Vince exhaled, dropping his head; he raised it a moment later, almost as if he were resigned to the situation.
“What will your mom think if she finds out about this? She doesn’t have to know if you just untie me so we can talk properly, Splice.” He tried, and Splice grinned, pushing himself off the wall.
“Do you know how fucking easy it would be to make you disappear, to get a death certificate and to bury you with no one suspecting a thing? It’s a cakewalk for me, Vince. You insulted my MC recently, calling it a hobby club.”
“I didn’t mean it,” he interrupted hastily.
“You don’t know how far, how influential our reach is. You can be cremated before the day is over, and no one will ever suspect what happened. If you have any self-preservation, I’m fast approaching the limit where I’ll make that shit happen.”
“Okay. Okay,” Vince sighed in a rush. “Just promise you’ll hear me out. You know I’ve always treated you as my son, Splice. We’re close, aren’t we? It got out of hand, that’s all, but it’s fixable. You know how it happens. I thought she...”
“Lisa.Say her fucking name,” Splice growled.
“It was the summer you were having a cookout on your street, remember? I didn’t know Lisa was sitting in her car when I was having a private conversation with someone about something I’d done that you’d hate me for. She climbed out of her car, and I realized who it was and what she might have heard. I didn’t have a choice.” He raised his voice at the end, red in the face, his eyes wilder now, reeking of desperation.
It was true: how a man would say and do anything if he thought his life was on the line.
Vince’s reason was still weak as piss.
“You were so scared I’d find out you chased off my woman?”
“I’m sorry, son. I’m sorry it played out that way. If I’d been in my right mind, I never would have done it. I didn’t know you liked her so much. You’ve had a good life since, though, right?”
He’d had a good life since.
Those words played on a loop in Splice’s mind, and before he knew what he was doing, he strode over to Vince, pulled back his head by the hair, and, using all of his strength, he landed a fist in his uncle’s face.
“You fucking fuck! A good life?A good fucking life? I’ve been empty without Lisa! You stole ten fucking years from us! And you were trying to do it again!”
Blood spurted from Vince’s nose, and he groaned in pain. Splice stood back, baring his teeth, on the very edge of his sanity, barely holding it together.
“I apologize,” he gasped, his head drooping on his neck.
“What mess did you make that you’ve been hiding all this time?”
“I... don’t ask me that, son. I can’t say.”
“If you want out of here, you’ll tell me.”
“I can’t.”
They went around that same thing for far too long, and Splice sighed.
“Ruin!” he shouted.
Vince panicked, his eyes wilder, and he struggled in the chair, almost tipping himself over. “Wait! Wait, Splice. Fucking wait, okay?”
The door creaked open, and Splice said, “Never mind, Ruin.” The door closed again.
“Fuck,” Vince cursed, inclining his head. “Just hear me out before you do anything rashly you can’t come back from.” He pleaded.
Then it all poured out of Vince in a run-on paragraph.
“You don’t know how hard it was back then. Guire and I were broke, but he was happy letting the dealership tread water as long as he got a paycheck. I wanted more. I had overseas contacts who could get us cars and expand the business, but he shot down every idea. Talking to him was like talking to a brick wall. All he wanted was his salary and weekends fishing with you. He wouldn’t even let me buy him out. Said the dealership was yours one day. Meanwhile, he was running it into the ground with his stubbornness. I had to do something, Splice.”
He implored, and some recess of Splice’s mind splintered off, putting memories from back then with what Vince was saying.
“It was a simple mugging, son. I swear it. I never wanted my brother dead. We had our difficulties; we barely agreed on anything, and he pissed me off all the time, but he was my brother. I loved him. I loved him, Splice, I swear it,” he was breathing hard, speaking faster, his face even redder.
