him; nose flaring, fists clenched so tightly at her side her knuckles were turning white. “This is fucking stupid. You’re a liar.” She turned her back on him looking down at the floor. He was bull shitting her, just like he did that night, but now wiser, and she wasn't falling for it.
“We agreed that I would only be doing the transporting, but someone else couldn’t do their job so he insisted I do it. It just so happen that my eyes landed on you," he said from behind her.
She refused to turn. “I still don’t believe you.”
“Then why are you still here!” he yelled before pulling her into his chest, and lifting her chin so she would look at him. “Believe it or not, like I said I’m no liar… I hate what I do. I hate what I did to you, but I had no choice—”
She pushed but he wouldn't let go. “See that’s the thing, we always have a choice—”
“Well I don’t. As long as he’s alive I never have a choice. You think I like doing this? That I get some sick thrill by seeing those girls tied up knowing they are about to be thrown to the wolves.”
“Then what’s the secret?” She gazed at him with a cocked head.
His hard eyes penetrated hers while he held her close. “What?”
“The big bad secret that he’s holding over you. I’m not stupid, Cas. I know the only reason he’s controlling you is because he has something on you. I heard you say it more than once. So, what is it?”
Unblinking with a hunted look in his eyes he released her blinking away. The thought of telling her that part of his past was something he couldn’t do. What would she think if she knew who he really was. Knew what he was capable of. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Fine then,” she spun away headed toward the elevator.
“Where exactly are you going?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t know, Cas,” she said callously. “I might go home, I might even head to a bar get drunk and maybe even take a guy home to fuck me senseless since I’m so clearly frustrated and can’t get what I need from you because of all this bullshit between us.”
“I wouldn’t do any of that if I were you.” The warning in his tone gave her a thrill she would usually long for if this were a different situation.
She didn’t look back. “Why? Are you going to kidnap me again?”
“I won’t, but someone else just might.”
With anger coursing through her veins she turned on him, jabbing a finger into his chest. “Don’t you dear fucking threaten me,” she huffed. “I didn’t deserve any of this and don’t you think for one second that you can scare me. So, you and your father can just go to hell because I don’t owe you a damn thing.”
“You're right, you don’t, but the thing about my father is he makes it his business to have everyone in his corner. So, you’ll be dead before you even make it past the glass doors and trust me, they’ll make it look like an accident.” His hand moved up her arm leaving a fiery trail along the way. She hated that he still had that effect on her even after what was said and done. “As for you going out and fucking someone else you wouldn’t dear and you know why?”
She pulled away and turned walking away again, only to be stopped short when she felt both his hands around her waist. She wanted to pull away, but when his hand started moving down her hip toward the heat between her legs she couldn’t move. All she could do was breathe. “Why?” she whispered when his other hand swept the hair on her shoulder aside, and his lips touched her bare skin.
“Because you feel it too.” His fingers moved between her legs. “Because although you’re mad at me, you want this as much as I do. You want me as much as I want you.” His fingers moved along the inside of her thong before gently pressing on her clit. Her thoughts of leaving soon became lost, over shadowed by shallow breaths. “And because you are mine.” Another kiss along her neck, she moaned, sinking further into his touch, wanting more. “You want this. If you hadn’t come here to rip me a new one, I’d be buried deep inside you by now. You want this.”
“Oh…so sure… of yourself aren’t you,” she said in short breaths as two fingers slid inside her wetness.
“Still trying to deny it even with my fingers dripping wet.”
“I don’t even know if I like you anymore,” she lied making him chuckle. Sadly, she liked him a lot more than she’d like to admit, and he knew it no matter what she said.
“That’s okay because your body still does… I know you think I’m a liar or that I want to hurt you in some way, but understand, that I never could. I couldn’t do it six years ago and sure as hell can’t do it now, O. I need you to see that. That, that one mistake would haunt me for the rest of my life, and need to make it right. I’m not asking you to forgive me, just let me replace that memory with something else, something better,” he whispered dolefully in her ear. Turning in his arms they both gazed at each other, and even though she knew that she should be running away without so much as an after thought, she also knew he was right. They were tangled together in one of the worst ways possible, and nothing was going to change that.
"Okay."
Eighteen
Lying on his back staring at the white ceiling, Castell took a deep breath. He was playing with fire sleeping with her again, but he couldn’t help it, hell he couldn’t be in the same room with her and not want to spread her wide, and bury himself deep. She was intoxicating in every sense, and like every other time before she was impossible to forget.
She laid on her side pressed up against his chest fast asleep. His eyes skimmed her body, from her hair spilled all over his white sheets, down the smoothness of her neck, shoulders, and breasts as he watched her breathe in. After spending almost two hours indulging in every part of her body, he understood why she was asleep, but why couldn’t he? Every single word she had said was on repeat in his head, she wanted the story. The one he hadn’t told since the day it happened all those years ago. Wanted to know who he was bred to be, and what he had done that put him there. To him it didn’t matter that she would know how they crossed paths, but feared that she would see him for what he truly was. She had called him a monster more times than he could count, but what would she call him once she heard the whole story.
“I had a sister once… I was fifteen when she was born. Layla was the name my mother chose after months of debating back and forth. I remember she had this book called, “A thousand baby names and their meanings,” and she would always ask me what I thought of the ones she was considering, until she saw the name Layla and screamed, “That’s it, that’s the one,” never looking at anything else again.” He smiled remembering his mother’s laugh and excitement that morning. It was the last smile he ever got and could never forget. “I never got to meet her though, Layla. Sadly, five hours after she was born, she died from a hole in her heart no one knew existed. It’s unimaginable really. One minute you’re happy preparing for a birth and the next, you’re watching a tiny casket being buried into the ground.” He paused with his jaw clenching. “We all felt the loss, but no one took it as hard as my mother. She had always wanted a daughter, and then she finally had one only to have her taken away before she had a chance to know her.” He took a deep breath closing his eyes as the images and sounds from that day replayed in his head.
He knew Olivia was awake by then, but she hadn't moved, listening to his confession. He was thankful for that; not sure he would have said anything if she was looking at him.
"After sitting in the waiting room for almost twenty minutes because my mother needed to rest, I went down to the cafeteria to grab a drink, only to return ten minutes later to her loud screams echoing through the hall. When I saw her tears, I watched two nurses on either side hold her arms while my father stood in the far corner with the doctor in a deep discussion. She stayed in that hospital for three weeks after which the doctors diagnosed her with d
epression. When she was finally allowed to come home for days all she did was sit in her room and stare out the windows. She wouldn’t answer when you asked her a question, she never smiled when I told a joke. She just wasn’t there anymore. I begged my father on numerous occasions to get her help, but each time he refused saying she was fine and needed time.
“At that time, I thought he was right. That he’s been married to my mother for twelve years, and out of anyone he should know her the best. But what I didn’t know is that he knew she was gone and he took that as an opportunity to live the life he wanted.
“Everything changed after a while. I’d come home and find different women either hanging around the pool or somewhere else in the house. He never once denied it. Said he had needs and my mother wasn’t healthy enough to meet his. I was sure she knew what was going on herself because the guest room bed was up against the wall behind her head.” The few nights he snuck in after getting drunk at some random party, he would pass the guest room, and some of the noises coming from behind it down right pissed him off knowing his mother could probably hear it too. He could never understand what kind of man would abandon his wife, disrespect her in her own home and would still demand respect from the people watching it happen. Castell loved his mother more than anything, and he despised the man she was married to even if he was still his father, the hatred ran deep.
“To make matters worse six months later my uncle Gavin moved in. He was my father’s brother, cut from my grandfather’s will because he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants and his mouth off a liquor bottle. So, after my grandfather died and all the money went to my father, Gavin let himself slip into a drug induced world. The only reason he wasn’t allowed to stay with us before was because of my mother’s hatred of him. Once she was no longer around my father allowed him to spend a few nights, until all his stuff was crammed into one of the downstairs bedrooms.
“I spent as much time outside of that house as I could. My father became a tyrant, always wanting things his way, always angry or always disappearing. My mother…well she really never came back even though she was physically in the house, and my uncle and I never saw eye to eye. My eighteenth birthday fell the day after graduation, so that weekend me and some friends decided to spend a couple days in Cancun, sort of a last hurrah of sorts. It was one of my better memories.” He stopped almost forgetting she was there until she finally turned in his arms. She didn't say anything, but kept her head against his chest. “Five days I spent practically in another world. I thought a lot in that time, about college and what I wanted my life to be. I wasn’t going to become my father, even if it was destiny or faith. He was the kind of man I never wanted to be, but somehow became in the blink of an eye.
“That Friday I returned from the trip getting home sometime around nine that morning. My father wasn’t home as usual, and neither was my uncle, so I went upstairs to check on mom. When I got there her bed was made, and she wasn’t in it… the room was cleaned, her clothes were folded neatly on the chair in the corner, and everything was as it should be, except my mother wasn’t there. In three years, my mother hadn’t left the house and today she wasn’t there.”
Ten years ago…
“Yeah,” dad answered curtly.
“Dad, I just got home. Mom isn’t here,” I said, my voice laced with fear because something wasn’t right. I sensed it the minute I walked through that front door and now it was becoming more prominent.
“I already know that, she hasn’t been there in four days,” he said.
I waited for the explanation, but nothing came. “Okay, so where the hell is she?” I asked harshly.
“Son your mother's dead,” he said calmly as if it didn’t matter. I could hear his fingers tapping against his keyboard as I replayed the words again and again until I still couldn’t fucking understand what he had said. He didn’t ease me into it, or even say he was fucking sorry. It was just, ‘your mothers dead.'
“What?” I finally said in disbelief.
“You know I hate repeating myself Castell.”
“She’s dead…w…what? How?”
“She killed herself, overdosed on her antidepressants. She was dead before I got to the hospital.”
“So…so what, I didn’t deserve to know. You couldn’t call me? I would have come home had I known my mother had died.”
“Look son I had other important things to deal with and you were at the bottom of the list. Your mother made her choice and she sure as hell didn’t consider me and I doubt she was even thinking of you when she decided to shove a bottle of pills down her throat—”
“What the fuck is wrong with you! Mom killed herself and you act like you don’t even care—”
“Because I don’t,” he said harshly. “Why should I care? She hasn’t cared about me in years and I should suddenly care that she’s dead.”
“She was your fucking WIFE,” I yelled about ready to hurl the phone across the room.
He snorted as I heard a small chuckle. “Really? And look what that’s gotten me,” he said in a bitter tone. I knew exactly what he was referring to. I saw it every time he looked at me. The mistake son he never wanted.
“I’m in the middle of a very important meeting right now and I could care less that your mother is dead. She chose her path and I’m choosing mine and right now I’m choosing to end this conversation.”
The line went dead.
“He buried her before I had a chance to say goodbye… I don’t think I have ever been more enraged in my entire life, than I was on that day. When I hung up that phone, I truly hated my father, and I wanted him dead. I wished him dead, I wished I had killed him. He deserved it, not her. He fucking deserved it." He blinked feeling the pain in his chest all over again. Nothing had compared to the lost of his mother, and that knowing the last time was truly the last time. His father was a cruel man for taking everything away from him, and the fact that he didn't care, made it all the worst.
“I sat in her room thinking of the last conversation I had with her. The one about the baby names. Then she told me how proud she was for the way I turned out. She was proud that I was her son. I wasn’t the best son, I knew that, but I was the best son to her because she was the best mom to me. It was selfish of him to act like she didn’t matter, because she did matter to me. I loved her even if he didn’t. She fucking mattered to me.” The anger he felt that day bubbled to the surface like he was right there reliving it all over again. All the hurt, and the pain that he never acknowledged was there in his voice. Olivia felt it, and moved her hand across his chest, with tears in her eyes. She was crying for him; he felt the wetness on his chest while trying to comfort her by running his hand through her hair. She still said nothing.
“For an hour I sat on her bed contemplating on what to do, how to go about this because my father had to pay. I laid back on the side she usually laid, when my hand brushed against something sticking out from under the mattress. She usually wrote things and stuck them under there for me to find. It was always something silly or poetic, but this time it was a letter. How she knew I would find it before anyone else did, I don’t know, but I did, and I read that letter over and over until I couldn’t see the words anymore. My hatred grew until it turned to anger, and that anger built into rage I couldn’t stop, that I couldn’t control. I knew there was no coming back. He was a dead man. Luckily for me, I got down stairs just as he walked through the front door.”
Ten years ago…
“Cas, my man you're back. Thought I was going to have to come down and join you guys,” he finally spun to face me, his smile going slack. “What’s wrong with you?” My fingers curled into fists as I crossed the room before grabbing him by the throat and slamming him back against the door.
“You’re a fucking piece of shit you know that. Now I know why she hated you so much.”
“Cas, what…the hell,” he huffed trying to breathe, but my hold on his neck was cutting off his air supply.
“You h
urt her.” I held the crumpled letter up for him to see. “You killed her. I’m going to make sure you fucking pay,” I growled. His stunned eyes stayed with me, about to say something else, but I didn’t let go until suddenly I was pushed a few inches away. We were both the same size, with me a few inches taller, so like myself I knew he had some strength. We were evenly matched.
He clutched his throat, coughing. “What the fuck are you talking about? What has gotten into you?”
“You’re what’s wrong with me you sick fuck. You couldn’t find anyone else.” I charged him, my fist connecting with his cheek, he stumbled, but quickly recovered sending his right fist into my side. I didn't feel it. Right then I didn't feel anything. I reached for his throat again gathering his shirt collar before hitting his face over and over again. He grabbed my biceps and pushed forward sending us both tumbling to the floor with me landing underneath him. We both attacked each other at this point. Fists connecting with flesh and bone. I took a few hits here and there, but nothing I couldn’t handle. Once it was my turn, I wanted blood.
I stood over him my fists connecting with his face again and again as I watched blood fall from his mouth. “You killed her.”
HIT.
“You fucking killed her.”
HIT.
“And now I’m going to kill you.” I heard myself say it, but my voice was unrecognizable. It wasn’t me anymore, it was as if I was possessed, like I was my father. I could no longer, feel, see or hear anything, but his bones cracking beneath mine as I watched him take hit after hit after hit, his face becoming unrecognizable when blood spilled from every opening.
I stopped long enough to watch him choke on his own blood. The fear that he was going to die was prominent in his eyes as I bent to get a good look at him. I whispered to him, choking on my own words because I couldn’t bear to say it, but he had to understand. “My innocent mother didn’t deserve that, not from anyone, especially you. She was sick and defenseless. Is that why you did it? Is that why you raped her because you knew she couldn’t fight back?” He groaned and blinked but didn’t answer. The truth was in his eyes, I didn’t need him to say anything. “You come into my house and you hurt my mother. You killed my mother. You and my father are really just two sides of the same coin. But trust me, just like he never protected her from you, there will be no one to protect him from me. You’ll see him again real soon. I promise.”