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That line might have worked on someone else, but Dad was as avid a reader as I was.
“That’s from Ender’s Game”, he’d said quietly. “Nicely played, but try again. And this time, Gabriel, I want you to tell me the truth.”
So I did. And it actually felt really good to put words to the feelings I’d been wrestling with for years.
That sometimes, I got so mad I felt that I was going to explode. That sometimes, I saw terrible things happening that shouldn’t happen, bad things happening to good people, and it made me so angry at the unfairness of it all.
I told him that sometimes I felt like there was a monster living inside of me.
Some parents might have taken their kid to half a dozen shrinks if they said something like that. They’d probably be right to, as well.
Dad didn’t. He just hugged me close, and told me he loved me, and that I was a good kid, even if I felt like a monster sometimes.
Then he told me how he used to get angry like that, too. But then he’d figured out that setting strict rules for himself, and dedicating himself to following those rules, made the world easier to bear.
With his help, I started doing the same. Routines. Rules. A code of conduct I followed like a fucking samurai warrior.
First it was taekwondo, to help me channel my aggression and my energy. Boxing helped a bit, but that was always more Alistair’s thing. Then I got onto the debate team, and joined clubs like model UN, together with other extracurricular activities that were all about focus and following guidelines.
It’s what ultimately led me into law, following in my dad’s footsteps.
I’ve spent my entire fucking life since that schoolyard fight crafting the perfect shiny armor and mask to shield who I am from the world. For people like Jan to see.
What they don’t see is the monster who’s chased Fumi around the dark basement dungeon of a sex club before fucking her like a goddamn rag doll twice now—once a week before our wedding, and again on Saturday night, when I allowed her to follow me again.
I do enjoy this game we play. The game where I prowl into the darkness leaving breadcrumbs in my wake, and Fumi follows, gobbling up those breadcrumbs until she’s so far down the dark hole that there’s no escape.
The game where she pretends that she doesn’t know I’m the beast who’s been chasing her. But I know she does.
I’ve allowed her to know.
That first hunt was the thrill of my life.
The second was even better. Also slightly amusing, because I’m now referring to it—at least to myself—as “our honeymoon”.
No champagne and a hot tub for us. No rose-petals on clean silk sheets with a view of Paris or the Caribbean.
Our honeymoon involved me chasing Fumi through the dark and pinning her face-down on the hard Venom floor. It involved using a knife to slice her clothes away, savagely stuffing my cock into her greedy, messy little cunt until she came, and then coming all over her bruised, gasping, perfect body and making her clean me off with her tongue.
Not a single soul knows what we’ve done in the dark. No one except her and me.
I scan the dossier on Dwayne once more before I switch to another fight that needs fighting. I pull my assembled notes out of my desk and spread them across the top.
I may have been careful to hide my misdeeds and my darkness from the world. Governor Hall, not so much. He’s left a trail of wreckage during his last two terms as Governor, not to mention his stint as US Congressmen before that.
Rumors of grift and skimming. Nepotism. Insider trading. Allegations of sexual misconduct and assault have been quickly squashed, to the point where they’re barely even a rumor.
But where there’s even a hint of smoke, there’s always fire.
There’s one silver bullet I’m homing in on, and I’m very close. I’m making a few motions now, being careful so as not to raise any flags. And soon, a judge I’m friendly with will be granting me access to certain files that have been sealed for almost a decade.
If the rumors are true, it’s not even a silver bullet. It’s a silver atomic bomb, and I’m to use it to destroy Preston Hall’s chances of securing a third term as Governor.
No one ever said politics wasn’t a dirty fight.
A knock at my door pulls my attention from the files in front of me.
“Yeah,” I grunt, pushing everything back into a folder, slipping it into my desk and locking the drawer. Kratos Drakos steps in with a nod.
