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“You’ll be moving here in a few short weeks Travis, so you may as well make that room home.”
Pushing the peas around my plate, I drop my fork and look up, meeting his cold, heartless gaze.
“What?”
There’s no way I heard what I think I heard. What about senior year? Graduation? What about Spencer?
“You heard me, son,” my father clears his throat and takes a sip of his gin and tonic. “You’ll be moving here. I told you, some things have been changing, shifting, within the Brotherhood. You’re 18 and it’s time for you to step up.”
“What about school? You just expect me to be a high school drop out?” I grit, clenching my fists on the tops of my thighs. I’m angry enough to hit him, but not stupid enough.
Reign it in Travis. Reign it in.
Scoffing, he waves me off with his hand, “Of course not. You’ll still get your diploma. My reach extends far. Just think about like this, you get to graduate and not put any of the work in.”
Sucking in a deep breath, I try to calm the storm that’s raging. How am I supposed to leave her? I can’t bring her with me. Not into this. She can’t be part of this life. I was supposed to have more time. I was supposed to have until graduation. I’m not ready.
“No.” I state firmly.
“No?” he raises his eyebrow.
“No.”
Chuckling, my father wraps his fingers around the glass tumbler that holds his liquor. Lifting it to his lips, he takes one more sip. The calmness exuding from him is terrifying. Petrifying. I’m doing my best to keep from shaking. I can’t slip, not now.
Sucking his teeth as he pulls the glass away from his lips, he suddenly snaps.
Ducking just in time, I narrowly avoid the glass that goes soaring over my head, smashing against the wall behind me. As I straighten up, I move to run from the room, but he’s right in front of me faster than I can react.
Jolting his arm out as I move to push past him, he grips my neck so tight, I can’t breathe. The oxygen to my brain is completely cut off. Swinging my arms, I try desperately to escape his grip as my vision starts to blur.
“Did you fucking tell me ‘no’?” he roars. “Make no fucking mistake Travis James, you will do what the fuck is expected of you, or I will fucking kill her. We may have established the fact that you have no desire for self preservation, but you will do anything for her. I know it, and you know it. So quit playing these fucking games.”
My arms fall limp, and the fight is sucked from my body. All of a sudden, I’m able to suck in a breath just as my body hits the ground. My vision slowly returns as black spots dance across my eyes, and I cough and sputter, gasping to fill my lungs.
Lying on my side, curled up on the floor, I catch a flash of black as my father’s Italian leather shoe comes for me, his foot connecting with my stomach, knocking the fresh air from my lungs. Groaning I wrap my arms around myself, rolling over, coughing so hard I think I may vomit. His foot snaps forward once more, this time catching me in the ribs.
“Like I said the other day son, love, it makes you fucking weak. You are fucking weak. Now pick yourself up off the floor and get out of my sight. Tomorrow we go again. You can go back home in a few days but it won’t be for long, so enjoy it while it lasts,” he spits as he turns on one heel and walks back to the table.
From the corner of my eye, I watch as he rolls up his sleeves, pushes his hair backward, out of his face, sits in his chair, and picks up his fork like nothing ever happened.
Fuck him.
Whimpering as I roll over, I push up to my feet slowly and manage to stumble into the bedroom I’ve taken up as my own since arriving here at the penthouse. Slamming the door to the room behind me, I barely make it to the bed before I completely collapse.
Rolling onto my back, I look up at the ceiling, and I don’t even try to hold back the tears that follow. Spilling over my eyelids like a torrential storm, the saline blurs my eyes until I can’t see.
In the past week, I’ve had to endure so much, that I don’t know how I’m supposed to survive it all with my humanity intact. Without turning it all off. The things he makes me do. The things he makes me watch. The lives he makes me take.
Pulling a pillow to my chest, I squeeze it tight and wish it was her. I wish it was Spencer. The only person left in this world that actually gives a shit about me. I wish we were kids again, at the lake with our moms, playing tag in the sand, and jumping off the docks to see who could make the biggest splash.
Hell, I’d settle to be 15 again, kissing her for the first time, and planning our lives together.
But life is a cruel bitch, and she has other plans for us both. And if I’m being honest with myself, I’d find a way to make myself live with all these fucked up things if it meant I could have her. Instead, I have to learn to live with the things I do, while leaving her behind.
Cruel indeed.
Rolling to my side, the tears slow, and I bury my face into the pillow, taking muffled breaths.
