Sins of the Father (California Dreaming Book 2)

by Stacey Johnston

  Pity he did not pay attention to what our life became after he left. If he had, he would have seen how far from normal our life actually was.

  He confessed to having an evilness inside of him, that he could not fight. A thirst for death, he thrived on. My father goes on to admit to killing people, that the act of murder itself sexually aroused him. It was like an addiction. One, he both could not, and did not want to fight. That particular admission made me sick to my stomach.

  Finally, he told my mom, if she had received his letter, it meant he was dead. He had enclosed a life insurance policy, with me as the beneficiary, to secure my future. Dear old dad had also arranged that upon his untimely death, all his money and assets automatically transfer to my mother. He did not want her to struggle for anything either. I was beyond shocked. There were no words to describe what was going on in my head at that time. Stay with me, though, because, it does not end there...

  Putting the letter back where I found it, I headed for the bathroom. My hope had been to grab a quick shower before my mother came back. I had assumed, considering how dark the apartment was, that she wasn’t home. I wanted to shower, and then prepare dinner for when she finally dragged her ass in from wherever she was.

  Approaching the bathroom, the door was ajar and I could hear dripping.

  Sign number one, something was amiss...

  As I opened the door, I saw her.

  The confronting image, of my mother with her wrists slashed, hanging over the edges of the bathtub. From the looks of it, considering the amount of blood on the floor and bath, she had been dead for a while. In that moment my body went numb, becoming a frozen statue, stuck like glue to the tiles beneath my feet. There was nothing. I felt nothing.... Surely, that had to be wrong. Was I not meant to be screaming, crying, and yelling for help!

  Nevertheless, still nothing... but numbness. I could do nothing more than stare at her, stare at the helpless shell of a woman she had become. Deep down, I think I had been waiting for that day to come for the past eight years. After calling the police, I called Sophie, and within minutes, she and her parents surrounded me.

  I wish I could say, the story ended there, but that would be an incorrect assumption...

  You see, over the days that followed, Sophie's dad learned, my father was, in fact, the one he had been tracking. The same one who had forced Ben, the other guys, and their families, into witness protection. He had been under their noses the whole time, but their paths had never crossed.

  I thought for sure I would be rejected when the news of this got out, but what I received was the complete opposite. There was more support than I could have ever imagined. I suppose it was only natural considering in a space of a few days, I became an orphan.

  I wasn't prepared for any of it - not for my parent's deaths, or for the Valentine family welcoming me into their home.

  None of it felt real.

  With both my parents gone in a heartbeat, and no other family to be found, Sarah, Sophie's mom - would not take no for an answer. In all seriousness, though, after my mother's funeral, I had nowhere else to go.

  The most surprising thing for me was the way Ben, Stephen, Kyle, and Luke treated me. Those four boys had more reason than anyone to turn away from me. After all, it was my father, who had caused them all this drama in the first place. I would have been devastated if that had happened, because before the shit hit the fan, I was starting to form a connection with Stephen. It's not as if I have guys falling all over me, but this one, was one you wouldn't see as being my type and I liked being around him.

  Laying that all aside, during the time we had spent together, he had somehow brought out a side of me I didn't know existed but was showing a keenness to explore. Out of the four of them, he would have to be the quietest. Don't let that fool you, though, because his reputation at our school is no better than any of the others’. The only one to reform his wild ways was Ben, and we have our girl Sophie to thank for that. His and Luke's reputations far exceeded any of the others, those two took feral to a completely new level. Nowadays, though, that one would have his balls in a vice if he even thought of stepping out of line. It is quite amusing. Never thought I would see the day when Ben finally met his match.

  Still, there was something about Stephen I was drawn to.

  When he smiled at me, his whole face lit up, displaying the cutest dimples. My stomach has a habit of curling up in knots, whenever he quirks the corner of his mouth slightly upwards. It is a trait of his I find adorable. His eyes remind me of dark chocolate, a beautiful brown color, radiating with sex appeal. One of my favorite things about him is the just fucked look he always has going on with his hair. It's wavy, and although it isn't very long, he always looks like he has just rolled out of bed.

  Okay, so maybe I don't know what just fucked looks like, but it is my definition, and I am going with it.

  As for his body, I have no words for that, except WOW, I mean holy hell he is hot. You could be mistaken for thinking he was athletic, with every inch of him - that I have seen, rock hard.

  Abs, biceps, triceps, pecks all those muscles, most of us know wouldn’t know anything about, were hard as stone. All I can tell you is I just want to run my hands across every hard surface on his body when I look at him. If I had a preference, it would definitely be his ass. No idea why; I just like what I see.

  After the incident with my father, each of the boys marked their bodies with ink. The four of them wanted something to symbolize what they had been through. Over their hearts, they each had three Chinese symbols tattooed. One for strength, one for passion and one for courage. Underneath these symbols are the words 'Forget what hurt you, but never forget what it taught you'.

  In my eyes, that boy is perfection rolled up in one big ball of hotness.

  What attracts me the most is how he pushes me to strive to be more than what you see. To be more than the mousey, shy girl no one really notices. He can calm me in a way no one ever could. I suppose, this wouldn't be hard, considering I generally don’t let many people this close to me.

  On the topic of my father, all I received from Ben, Stephen, Luke and Kyle was that I am not my father's daughter. They wanted me to be proud of whom I was, not stress on where I came from. Those boys have been hanging around Sophie way too long, all her weird interpretations of stuff is rubbing off on them.

  What I found in these four, and the Valentine family is more than I could have ever wished for. I just hope they are accurate on their assumption, and I am not anything like my father. The only positive to come out of the whole mess is I now have money. When I say that, I mean I’m now, extremely well off. It would appear I’m my mother's sole heir. This means I get everything she owned, including what my father left her when he died. To top it off, I also have the insurance policy left to me by my father as well.

  The most disturbing detail is the lack of grief I have been feeling over my parent's deaths. Initially, I was in shock, but I still have not cried. I honestly don't believe I ever will. Compound this guilt to the rest I have been carrying over the years, and I would appear to be one very messed up girl. I cannot say I feel like I have lost anything, though. I think this is because I lost everything a long time ago. You can’t grieve something that was never there to begin with.

  Now that we have caught up with the events of late, we can come back to the now, the present...

  The last month has been chaotic to say the least, but with every step I have had to take, there has been someone right beside me. That, in itself, has meant more to me than I could ever show. For the past hour or so, Sophie, and I have been busy packing. It seems now all the drama is finished, Anthony and Sarah are moving me into their apartment. They are hoping the move will provide me with the stability that being part of a family brings - stability, my own biological parents could not give me.

  Even though they realize I can afford to buy my own house, they believe I am better off with them. They are helping me manage the money left to me,
setting up a trust account to safeguard it. I have organized for a monthly allowance so I can support myself from now, and right through college. The funny thing was discovering I have no other family or none that I am aware of. No one has crawled out of the woodwork now my parents are gone.

  I can't deny the overload of emotions bombarding me over the past month. My brain is still trying to process everything, but I am comforted knowing I have such wonderful people supporting me. Right now, Sophie and I are in the midst of packing my mother's stuff. Anything that isn’t mine personally will be placed into storage. I don’t have it in me to go through every little item. I want it done, and out of eyesight, so that I can start the process of moving forward.

  Anthony has also arranged for the CIA to have the same thing done with my father's possessions. His office has already ransacked my father's apartment. Once his identity was discovered, they begin looking further into his life. From the little information Anthony has filtered my way, he was involved in a lot more than originally anticipated. They have been looking for anything that would tell them, who had employed my dad's services over the years. The evidence they found so far, links him to some of the worst criminals the CBI has ever seen. I was only granted access to the apartment once they had stripped it bare of anything they deemed important.

  In my eyes, as long as I’m not affected, I don't care what they do. All his belongings will be stored, along with my mother's, for me to go through later. What I did find remarkable though, was the amount of crap we were left to pack in the first place. Who would have thought we owned so much stuff! I certainly underestimated this particular task.

  "Earth to Sherlyn, come in Sherlyn," Sophie is yelling at me, her hands frantically waving around in my face. "Are you with me?” She asks.

  "Yes, I am with you," I quietly reply. "Just thinking about everything that has happened. It is surreal, wouldn't you say."

  Giving me a weird look, she starts laughing, "That's an understatement," she barks out, shoving my shoulder. "Let's finish up; my dad is on his way over to pick us up."

  Putting the tape on the final box, I gather my things, taking one last look around at what has been my home for the past few years. The strange thing is the little imperfections you tend to pay attention to are what you notice the most. Like, how yellow the walls look once all the pictures are gone, or the cracks in skirting boards once the lounge chairs were removed. These little things highlight the faults in a room designed to perfection.

  Much like my life - imperfections put on display once the world revolving around me had crumbled.

  I would like to say that I am reminiscing about the good times, but those were far and few between. Following Sophie, I leave the apartment, heading down to where Anthony has just pulled up alongside the curb. I don’t want to be here any longer than I need to, leaving the movers to gather the boxes tomorrow. I have even allowed Sarah to organize cleaners to come through, and do the rest.

  Across the road, I briefly notice a man leaning against the light pole watching me. With his face in the shadows just out of eyeshot, he is standing there with his arms crossed, staring. There is something about him that I find unsettling and familiar, like he knows who I am. Brushing it off, I feel Sophie's hand on my shoulder. Her touch is one of comfort, as I position myself in the back seat of her father's car. Turning away from the stranger, I direct my eyes forward, attempting to reign in my emotions.

  If I allow them to take hold, I am scared the wall I have constructed will come crashing down. This is something I cannot allow to happen.... Ever.

  What is done is done.

  Time, to leave the past, in the past.

  My concentration now needs to be focused on my future.

  Stephen

  Stepping out of the truck, in front of my childhood home after two years, has not given me the warm fuzzy feelings my mother said it would. She has been carrying on about this move for the past couple of weeks. In fact, honestly, it just feels weird…

  From what I can remember, it looks the same as it did, the day we left. We took off in a hurry that day, so it is hard to envision. Initially, my parents put renters in to keep up with the maintenance. I overheard my mother saying, the old couple - who had been there since the start, were moving into an aged care facility, now that we were back. I think they have wanted to for some time. They have always been very loyal to my parents, so I guess they just waited.

  The decision to move back here, though, did not include Luke, Ben, Kyle or myself. Our parents had made the decision of what would be best, for us. I agree that for the two years leading up to this moment, that is all any of us had ever dreamed. Well, until it became a reality…

  Now that I am standing here, the need to return to Brooklyn is too great to ignore. I never thought I would hear myself admitting to ever wanting to move back, especially to that shit hole. Heading inside, I drown out the mindless chatter coming from my parents. My thoughts drifting instead, to a certain brown-haired beauty I left behind in Brooklyn. A captivating girl who I have not been able to get out of my head.

  When our parents first told us we were moving back, we kept it from the girls. Up until we met Sophie, it was just us. Four guys doing as we pleased, never worrying about what anyone else thought. None of us ever believed we would be stranded for as long as we were. When we formed our attachment to Sophie, and then Sherlyn, it scared the shit out of us. Therefore, you can imagine our dilemma when we had to tell them we were moving.

  Ben was terrified at the thought of telling Sophie, scared his balls were going to end up somewhere in his throat. You can see how amusing that was for the rest of us, no scrub that, it was fucking hilarious. Truth be told though I was a little concerned myself when it came to telling Sherlyn. I wracked my brain trying to understand why that would bother me and yet today, I still do not have any answers to that question.

  I first caught sight of Sherlyn just over twelve months ago. She was sitting on her own in the courtyard at school. She was the quiet girl, one who usually only spoke when someone was speaking to her. There has always been something about that girl that intrigued me, I was fucked if I could work out what, but she had me spellbound. I felt like some creepy stalker dude, not being able to take my eyes off her.

  Apart from her hair, which was long and wavy, she had petite - bewitching facial features. She was delicate, and exquisite, alluring to the eye. How she has not already with anyone was beyond me, but I believe innocence may be the key to that little mystery.

  I, myself, am generally the quieter one in our group; it’s hard to get a word in edgewise with those fuckers some days. However, you know what they say; the quiet ones are usually the ones to watch. They tend to be the freakiest and I was hoping that would be the outcome with Sherlyn, but she is hard to read. I never know what to think because she surrounds herself with such outgoing, passionate people.

  Is the shyness all an act? Of that, I cannot be sure…

  The term ‘freaky’ though - well, that truly sums me up.

  My usual taste in the female variety is somewhat a little different from the others. Luke and Ben, up until late, liked to share, and by that, I mean to share their sexual partners. Those boys were our - as Sophie so gracefully defined it, dirty fuckers. She has been hanging around Ben for too long, his filthy mouth is corrupting her.

  Those two had simpler tastes… The girls had to be hot, and the sex – hard and fast.

  Get in, get off and get out – was their motto, they didn’t care who they fucked.

  The dirtier, the better, never sticking around long enough to allow any attachment.

  Kyle and I, on the other hand, was a little fussier. Kyle likes the nerds, girls who could hold up their end of an intellectual conversation with him – the smart ones. He also prefers the inexperienced ones – Pretty girls, with minimal or no sexual experience at all. He told me once that it was a turn on for him, putting these chicks on their knees, and guiding them. Teaching them you could say, t
raining them to do just what he wanted. The control he had over his body was remarkable, and although we have never shared our conquests – we have shared many a room.

  One night, we picked up a set of twins outside Pete’s bar. It was too fucking easy; these two were beyond drunk, and looking to get off. As we were only too happy to oblige them, we lied about our ages and drove them back to Kyle’s house. Thank fuck his parents were away because we ended up fucking them for the rest of the night, only stopping when the need to relieve ourselves became too strong. I would not say I was watching him, per say, because that would be fucking weird – but it was a bit hard to miss the action going on, from the other side of the room. I was in awe of how long he could keep going before finally releasing. He put me to shame that night, and it was something I swore I would work on.

  From then on, my desires became somewhat darker. I required control – although nothing too extreme. I will not deny I grew to love the kink, the sole domination over my partner. Having complete control over their every need became what turned me on. With the control over the direction of my life completely stripped from me, I redirected my energy. Sex quickly becoming my main outlet.

  I got off by pushing boundaries, drawing out desires that my partners never knew they wanted. I forced them to crave my touch and what I could give them. Unfortunately, for those girls, it was only their submission I craved. I needed them to be dependent on me, making my control over them complete.

  Sherlyn, in all honesty, gives me the impression that she is more Kyle’s type than mine. She is one of those quiet, bookish types, whose whole body radiates inexperience. I know it sounds strange, but my usual type of girl is very strong willed. I thrive on breaking through that will, breaking them down until they submit to me. I don’t enjoy easy conquests. It’s the feisty ones I chase, those who will put up a fight, which is why I’m so conflicted about Sherlyn. That girl has become a need for me, something I’m unaccustomed to, and not sure, I like.