AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I look forward to advancing your goals, Dad. People know better than to stand against you here, I’m sure word will spread as you campaign,” I tell him in a stony voice. Emotion has been bled from my voice, because eagerness isn’t something he expects from me. He would also question it, because I’m not here out of my own volition. I’m here to be the dutiful son, no matter what it means.
“Good, good,” he murmurs. “You really want to see your mom, huh?”
I arch a brow at him, leaning against the door to look over. “Yes, I do. You know I’m here for her. She’s not mentally ill, and Xav is in charge of your hospitals, right? Who knows what he’ll do to her,” I scoff. This thought has been eating at me. Xav asked for free reign on the phone the day I was eavesdropping, and I can’t stop thinking about what could be happening to her or Lennon.
Dad shakes his head. “What kind of man do you think I am? Marian is safe from him, in fact the whole reason I put her there is because she met someone. I refuse to share what’s mine, and Xav has very particular perversions. Your mother wanted to divorce me to be with someone else, and since I can’t kill her, I institutionalized her instead.”
I keep my face blank, pretending I would do the same. “Okay… What’s to keep Xav from going behind your back and hurting Mom regardless?” I ask.
Dad shrugs as he turns the car towards the interstate, telling me I was right in thinking these meetings are with people who aren’t from town. No one here would stand against him. “There are two parts to Hidden Hills. The side for dangerous patients and Xav’s experiments and then the side for normal patients. They’re on medication to keep them calm if necessary, but your mom understands she’s there because she’s a wayward whore. As long as she behaves, your mother will continue to be treated well. She’s on an extended, if odd, vacation,” he explains.
Odd indeed.I want to ask more questions, but I’m unsure how far I can push him. “You mentioned Xav has strange sexual preferences. Is he satisfying them outside of the hospital then? We obviously don’t shit where we eat, right?”
My father always said this to me growing up. He wouldn’t fuck his secretaries or aids, but Carrie was always down to fuck, so it was never a problem. Finding out Carrie has been alive all of this time, I wouldn’t be surprised if my dad continued to fuck her. He doesn’t know I know she’s alive, so I roll my lips inwards to curb the words that want to tell him he’s a hypocrite.
“Indeed we do not. Xav has his own ways of feeding his beast from what I understand. He connects men and women with people who aren’t able to say no. Their very existence is to slake every depraved need their masters have, and while I don’t condone the skin trade business, it is lucrative. The end justifies the means here, and Xav isn’t exactly someone you can say no to. We’re in bed with the devil now,” my father says with a shrug.
I stare out the window, my features still blank as I nod, because we are in bed with the devil now. I am going to be as deep in this as my father, I just hope Roark, Turner, and Lennon will accept everything I’m willing to do.
The trip to the warehouse we pull into is filled with my father talking and answering nods and grunts from me. I’m surprised he let me get away with this, since typically he’d want my full attention. Honestly, usually he would, but dear old Dad has dropped so many truth bombs, I’m processing.
Lennon is not safe at Hidden Hills if Xav is in charge of her ‘treatment plan’. Pulling a slow breath into my lungs, I push the wordswhatever it takesthrough my body.
“This is an interesting place for a meeting, Dad,” I mention blandly as he parks the car.
Shrugging, he opens his car door. “Politics has its shit moments. None of us keep our hands clean, and now you’re in the thick of it. Are you ready to show me you can provide a satisfactory performance in the seedier side of things? I swear to fuck, I’ll have them hold you instead while we beat the snot out of you if you fuck this up,” my father snarls.
Rolling my eyes at the dramatics, I get out of the car. It’s not the first time he’s threatened me, in fact it’s why I came out here the first time earlier this month. I’ve always had some idea he wasn’t an upstanding citizen. I just didn’t know how far he’d fallen.
I’m getting a pretty good idea now though. Rolling my neck slowly, I begin stretching my muscles after the long drive. We’re about two hours away from home, and outside of “negotiating”, I have no idea what is inside the warehouse.
“They’re all here, so we may as well go in,” Dad says.
Humming in agreement, I close the door and begin walking next to him. I think packing up my emotions has helped my fear of my father as well. I will do everything possible to stay on his good side, but fear is a weakness. It clouds my judgment, shows my hand too soon, and causes problems. The coolness flowing through my body is almost soothing, and I much prefer it over the clawing fear that tore through my body when I found out my mom was in a mental institution and the girl of my dreams was kidnapped.
There’s so much unrealized potential between Lennon and I, so much we didn’t get a chance to explore. I want to see what’s possible, but I have to wade through some shit to get there.
I don’t mind though. My father didn’t raise a good, upstanding citizen. He taught me not to get caught and to go after what I wanted.
Entering the coolness of the warehouse, my eyes try to adjust to the darkness of the space. Taking two large steps to the right, I get just outside of my father’s arm width in case this is an ambush. I will never make the mistake of trusting him.
“Why is it so dark?” my father yells.
“Sorry, Sir!” yells someone that sounds like Orion. A spotlight turns on in the middle of the room, and a man is being raised from a chair, his hands suspended by a hook above his head.
Well that’s just awesome.
“Son,” my father says, striding towards the man hanging from the hook. “This is Sherman, I believe I briefed you about our current difficulties with him.”
“Yes, Sir,” I respond, taking my suit jacket off now that I know it’s not going to be the kind of negotiations where looking sharp is needed. I stop walking just inside of the spotlight, making sure Sherman can see me.
His eyes widen as he notices me. I am six-four and all muscle, there’s only one reason I could possibly be here. Today is not going to be a good day for him.
Orion grins as he walks up to me in a pair of jeans and a dark green long-sleeved shirt. I’m immediately jealous as I stare at him holding out his hand. Being the dick I am, I hand him my jacket before slowly rolling up the arms of my dress shirt.
“Laying it on a bit thick are we?” he asks out of the side of his mouth.
“Meh, I think he’s about to piss himself,” I respond. Looking over his shoulder, Orion chuckles as a dark spot begins to spread across the man’s pants.
