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1
As a child, you’re taught how to look at the world; I was no different. I was taught to look at the world in black and white with no color in between. There was no grey, no middle, only sides, and you were punished if you chose the wrong side. I was on the receiving end of those punishments. I was the one who looked at things and questioned them. Wouldn’t you?
I watched my father rule his empire with an iron fist. No one, and I mean no one, was off limits to him. My mother, God rest her soul, was his victim of choice. She was the reason I’m here today. She’s the reason I walk and breathe. I didn’t know it at the time, but my father tried to beat me out of her. He failed. I’m still here. The defiant son. He had no choice but to raise me after he murdered her. I was eleven at the time. Ten years, ten long years of my life have been spent under his authority. I tried to follow the rules he set out for me. I tried to be the man he wanted me to be, but I always looked for more. I looked outside the box my father kept me in. His box. His world. It wasn’t that it was a bad world because it wasn’t. The issue was that I wasn’t loved. Love played no part in our lives. It never has.
“Where’s your head at?” My father asks.
“What do you mean?”
“You look like you’re lost in your own little world,” he remarks as he lights his cigar and stares at me across his desk.
“I’m here.”
“You’re being short with me.”
“How would you like me to be? I’m doing what you ask of me, am I not?”
“You are, and you’re doing it well. At the end of all this, when my life is over, you will have my entire empire at your fingertips, Ares.” He says it as if that’s what I want. He doesn’t know what I want. He’s never asked, and he doesn’t care.
“Is that what this is about?” I ask him, leaning forward to rest my elbows on my knees.
“No, it’s about more. This is about revenge.”
“Revenge against who?” His eyes light up as he sits back in his chair and looks at me.
“All of them, Ares. Bitches are a dime a dozen. They are the ones responsible for the issues. They make it hard for us men to do what we need to do.”
“And that’s why we end them,” I fill in the blanks of what he’s saying. He nods his head, blowing smoke between his lips.
“That’s exactly right. They are expendable at the end of the day,” he states casually.
“Just like my mother?” Now, his eyes darken.
“You know what she did,” he hisses.
“I know what you said she did. I don’t remember much from childhood when you claim she did those things. I shouldn’t have been there when she did what you say she did.” My words make him angry. I can see it in his eyes.
“You shouldn’t be around now either,” he deadpans. I smirk now and huff out a laugh.
“Then why am I?”
“You know why you’re here, Ares. You’re my son.”
“A son you never wanted. A son who means nothing to you.”
“That isn’t true. You mean something to me. You’re the only one who can run this empire once I’m gone,” he says.
“And how long will that be?” I ask him, causing his nostrils to flare as he looks at me.
“Is that what you want? A dead father?”
“You never wanted a child, and yet here I am,” I tell him, waving my hand up and down in front of me.
“And you don’t want a father?”
“I don’t need one. I do just fine on my own.”
“Is that what you think? That you don’t need me?” he asks, looking me dead in the eyes.
