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I bargained my life for that of the man I loved. Of the man I love.
Because time doesn't heal all wounds. Fuck that noise.
For some, time was an infection, eating away at you until you were forced to cut the sore away or seek medical attention from others. I'd been living with my infection for far too long.
And yet, there was nothing I could do. Not so long as my father lived.
The man who'd help create me was a nightmare of a human being. I'd once been fooled into thinking of him as my hero. How terribly wrong was I?
He loved to see other's downfall. He basked in the belief that everyone served him and did his bidding. He would have no one stand against him or go against his orders.
Not even his own son. And not even for orders that were never decreed.
You see, I checked. I knew back then that what I'd done was risky. I knew that loving the person I did was going to bite me in the ass one day.
When it did, I hadn't been prepared. So, I did the only thing I could think of. I bargained to keep us both alive. I went away for years and years, careful to do exactly as my father asked. I focused on the organization and expanding its reach. I made sure people knew the Romano name all over the nation.
And then..."Come home,"my father demanded six months ago."It's time."
He didn't expand on what that meant. If it was time for him to retire. If it was time for me to die. If it was time I once again learned my place.
So many options, and none of them felt right.
Nothing felt right.
Not since losing him.
"What did that bag ever do to you?" Ricardo, my full-time guard and sometimes friend asked me as he strutted into my new home gym.
The place wasn't much to look at on the outside, something I loved about it. But inside, I had the best equipment money could buy. Since being exiled, I found relief in the things I could control — namely exercise. I've built a physique past me would never have thought possible.
That's what hours and hours of working out got you, though. It wasn't like I could go out to fuck someone, not with my heart left behind in the city I'd once called home. I might not be able to have Preacher, but I'd promised myself to him long ago. I couldn't let anyone else have those parts of me.
"The point of owning a punching bag is to punch it. I know you don't get out much, but I figured even you could put two and two together," I teased as I released another round of blows on the bag.
Ever since stepping back into the city, I've felt uneasy. There's unfinished business here. Business that I can't even begin to deal with until my father is six feet under. I won't have him killing the man I love because I'm impatient. I've held out all these years. I could wait a bit longer.
Besides, it was easier to wait when you knew the time of death.
I'd been planning my father's murder for as long as I could remember. He'd always been on the chopping block, whether he knew it or not.
Unfortunately, things like this took time. It took building allegiance from those once sworn to my father, along with finding new allies who would love to see the man fall. Domenico Romano had made a lot of enemies in his time as the head of the organization. It was only as I came into adulthood and started negotiations that threats on his life lowered.
People respected me. They also feared me.
Not originally, no. But the man I was now... he was a monster. The Monster.
I dared anyone to question why. I'd let them meet the beast within me, so they'd know themselves.
"You're so funny today. The sarcasm you wear like a shield is working overtime, huh? Wouldn't have anything to do with being back, would it?" Ricardo leans lazily against the wall.
In another lifetime, I might have found him attractive. I had no doubt that whatever form of my life I lived that I'd always be inexplicably gay. This life or the next, I'd only see men as attractive.
Or rather, man. One single man.
Because the moment I knew men were the thing to drive me wild, there was only one in particular who truly did it for me. And I lost him thanks to my dictator of a father.
"We're not going to talk about it at all. You know I can't." I motioned around the room to signal the camera equipment I was sure my father had installed at some point.
