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I smiled, tasting the blood in my mouth, and said, “Are you trying to provoke me?”
Before he could answer, I spit the blood at his face. I broke out of his grasp, rushed him, tackling him to the ground, and pinned him under me. I punched over and over again. His arms were pinned, and he couldn’t block, so he took it. And the more he took, the harder I hit until all of sudden I felt arms around me pulling me off him and throwing me to the ropes.
“Wyatt!”
Blinking, all of a sudden, I saw Ethan standing in front of me staring wide eyed. My legs shook a little, but I managed to stand straighter. Ignoring him, I looked around him to my father, who now stood with his back turned to us, fixing the tape on his arms.
“Mom would be ashamed of me? What about you? Since she died, you walk around like a kicked dog—”
“Wyatt enough!” Ethan hollered at me as I laughed. I wiped the blood from my mouth with a collar shirt.
“Ethan,” my father said as he stood up straighter. He rolled out his arms as he turned to face us, “If you ever interrupt your brother and I again, I’ll break your arms and legs before tossing you out of the ring myself. Am I clear?”
The stunned look on Ethan’s face, how his green eyes widened, while father’s only got calmer, deadlier, just brought me so much joy. I couldn’t help the grin on my face.
“He’s interrupting still, old man, why don’t you break one leg and arm now so he gets the picture?” I asked, not realizing that I was hopping in place, more than ready, until I saw my father lift up his fist.
“You worry about yourself.”
“I have nothing to worry about,” I replied.
He tried to hide it, he tried to be cold, but I saw it, the small grin on his face, and I didn’t care if Ethan was in the ring or not. I charged him…ready to kill him…and he charged me, ready to do the same damn thing.
I wasn’t a kid anymore.
I wasn’t even his son anymore.
I was just another motherfucker in his ring.
We fought till the sun began to set, blood, sweat and saliva on each other’s fists. The more I hit, the he stronger he seemed to get, and the harder he punched back. Grabbing my head, locking it into his arm, he squeezed, choking the air out of me…
“So this is where your monster lives huh?” He snickered right into my ear as I tried to elbow into him. But he just held on to me tighter.
“I’m going to kill you!” I sneered at him through the pain.
“You can try…but you’ll need to get in line, son. When I’m done killing those in front of you, we can try again!” he replied. My vision started to blur. My legs went numb and all of a sudden, I was on my back, gasping for air. Crouching down beside me, blocking the light from my eyes, I saw two of him as he spoke. “You think because you are my son that I will not kill you…you are wrong.”
“Rule 1…” I managed to sit up, trying to grab my breath.
“You kill for family. You die for family…because you can’t trust anyone else,” he recited back to me. “What about it?”
“We don’t kill family…you’re bluffing…”
He huffed as if he were going to laugh. “None of the rules say you can’t kill family. Rule 15 makes it clear—”
“If you betray the—”
“Being weak is a betrayal,” he snapped at me. “Being stupid is a betrayal. If it comes down to you over your siblings…my business…I won’t choose you.” He stood up straighter and walked to the edge of the ring. Pietro lifted the ropes for him to step out.
“Would you have chosen Mom?” I asked, placing my hand over my stomach, slowly sitting up from the mat. I watched as he paused a few feet from the door. “I call bullshit. Either bullshit on you killing me for family’s sake…or bullshit on you loving Mom so damn much.”
“One day, Wyatt…you will learn…chaos for chaos’s sake is just brokenness.”
What?“Which dead philosopher did you steal that from?”
He didn’t bother saying any more than that. I wish I could have seen his face. He just kept walking forward until he got on the elevator, leaving only Ethan and I around the ring.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” Ethan said as he got into the ring. I tried to get up from the ground. All of me hurt, worst of all my legs. Stumbling forward, Ethan caught me, lifting my arm over his shoulder.
