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Lucius puffs on his cigar, a gleam in his beady eyes. “Having a drink and a smoke. Want some?”
“I want you to get the fuck out.”
He croaks out a laugh, smoke clouding around him. “You see how my son talks to me? The disrespect.”
“You want to talk? You want to sit down and have a drink? We can make it a good ol’ time. I can tell them all about how you’ve been keeping a big secret. We can talk about the Mancino family and your claim to the—”
“OUT!” Lucius snaps upright in my desk chair. His cigar dangles precariously from his fat lips, his ears immediately going red. He glares around at his men. “What the fuck did I just say? GET OUT!”
His men share confused glances before they shuffle out of the room in a single file line, like children told it’s their bedtime. I’m grinning by the time the door slams shut and we’re alone. Just as I figured; Lucius would ratherdiethan for everybody to know the truth about him.
Heavy silence presses down on the room. Neither of us say a word. I’m amused. Lucius is pissed.
“You piece of shit,” he bleats. The redness from his ears has spread to the rest of his round face. “I want you gone.”
“But what happened to us having a drink, Pop?”
He springs up from the chair, coming around the desk. He stalks toward me as fast and angry as he has so many times in the past—he used to enjoy snatching me up out of nowhere, slamming me into walls and punching me in the gut.
As he closes in on me now, my grin only widens. I welcome whatever he’s got for me. If he puts his hands on me, he’s fuming. If he pulls out his gun, he’sreallyfuming. He could make me another offer or he could tell me more about how he hates my guts.
With Lucius, you never know.
He stops a foot away from me, his pudgy face contorted by loathing. “What’s it going to take? How much to get rid of you?”
“Tough luck, Pop. I like it here.”
“You think you’re going to win? You’re going to take my shit from me?”
“I’m your son, aren’t I?” I put my hands in my pockets and shrug. “Most fathers are honored when their sons want to be just like them.”
“You’re not my son. My son wouldn’t be trash. That’s what you are. What you’ve always been. I knew from the moment you were born.”
“Yeah, becauseyoufailed. That’s what this is about, right? I remind you of everything you’re not—”
I expect my words to cut him deep. Instead he eyes me a second longer and then lets out a gruff laugh. He brings his cigar to his lips and puffs on it. He’s studying me, the gleam brightening in his beady gaze. The anger that’s been driving him in the past couple of minutes fades into amusement.
“I enjoyed it,” he says, smoke wafting between us. “Every single time I made you suffer. It was as good as any nut.”
My grin slides off my face, my pulse speeding up. I can’t control it—the way a chill courses through me—and I fucking hate it. He notices the subtle shift in my demeanor and he acts on it. His lip curls and he takes a step toward me.
Suddenly, somehow, he’s got the upper hand. He holds up his cigar and pretends like he’s about to snuff it out on me. Even produces the sickeningsizzlenoise before he barks out a laugh.
“Remember that?” he asks. “Remember the closet? Remember how you’d beg? A fucking pussy for a son.”
I don’t know what comes over me. I don’t know what’s fucking wrong.
It’s like I’m trapped, frozen in place. The level of repulsion and rage overwhelms me to such a degree, I can’t even act on it. My whole body buzzes, so alive and so dead at the same damn time. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. I’m present in the moment while also lost in the past.
Seven-years-old and weeping,pleadingwith him for mercy.
Not once did he ever give it.
I’m consumed by my hatred for him—eighteen fucking years in the making. I’ve plotted and planned. I’ve dedicated my entire life to making him suffer.
Why even wait another moment? Why not do it right now? Settle it once and for all. Man to man. I can kill him. I can rip him apart and make him beg like he made me beg.
The bloodlust rises up inside me intensely enough it boils over and cancels itself out. It vanishes into nothing and I’m left stuck, still caught up in my head. The irony of me humiliating Lucius only for the tables to turn.
