by C. A. Rene
“How did you guys find me?” Carlos leans his elbows on the table, “I don’t even have the Talia last name.” I don’t have an answer to that because Ember did all the digging up but even if I did, I wouldn’t tell him a thing. “I kissed her you know, ran my tongue along those luscious lips of hers. I even grabbed a handful of tit and squeezed. After we kill you and that other guy you were with, I’m going to head over to that condo of yours and rape her multiple times and ways.” I already know he surprised Ember with a kiss that night, she told me as soon as we got back. So, I know he’s lying about the tit grab. I school my features and put on a mask of boredom but inside I am a blazing inferno. “Nothing? Fine.”
He stands up from the chair and comes around to my side of the table. I keep eye contact with him because the little bitch doesn’t scare me. He bends down into my face and opens his mouth to speak when I spit into it. His fist connects with my right eye and my head snaps to the side. He hits like a little pussy, too. When I start to laugh, he punches me again in the same spot and then on the side of my head and kicks me in the chest. My chair falls back and my head hits the concrete floor with a sickening thud. The edges of my vision become foggy and black. It’s a fucking miracle I am staying conscious right now. He gets a guard to come in and pull me back up to sitting but only after he stomps on my chest twice more.
“You pull that shit again and I will kill your buddy in that cell with you. I will bring him in here and you will watch as I torture him. Do you understand?” Up until recently, I would’ve laughed in this motherfucker’s face if he threatened Travis’ life. I would’ve been non-compliant just to ensure his threats came to fruition. A lot has changed since then and right now I am feeling very protective of my little brother. So, I nod and he walks back over to sit in the seat across from me.
“How did you guys find me?” He asks again.
“That had nothing to do with me. Ember found you.”
“Why did she come after me?”
“You need to ask your mother why.” I sneer.
“I’m asking you!” He screams and rips his hand through his hair.
“Your mother killed her parents and she wanted to kill you, too.”
“Why didn’t she?” His brow crinkles in thought.
“Because she realized she didn’t want you to pay for your mother’s doing. That’s all I have, I don’t know anything else.”
“What about Emmett and Carmelo Torres? What can you tell me about them?”
“Again, not much.” I shrug and the movement causes pain to slice through my chest.
“So, you expect me to believe you don’t know anything about your girlfriend’s twin brother and her older brother?”
“You know just as much as I do.”
“Is it not strange that Carmelo kidnaps his sister, watches as she fights to the death and then somehow he has her full trust right now?” What is he trying to say? Is Carm against us? Dread pools in my gut but I keep my face as neutral as I can.
“They had a common enemy.”
He throws his head back and laughs heartily, “common enemy? Tell me you’re not talking about Raphael Torres?” I don’t reply, what the fuck is he trying to tell me right now? Is Ember in danger with Carm? “Raphael was grooming the apple of his eye to run his whole organization. Carmelo had everything he ever wanted from that man.” My heart begins to pound in my chest and breathing is becoming difficult. “I can see the shock on your face, so that just tells me you don’t know shit.” He lays a gun on the table and starts spinning it around, “I should just kill you and get it over with.”
“Go ahead.” I grin, “she’s coming for you regardless.”
“I’m not afraid of her.” He visibly swallows, liar.
“That’s your first mistake.”
He gets up from his seat and saunters over to the metal door. He raps on it three times and the guard on the outside opens it up. “Take him back to the cell and bring me the other one.”
“You don’t need him, he knows less than me. He wasn’t even there for what we did to you.” I can hear the panic in my voice but I don’t give a shit. He doesn’t answer me, the two guards come into the room and release me from the chair. I begin to struggle, trying to get out of their grasps.
“Stop fighting us.” One guard grunts and he gets my elbow in his ribs
Before I can say anything, Carlos steps forward and hits me in the side of the head with the gun and finally the unconsciousness I was fighting takes hold.
The smell of mold and piss wafts through my nostrils and I swear I can fucking taste it. I tamper down the urge to vomit and try to get a clear view of where the fuck I am. I can’t see shit out of my right eye, that little bitch Carlos fucked it up real good. I pull myself up to sit and wince as a sharp pain slices through my right side. I’m pretty sure my rib is at least fractured, fucking piece of shit. Why the fuck did I ever convince Ember not to kill him?
“Shit.” I hear a voice say to my right, “where the fuck am I?”
“Trav?”
“Vin?” He croaks out, not sounding any better than me.
“Yeah, Bro. I’m here.” My eyes slowly adjust and I can see we are in some sort of cell, like a jail with bars and all. “Tell me you saw something when they brought us here.”
“Nah, just the inside of a black bag.”
“Fuck!” I snap and suck in a breath from the pain, “are you hurt?”
“I’ve had worst.” I hear him grunt and pull himself to his feet. Guilt consumes me for a few minutes and I lean my head back against the concrete wall. “I’m not talking about from you, that shit was child’s play.”
“From whom then?” I ask.
“There’s a list and I really don’t have time to go through them all right now.” He shuffles to the bars and tries pulling on the door, “fuck, if that dude comes back here… I don’t even care if he has a gun, I’m swinging.”
“What were they asking you?”
“Shit about Ember and our father.” He mumbles, “didn’t say a word to them though. They thought after a beating I’d change my mind. They thought wrong.” He pats down his pockets and curses, “fuck, I need a smoke.”
They didn’t ask me shit about my father, it was all about Ember and her brothers. “What shit were they asking you about Robert?”
“If I was certain he took his own life.”
“What? That’s fucked up.” I shake my head, “the man didn’t want to die an invalid, he was too fucking proud for that.”
“No,” Travis runs his hand down his face, “you’re wrong. Our father was still hoping to be cured. He thought the more money he paid doctors, the more they would be motivated to cure him. So, do I think he killed himself? The answer is no.”
“So, you think someone murdered him?” I mutter.
“Yes, someone broke into my house, made Father slice his wrists and then wiped my security footage for the whole day.” He leans against the concrete wall and slides back down. “I just haven’t figured out what for. To be honest, I thought it was you because he signed over the fucking condo we were taking about before that. But then I thought about it and I just knew that you would’ve done it a lot sooner if you wanted the fucker dead.”
“It wasn’t me.” But I think I know exactly who it was. I had just confided in Ember the weekend before about my father and how my hatred started. She also wiped Marlana’s computer that one time and I had no idea she knew anything about technology on that level.
“I know.” He agrees, “I already have my suspicions of who did it.”
“Who?” I ask.
“I’d rather confront them to their face and if you want to be there, you can be.”
“Alright.” I nod.
“How the fuck we getting out of here?” He grounds out.
“Ember and Emmett will find us.”
“What? Are they like secrets agents or something?
“Or somethi
ng.”
“Huh.”
I can’t ignore the pit of dread in my stomach about Carm. Ember would’ve gone straight to him once she realized we weren’t coming back and this would be his chance to fuck her over. I just pray that she keeps her head clear and her emotions packed down like usual and then she will be able to see the signs if he’s double crossing her.
“Why are you so quiet all of a sudden? You good?” Travis asks.
“Yeah, I’ll live. Just worried about Ember.”
“Why? Doesn’t she have her brothers?”
“Yeah, but I’m not sure about the older one and whose side he’s on.”
“Shit.” He grits out.
“Yeah, some of the shit that asshole was spewing in there was making too much sense. Like he knew things that maybe Ember didn’t.”
“Ember has been through some dark shit,” he mutters, “I could always see it in her eyes, right from the very beginning.”
“She has.” I nod.
"You have, too. I see it in your eyes.” He continues, “when you came back to Whitsborough… I saw it.”
I don’t answer him right away and rest my head back against the concrete. I did go through a lot in Toronto and I know I came back a completely different person, especially to Travis. “You have it, too.”
“I know you think I had a great life, living in luxury and getting everything I wanted,” he coughs again, “but it just wasn’t like that.”
“What was it like?”
“Father was practically insane, he had impossible rules and as a child I always broke them. He enjoyed doling out the punishment which usually had some form of beating to it. Sometimes he used a paddle, fire poker or one time a hammer.” He begins to chuckle, “he went through my emails a few years ago and discovered I had a guy as a new age email pen pal. Some emails were flirty and he lost it, beat me within an inch of my life and left my mother to get me to the hospital. They told my doctor it was a hit and run, that’s how bad it was and all because he found out I’m bisexual.”
“What the fuck…” I breathe.
“It gets better…” I can sense he’s lost his control and everything is just pouring out of him, needing to be released. “He had a close circle of friends, some of the wealthiest in Whitsborough and one of them was Coach Halbert.”
“Your baseball coach?”
“Former Baseball coach. He was forced into retirement last year… by me.”
“Why? How?”
“Coach Halbert had been teaching me baseball since I was ten years old. He told my father I had a talent and that I should really work on it. Even offered to coach me solo.” He clears his throat and I can sense he’s struggling on how much to tell me. “My father practically handed me over to him and I could never understand why. The man was a perv through and through, he sexually assaulted me for years. Grade nine was the worst year and finally I had grown strong enough to fight him off. Fuck… I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this.”
“Because you know you can trust me,” I answer him, as my stomach rolls with nausea, “get it all out Travis.”
“I don’t know if he did it to anybody else on the team but I have my suspicions he did. So, last year I took the gun my father hid in his office and paid the coach a late night visit. I told him to retire for good and not to touch another kid or I would come back and kill him. He believed me and did as I asked. I wish I had the balls to go through with it and just kill him then, but I was just so fucking scared.”
“Not all of us can be killers.” I whisper.
“Could you have done it?” He asks me.
“Yeah,” I nod, “I could’ve. I lived a different life than you though, and I have seen people be killed right in front of me. I ran with a pretty rough gang in Toronto and that’s why we came back here.”
“When we get out of here…” he pauses, and coughs. “I want to know everything.”
“When we get out of here,” I repeat, “you, me and Ember will have a chat.”
“Deal,” he answers quietly. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” I say as I struggle to get to my feet.
“Sounds like popping. Like someone shooting guns.” Travis gets up and walks back over to the bars, “I hear footsteps running here.”
As soon as the last word leaves his mouth, Carlos and a guard appears on the other side of the bars. “Get in there and line them up on their knees.” He tells the guard.
“We won’t do shit.” I grit out as I hobble to the middle of the cell. Travis backs up to stand beside me.
Carlos lifts his gun, cocks it and then aims it at Travis’ head. “You will or I will kill him right now.” Fuck, he knows Travis is my weakness. We both get to our knees and Carlos comes to stand in front of us. “Do it!” Carlos screams at the guard by the door, “shoot them! I want it done before they get here, I want her to see the…” His sentence is cut off as we watch the guard fall forward his face smacking off the concrete with a sickening crunch. There’s a knife sticking out of the back of his neck and I can’t describe the immense relief that runs through me. That’s Emmett’s knife.
Carlos’ hand starts shaking as he tries to aim the gun to Travis’s forehead. He doesn’t have the time to shoot because Carm rounds the corner into the cell and shoots him point blank in the back of the head. Both mine and Travis’ face is splattered with blood and God knows what else, as Carlos falls forward and lands in a pile at our feet. It doesn’t matter, we are both alive. I look up at Carm and he crouches down to look us in the eye.
“Are you guys okay?” The panic in his voice and the worried look in his eyes tells me he’s being genuine. He was always on our side and I throw my earlier thoughts of betrayal away. He came here and helped Ember to find us.
“Yeah, we’re okay.” Travis answers.
Carm starts helping us up when Emmett comes walking into the cell with an arrogant swagger. His face is covered in blood and his clothes look like he showered in it. “Shit, you guys look worked over.” He grins as he pulls his knife out of the back of the guard’s neck, “don’t worry, you’re both still pretty, though.”
“Fuck off.” I grin back at him, “where’s Ember?” Carm gets me to my feet and pats me on the back. I nod and offer him a smile.
“She’s disemboweling a man that said she was a worthless female.” He chuckles.
“I bet she is…” Travis mutters.
Just then I hear her voice coming from down the long hallway. She’s screaming mine and Travis’ names as I shuffle towards the door of the cell. Suddenly, she’s standing there in front of me and her bright turquoise eyes look wide with frantic worry. “Hey.” I groan and try to reach my hand to touch her face. Her face crumples and she falls to her knees as a sob escapes her throat. “Em?” I croak.
“I couldn’t do it again…” she moans and begins to wail. “I can’t lose anyone else.” Her head falls forward as the force of her sobs wrack her whole body. “I’m… so… sorry…” she says between wails.
I’ve never seen her like this, like she’s completely let loose all the grief she’s ever bundled up tight inside her. I fall to my knees in front of her and wrap my arms around her shaking body. She grabs onto me roughly and I hiss through the pain of her compressing my sore ribs.
“It’s okay, Em. We’re okay, you saved us.” I murmur into her hair. “You saved us.”
34
“Get me the fucking vodka!” I hear my drunk of a mother yell at Sonja. Usually this is where I would step in and refuse her but after the week I’ve had, I couldn’t fucking care less. Let her drink herself to death for all I care.
I step out onto my balcony and light a smoke. My ribs still hurt when I inhale too deep and I know the gashes on my face still look nasty but I’m thankful to be alive. I still don’t know what made me spill my life secrets to Vin but my view on life has changed because of it. From now on, no one comes above me or my family and that
doesn’t include the woman I call Mother. My family meaning Vin and Ember. Finally, they’ve given me what I’ve always been looking for, an actual fucking family.
After vin and I were found in that cell, we headed back to the condo. Ember had completely broken down and was inconsolable for a few days. Emmett wandered the condo anxiously and Vin was starting to get a desperate look in his eye because he just wasn’t getting through to her. So, I went in there and she was curled into a fetal position with her body shaking from how much pent up emotion she released. I laid down on the bed beside her and told her everything. I detailed my abuse at home at the hands of both my parents, the sexual abuse I endured at the hands of someone I trusted and the heartache I felt when I realized I couldn’t love conventionally.
She finally moved and turned to wrap her arms around me and cried even more and I shocked myself by crying along with her. It was cathartic and in that moment I knew we couldn’t force her to come out of it, this just had to run its’ course so she could heal.
On the third day she emerged and even though she looked like she’d been through hell, I knew she had finished her first step in grieving. She sat me down at the table and began by telling me about her life in New York, how she fought in illegal fights for money to help feed herself and her mother, about the circumstances in her mother’s death and then the role her father had in it all. She told me how she was kidnapped and forced to kill while her father watched and as soon as she had the chance she tortured and killed him. She then proceeded to tell me in detail the nightmares that haunted her and the only way she could keep them at bay was to kill. She chose to take hits that involved corrupt individuals and took immense pleasure from watching them die. It was hard to accept what she was telling me and even harder to not let it change how I viewed her.
I confronted her with the one thing that has plagued my mind for months, if she killed my father. She reluctantly confessed that she did coerce him to take his life after making sure he provided for Vin and his mother. I don’t care that she took his life-a small part of me wishes I could’ve done it-, I care that she never told me. Vin voiced the same sentiment and I was shocked to learn her killing our father was the one death he had no idea about. I’ve been sworn to secrecy and asked not to breathe a word of any of it to Adrianna. I wouldn’t have anyways, Adri is too soft for this life and that’s exactly why I fight my urges to claim her. She is so innocent and sweet, while I’ve spent most of my life sinking into darkness and holding on to the fear of never finding the light.