Chapter 17
“You’re just like him.”
I never thought I’d hear those words again.
Not after she died—after she was killed.
No one has ever dared to draw that comparison since.
And truth be told, from the very moment her breath left this world, I felt something forbidden.
Relief. Freedom. A poisonous kind of ecstasy that no child should ever know.
But I did. At seven years old, I tasted that blasphemy, and it’s been rotting inside me ever since.
Twenty-three years of carrying this venom, this bitter grudge like a second heartbeat. They all say I should honor her. But gratitude is a word that curdles on my tongue.
The only thing I’ll ever thank her for is the defilement she planted in me—the darkness she poured straight into my boyish veins. The corruption she drove like a spike into my skull, until all I could become was the bastard standing here now.
My mother … oh, my sick, fucked-up mother.
She wasn’t like a normal mom should be. Whatever normal even means—she missed that memo completely.
Mother was sick. Loose. An animal. Something feral they tried to pass off as domesticated. Tied up just enough to function, forcing it to sit at the table, smile, play house, so she wouldn’t bite, scream, or lose her shit in front of the kids.
And sometimes she managed. Sometimes she didn’t.
I grew up thinking that was motherhood—chaos on a leash, love that could snap without warning.
I guess crazy runs in the family.
Everything is very clear in my head, but nothing is as clear as that night. It was the night that I realized I was scared of her. Terrified, to be exact.
She was crying. She was always crying when she was alone, or when she wasn’t with him.
He was her escape. The only one she truly loved.
I crawled onto her bed and pressed myself against her arm, desperate for a way to ease her pain. But I was useless. I didn’t know how to soothe her, the way she used to cradle him when Father’s cruelty and Atticus’s—Father’s bastard son—rage left him trembling.
Her sobs tore through the room like broken glass, each one slicing into me. My mother—this figure who should have been unshakable—reduced to a wreck, drowning in her own helplessness. She wept because she couldn’t protect her first-born son from Atticus’s hands.
“I will always be here for you, Mommy,” I’d said, my hand reaching for hers. “I can be the one who loves you. I can make you happy. I can be your hero.”
For a heartbeat, I waited for her arms. Her approval, or even her smile.
Instead, without looking at me, she peeled my fingers off her, her touch vacant. “Don’t touch me,” she hissed. “I don’t want you. I want him back, safe and sound.”
My throat tightened. “But—”
She finally looked at me, and the disgust on her face was colder than any slap I wished she’d given me that night.
“You’re just like him. Same eyes. Same violence waiting under your skin. I can already see it. Every time I look at you, I see him—the man who ruined me.”
Her voice dropped, low and venomous. “You should never have been born. All you do is remind me of what I hate most.”
Her face was pale, shadows under her eyes, lips trembling from the effect of the pills on her.
She stood, leaving me looking at her with wide eyes. “Now get out of my room.”
My chest squeezed. “Mom, I—”
Her head snapped toward me.
“Don’t call me that.” Her voice cracked. “You’re not the one I want. I want him back. My real son. Not this … mistake I’m forced to look at every day.”
I blinked, not understanding. “But I do love you—”
She recoiled as if I’d struck her. Her hand lifted, trembling, pointing toward the door.
“No. Don’t lie to me. I see it in your eyes—his eyes. The same cruelty. The same hunger. Every time you look at me, I see him.”
Tears stung, but I didn’t move. “I can be good, I promise …”
I could see the madness those pills—Father’s pills—had carved into her face, hollowing her into something less than human; a ghost wearing her skin. Her voice twisted, no longer tender, but hysterical.
“You’ll ruin me like he did. You’ll take and take until there’s nothing left. I should never have let you into my arms. I should have had an abortion and not kept this rapist’s seed growing inside me.”
My eyes burned from tears I couldn’t hold back, realizing the weight of her words.
Her breath came in ragged gasps, and I couldn’t tell if she was crying or laughing when she turned her back on me.
“Now get out.”
“Mommy …”
“Get the fuck out of my room!” she shrieked, her gray eyes blown wide, unearthly, like something else was staring through them. For a moment, she didn’t look human—she looked possessed, rabid.
She turned around and dropped to her knees so fast it was like her legs had given out. Her fingers had tangled in her hair, fists clenching tight against her scalp.
“He’s not my child,” she whispered, then again, louder, hoarser. “He’s not my child. He’s not—he’s not—”
Her voice caught, and then the words spilled out in a shriek, rhythmic, almost musical in their madness. “He’s my bane, my bane, my bane, my bane …”
Each repeat grew sharper, more frantic, until she was rocking, forehead nearly touching the floor.
“My bane. My bane. My bane.”
The air felt too still. I took a step back.
“M-Mommy …?”
She snapped upright like a puppet yanked by its strings, eyes wide and glassy.
“Get out,” she hissed, her voice like a rattlesnake in the grass. “GET OUT!”
She lunged, crawling, fingers scrabbling on the floor, nails scratching wood. “Out! Out! OUT!”
Terror crawled up my spine. I didn’t dare breathe. I bolted, stumbling out of her room as if the very walls might collapse around me if I stayed a second longer.
Love …
What a pathetic illusion. A word for fools who need something to worship. If it ever truly existed, my mother, my father—someone—would have seen me. Loved me for what I am, not what they wanted me to be. Isn’t that the promise of love? Unconditional? Eternal?
What a fucking joke.
Love is a sickness. A parasite that crawls into your skull and tells sweet lies to decay you from the inside. It tells you you’re not alone, that someone could ever be enough. But when the haze clears, you realize the truth … love poisons you.
Love is not what I feel for Isabella. It’s something … twisted. Dark. She wanted to protect me. She cared for me enough to cross every line and bring me close to her, but what she really did was bind me to her forever.
From the first night, I was hers—obsessed, consumed. What I crave is more than her mercy. I need her devotion, her mind, her soul, every fractured piece of her wrapped around me, whether she offers it willingly or not.
I needed space after what happened. The whole damn thing clawed open memories I’d shoved into the darkest corner of myself, memories I swore were dead and buried.
For a moment, I thought I heard her voice saying those words again. I thought I saw her deranged face, staring at me across the room. It wasn’t the first time, but it was the first time after a long time.
For a while, the nightmares, the sweat-soaked sheets, the screaming that left my throat sore, had stopped. I’d almost let myself believe I’d outrun those ghosts. Apparently, now I see them even wide awake. Great.
I needed speed, but my beauty had to stay hidden—locked away—because I’m supposed to be rotting in the ground, feeding the worms. So I went to my dear boss and pretended to be a good boy.
To my surprise, he let me out, and more than that, he gave me one of his fastest beasts to unleash.
A gorgeous black Ducati Panigale, like a demon striding straight out of hell, mine to command.
I think he likes me. Bless his ignorance. If he only knew what I have in store for him.
In the meantime, I called Michael and asked him to meet me. I need to see just how completely Alaric bought the fairy tale that I’m gone for good.
The sky above me is swollen with clouds, ready to burst. Any minute now, it’ll pour. Hopefully, Michael shows up before then, because as much as I love the thrill, I hate riding in the rain. It feels too much like drowning alive.
Thankfully, there he is, arriving with his car, pretending to be a normal citizen.
“Glad to see you’re still alive,” he mocks with that bright smile.
“I could never die and leave you stuck with the hard work,” I shoot back, arms crossed and smirking.
His smile widens as he strolls up to me, arms outstretched, and drags me into a hug.
“It’s good to see you, buddy,” he says, patting me on the back.
“Good to see you too.”
He draws back, pulls a smoke packet from his jeans pocket, and lights one up.
“Didn’t you quit that shit?” I ask, obviously disgusted.
“I did.” He inhales it. “But the latest task I was assigned to causes me stress.”
I used to smoke when I was a teenager, and for a while after.
Then, life turned into pure hell. I went broke, ended up homeless, and couldn’t afford food, let alone cigarettes.
Going back home for help wasn’t an option.
My dear brother Cain—the one Atticus didn’t kill—had already taken over Mother’s companies and was running his filthy little mafia empire, or whatever cesspool he calls a world.
I never wanted a piece of it, and I never will.
Maybe I was just throwing a toddler’s tantrum, clutching at a grudge—but he left. He left me stuck at home, dealing with Father, Atticus, and the rest of the circus freaks, while I played the idiot holding the fort to cover his ass. Some brotherly love, huh?
“It somehow keeps me sane,” he adds, sucking smoke through clenched teeth.
Poor Michael. He wasn’t born a killer, and he can’t cope with it.
Alaric practically bought his loyalty by helping his family so they wouldn’t end up on the street, trapping him in a never-ending cycle of fake loyalty and blood on his hands that he can’t stand.
He still tries to pretend it’s something he craves so he blends with the rest.
I lean back against the bike, hands shoved into my pockets. “Alright, spill the tea. It’s been days, and I’m starving for gossip.”
A sharp, decisive sigh escapes his lips. “I became Alaric’s new favorite killer.”
I tilt my head. “Fuck off.” He keeps his eyes away and flicks the ash. “You’re kidding me.”
He shakes his head, dragging his smoke like a maniac. “I wish I was.”
Great.
Michael is in charge now. That means responsibility for training, discipline, and death.
All the things I handled after Alaric’s choice.
If he can’t carry it, Alaric will make him.
The work is simple and ugly. Condition them, break them, make them choose.
It’s about drills and orders and forcing the animal out of you. Me or them.
Becoming the fraternity’s commander isn’t some badge of honor. It’s not a promotion or “wow, the boss picked me.” You get your hands filthy, do what others won’t, and learn just how far down you can crawl. It’s a fucking death sentence.
“And how are you putting up with it?” I ask.
“Not good, man. I’m not you.”
I scoff with a smile. “The world doesn’t need another me.”
“Yeah, well … maybe the world doesn’t, but this place sure as hell does. I don’t know how you handled this shit.”
Training.
That’s what they called it, but it wasn’t running through the woods or racing a damn clock.
It was getting dragged into a river and held under until your lungs forgot what air felt like.
It was being buried alive with nothing but a spoon and your heartbeat for company.
It was the plastic bag tightening around your face while your brothers laughed, testing how much you could take before you stopped fighting.
They said it built loyalty. What it really built was monsters who knew how to smile through the taste of their own blood.
Both sides benefited from it. Some learned to be lethal, others learned how to crawl back from the edge. I survived both.
As their commander, I wasn’t there to hold hands. I initiated everything. I had to be ruthless, strip away whatever scraps of morality might slow me down, because mercy was a luxury Alaric never afforded. And if I hesitated, I’d be the next name on his list.
So I taught them how to bite when the leash tightened, how to make the world mistake hunger for purpose. I taught them to look civilized on the surface and savage underneath. It kept me alive—and sane.
“I had to,” I say, raising my eyes to meet his. “And eventually, I learned how to embrace it.”
“Deep down you’re a good man, Adam. You’re a hero.”
There it is again. That pathetic attempt at redemption through someone else’s delusion.
I almost laugh.
“Why am I a hero?” I ask, crossing my arms.
“You were always easy on me,” he says. “You didn’t push me as hard as the others. Hell, you never shot me like you did others.”
“And look where it got you,” I snarl. “You’re weak. You wince before you pull the trigger. You talk about mercy like it’s a virtue. It’s a fucking leash, Michael.”
“I don’t want to become like you!” he shouts, his voice cracking under the weight of his own fear.
“Like what?” I step forward, heat rising in my chest. “A hero?”
He exhales through his nostrils, gaze dropping to the ground. Coward.
Fucking fool. Fucking liar.
He swallows. His eyes are wide and stupid with denial. “You enjoy the killings. They call you Bane for a reason,” he says. “It’s as if you’re two different people.”
His eyes flicker between mine, trapped between fear and disbelief. I could teach him a lesson, show him what being “Bane” really means. But I don’t. He might be the only one who knows I’m not rotting in a ditch, and that secret has to stay buried. It keeps me alive, and it keeps her off the list.
I smile. “Yeah. I do.” I keep his gaze just long enough to watch the panic settle in. Then I turn, swing onto the bike, and start the engine.
“Bane sends his apologies. He’s got better things to do than this heart-to-heart,” I say, my tone almost cheerful.
I throw him a half-assed salute, twist the throttle, and ride off.
People think becoming a killer is a fall, a descent into hell. They don’t understand.
For me, it wasn’t a fall. It was a homecoming.
Survival never made me ruthless. I was already poisoned, already stained from the inside out. It wasn’t the killings that twisted me. Because long before I ever spilled blood, I was already drowning in the filth she left behind.