Chapter Sixteen Larissa
Chapter Sixteen
LARISSA
“FUCK ME, ROC, oh God, fuck me!”
“I swear to God, Roc!” I mimic her shriek while slapping my open palm on the wall between our bedrooms. “If you don’t make it stop, I’ll give Ciro a play-by-play!”
Another pleasure-filled screech rips through the air in response as I toss my covers off.
Ripping my door open, I’m a few steps toward Roc’s room when I peek over the mezzanine.
As expected, I’m met by a chilled blue stare.
Stopping at my brother’s door, I cringe at the knock of his headboard and pound on the wood.
“Are you fucking her or killing her, stronzo?” Asshole?
“Either way, finish it, I have a test tomorrow!”
My response is more moans and screams.
“Basta!” Enough. “I swear to God, I’ll tell Ciro if this lasts another minute!”
“Get the fuck away from the door!” Roc barks as I pound again, and he pounds into the girl in response.
“Ignacio can hear this shit!” I try to reason with him to no avail as the screams continue. Just after Ignacio’s door opens, his expression fills with terror.
“Get your headphones and tablet,” I say on a sigh. Ignacio emerges seconds later, rushing past Roc’s door as if there is a monster lurking on the other side before hauling ass into my room.
“You’re a pig!” I screech as she does, pounding my fist against the thick, useless wood one last time in warning. Walking back into my room, I climb on my bed and situate Ignacio on my lap as he fires up his tablet.
“What is Roc doing to her?” Ignacio asks as I lift his headphones.
“Kissing her,” I answer as the notion strikes. “Tell Papa when he gets home. Tell him he was kissing her so hard she screamed, and it scared you, okay?”
Ignacio eagerly nods, unaware of the damage it could do.
Ciro would punish Roc not out of concern for Ignacio, but as an excuse to dole out his brand of punishment.
Rarely would I ever throw my brother in Ciro’s path, but Ignacio is Roc’s weakness and the one he protects above everyone else.
Above me. As things are now, Roc’s indecency has hit an all-time low, and he needs a wake-up call.
Since Mama’s latest hospitalization, Roc’s bedroom has been a revolving door.
He’s fucking everything he can mount. Though he graduated years ago, I know he’s staying now to keep Ciro pacified, to do his part for ‘the family’ while protecting us.
But the more Mama retreats into herself, year by year, the more Roc seems to be losing his way. It’s no mystery why. He’s been subject to the same horrors, but our unspoken agreement has always been to protect Ignacio from the same. To protect each other.
An agreement he seems oblivious to now. I doubt Iggy’s voiced fear would do anything to help, as Ciro has started to allow more of Roc’s rebellions as they’ve come.
In fact, this time, when our mother was hospitalized, Ciro used her absence as permission to indulge in more of his own sick whims. Especially when one of his captains sent him a “gift” to cheer him up.
A gift Ciro unwrapped, much like Roc has tonight—around the same fucking age.
What’s worse, Ciro used Mama’s absence as permission to become further engrossed as the ringleader of his dark fucking circus.
“I don’t want to kiss girls,” Ignacio says, giving me big eyes.
“Me neither,” I tease, and he giggles before pushing play on one of his favorite anime episodes as I stare at the side of his profile.
Of the three of us, Ignacio looks most like Ciro.
It’s his innocence that makes the comparison between them night and day as I sweep my hand over his silky black hair.
Soothing him as best I can, as I have been since our mother has become beyond repairable.
Becoming mute, withdrawn, and often staring through walls and people.
It’s me who now deals with my little brother’s bellyaches and nightmares.
“Mi dispiace, mio caro fratello.” I’m sorry, my sweet brother, I whisper to his temple, apologizing for both our parents.
He deserves better. We all do. While I’m trying to concentrate on my schoolwork in hopes of escaping for the duration of college and keeping my nose clean, Roc is doing the opposite.
When I caught him snorting coke last week, he slammed the door in my face.
Seconds later—nostrils crusted with the powder—he caught me as I was stalking away and shoved me against the wall, threatening that if I told, he would ‘stick me for being a squealing pig.’
Fury brews as I continue to stroke Ignacio’s hair, his shaking increasing with each of the girl’s screams. With Ciro’s nightly company and Roc’s spiral into the darker parts of himself, Iggy doesn’t stand a chance in this house.
Especially if this continues. Rage boiling over just as the noise on the other side of the wall stops, I ready myself.
“Call me,” the girl coos before Roc’s door closes. The second she passes by my room with a parting giggle, I usher Ignacio off my lap before lifting one of the ears of his headphones.
“Stay here, no matter what,” I tell him, and he nods.
I hold up my finger to let him know I’ll only be a minute before closing my door.
She’s halfway down the stairs when I corner and slam her against the wood-paneled wall.
My palm on her chest to keep her pinned, her eyes widen as every trace of her triumphant expression slips from her rapidly paling face.
“Have you no fucking decency? My little brother is here!”
Eyes wide, the girl, who looks not much older than me, wordlessly gapes at me as a gray suit appears in my periphery. Turning my head, I glare at him as I bark my order.
“Stop … Surely she can answer one little fucking question.” I turn back to the panting girl. “Because we both know she’s got a fucking set of lungs on her!”
To his credit, he stops his footing, his posture still warning me.
“Our mother is in the hospital, did you fucking know that?”
The girl shakes her head, her hair a mess, makeup smeared. “I didn’t—”
“Of course you didn’t, too blinded by the dick in your mouth. Have you no respect for yourself? Is it so necessary to let the whole house know you’re getting fucked?” She stares back at me in horror as I lay into her, my fury rising. “Why so quiet now? You weren’t minutes ago.”
“Let her go,” Roc barks from his bedroom door. “Now, Larissa.”
“Fuck you.” I grin at the girl, whose eyes dart behind my back to Roc in search of his help.
“Just one little push”—I nod toward the rest of the staircase. “Think that will keep you quiet?”
“Larissa!” Roc makes a beeline toward the staircase as the suit-clad boy standing to my left blurs before appearing at my side. It’s when I turn to him that I see the break in his expression, the unease. Shock registers then—it’s fear of what I might do. That I may carry out my threat.
“I said stay the fuck back,” I snarl as he inches toward us, as if approaching a ticking bomb.
Acid boils in my veins as I stare at the girl, sickly satisfied by my effect on her.
Maybe he has a right to fear me or my actions, because as I watch her cower, the temptation to make good on my threat sends more heated blood pumping through me, fueling me.
As if Roc senses it too, he speaks up from just a few steps above.
“Let her go!” he commands, his own voice wary. It’s then that I feel the silent exchange between Roc and our bodyguard, both sensing the burgeoning violence threatening to unleash from me.
Am I capable?
My rage and indifference toward her tell me I am. That if I pushed her, hurt her, or silenced her altogether, I would feel little or no remorse. Instead of shying away from the instinct to see it through, I press further in, leaning toward the anger.
“What do you care, Roc? You already got the only thing you wanted from her.” I look back at the utterly fucked girl as her lips tremble. “Let me save you the suspense. He won’t call. And you’re the third girl he’s fucked this week.”
In the next second, she’s freed from my grip as strong hands clutch mine, steel ice searing my profile. In a breath, she’s flying down the stairs toward the front door.
“Don’t come back without a muzzle!” I taunt before glaring at my brother, who watches her skitter out the door toward safety. Feeling only mildly satisfied as Roc scowls back, I lay into him. “You’re turning into him. You’re acting just like him!” I rage.
Eyes narrowing, Roc rushes me due to the insult.
Any comparison to my father being the worst of all of them.
A second before Roc can reach me, I’m barricaded behind the protective wall that is Ciro’s guard.
Our guard. Tension thickening, Roc stops just short of reaching me as they stare off.
Violence evident in both their posture as the guard takes a menacing step toward Roc.
Though Roc has a dozen years and far more pounds on him, I can feel the danger radiating from him as I goad Roc from behind him, ready to claw his eyes out.
“I can fight my own battles,” I snap before I issue my next threat to my brother. “One more fucking time, and I’m telling Ciro about your other extracurriculars! The coke, all of it.”
Roc squares off with the boy who is acting a man, shielding me while my brother issues his own warning. “Do it, Larissa, I fucking dare you,” Roc hisses, holding the cold blue gaze currently tracking his every move.
“Who are you anymore?” I shout. “Why are you doing this?”
“What do you fucking care?”
“You’re the older brother, and you’re scaring Ignacio! You’re supposed to protect us!”
“And I haven’t?” he scoffs. “I pulled him off you last time. Maybe I won’t next time,” Roc threatens.
Instantly, I’m back at the dining room table, face smashed to the hardwood as Ciro spews his venom.
Going on and on to his captains of his disappointment in his only daughter as he pulls his belt from his pants.