Chapter 19 #2
“I wish I was,” Father scoffed. “They were both abandoned, like the first one. But it won’t take long for things to shift, for whoever is doing this to start burning the occupied ones. We need to find out who’s responsible, and quickly.”
* * *
“Ow, ow, ow.”
I watched, mildly amused as Dayton struggled to sit in a chair at the kitchen table, his limbs shaking and face scrunched up in pain.
Bruises were already starting to form on his pale skin; over his face, arms and, even though I couldn’t see it, his chest. I’d struck him there hard enough to pretty much guarantee it.
“Ow, ow, ow, ahhhhh,” he breathed out a sigh of relief the moment his ass landed in the chair, his head tipping back. “God, I never wanna do that again. Everything hurts,” he groaned, closing his eyes.
Eager to burst his bubble, I took a sip of my water and said, “Too bad.”
His head snapped to me. “What? Noooo.”
“Don’t be such a baby,” I grunted, eating a forkful of my beef stroganoff. “I didn’t even hit you that hard.”
“Not that hard, he says,” Dayton laughed mirthlessly. “Not that hard. Okay then asshole, what’s this then?” He pointed to his still-blooming black eye. “Or this?” He lifted the front of his shirt, showing me an angry bruise spreading out across his chest. “Huh? What do you call all this?”
I gave him a blank stare. “Training,” I said emotionlessly, then went right back to eating my food.
“Well, I don’t want to do it anymore.”
“Why?”
“Because I got my fucking ass handed to me, that’s why,” he growled.
“And?”
“And it was embarrassing! I sucked so bad I couldn’t land one hit on you, and you weren’t even paying attention half the time. I’m not cut out for this shit.”
Flora came over with a bag of frozen peas. She wrapped it in a cloth and pressed it against Dayton’s face, over his eye. “Hold this here, child.”
Dayton winced, doing as she asked. “Thank you.”
I pushed my empty plate away and leaned back in my chair, crossing my arms over my chest. “Have you ever been in a fight before?”
The one eye I could see glanced away awkwardly. “Depends on your definition of a fight,” he grumbled.
I just stared at him, waiting for a proper answer. I was a patient man. I had no problem waiting him out.
He sighed, shoulders slumping forward. “My mum’s junkie ex-boyfriend used to hit me all the time when she couldn’t pay what she owed. I tried to fight back, but he was a lot bigger than me. Stronger. I’m not a fighter. Never will be.”
Dayton was tall but lanky. A lot of men would be bigger than him. We needed to fatten him up a bit, put some meat on him.
I drummed my fingers lightly on the table. “I’ve been fighting all my life, Dayton. Since I was a little kid just barely learning how to walk. You were never going to beat me. That wasn’t the point of it.”
He frowned. “What was the point, if not to win?”
“For me to see your potential. Yes, right now you’re not a fighter.
You throw yourself around hoping you’ll hit something, which is the worst way to fight.
You’re slow, clumsy, and one of these days you’re going to break your hand because you don’t know how to throw a proper punch.
” With each word I said, Dayton slumped further into his chair, his confidence diminishing by the second.
“But none of that matters because that can all be taught. Learnt. What you possess is something far better. Determination and willpower. I beat your ass into the ground time and time again and you didn’t let that stop you.
You got back up and tried again, refusing to lie down.
Those skills are what makes a good fighter.
The willpower to keep going no matter how crappy the odds are.
Everything else can be learnt, you just have to be willing to put in the time and hard work. ”
Dayton stared at me, his mouth slightly open in shock. “You-you think I could learn that? To be as good as you?”
I didn’t know much about his life before arriving here, but based on what he’d said so far, it was easy to see he’d been neglected.
His mother was a junkie and likely prioritised her next hit over him.
She left him to fend for himself on numerous occasions while she was whacked out of her mind.
He was scrawny, like he’d never had a steady stream of food.
Slightly malnourished. He’d been beaten up so much he wore the emotional scars of it on his sleeve.
I was confident he craved the ability to look after and defend himself.
“Is that what you want?” I could show him all the moves in the world, but none of it would matter if he didn’t have the drive to learn it, if he didn’t put in the time and effort he needed to. So far he’d been very vocal about his lack of desire to be here.
Dayton removed the bag of peas from his face, laying it on the table.
He gave me his complete attention, his eyes hard and serious.
It was the first time I’d ever seen him like that.
“I do. I’m sick of getting my ass beat. I wanna do the beating for once.
I want to go back home and see how Brent likes it when he’s the one getting his head kicked in.
” Venom and hatred dripped from his words, his hands clenching into fists.
“That can very easily be arranged. It would only take one phone call.”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“You tell me what he looks like and where he likes to hang out and I’ll send someone to kill him,” I said casually, shrugging one shoulder.
Dayton stared at me. “You’ll send someone to kill him,” he repeated in disbelief. “Why? You don’t even know him. He hasn’t done anything to you. Why would you do that?”
I sighed, leaning my elbows on the table. It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t understand how we worked, didn’t know there wasn’t anything we wouldn’t do for the people we cared about. I would just have to explain it to him.
“Mikhail is like family to me. For as long as I can remember, he’s been there.
He taught me how to drive. How to fire a gun.
He was there—” my throat closed up and I closed my eyes briefly, breathing through that familiar pain.
“—he was there for us when my mother was killed. He’s the one who brought my father back from the edge.
He’s more of an uncle to me than my actual uncle.
And you’re his son. That makes you family too. ”
“I’m not his son,” Dayton gritted out. “Biologically, we’re related. But he doesn’t give a shit about me. He palmed me off to you guys the first chance he got.”
I shook my head, placing my hands on the table. I pushed myself to a stand. “That’s where you’re wrong. Had Mikhail known about you, he would have come for you. He never would have abandoned you to be taken care of by a junkie. Not his own flesh and blood.”
Dayton scoffed. “We’ll just have to agree to disagree on that one, won’t we?”
“I suppose so.”
I could see why he was reluctant to believe me. He did have a point. Mikhail had just discovered he had a son and instead of spending time with him, bonding with him and getting to know him, he sent him here.
But I don’t think Dayton understood that it was for his own good. He was too close to see it from any perspective other than the ‘abandoned child’ point of view.
Without training, Dayton wouldn’t survive in Mikhail’s world. Mikhail knew that. As much as it would have pained him, he had to send Dayton away to get the training he needed.
The world we lived in was so vastly different to the one Dayton knew. Dayton would hesitate to kill someone, even in a life or death situation. That kind of hesitation could cost him his life.
Dayton would see this was the best option…eventually.
I picked up my empty plate and placed it in the sink, leaving Dayton to his own thoughts. The kid had a lot to think about. Flora and a few of the other housemaids were moving about the kitchen, cleaning and tidying up after preparing lunch.
“Has Drea been given her lunch yet?” I asked Flora, washing my hands.
Flora placed a steaming hot plate of beef stroganoff on the counter. “I was just about to take it to her.”
Even though she was still technically a prisoner, Drea had to be treated a little differently now.
We were never going to form an alliance with the cartel but if we were going to part amicably with them, we had to start treating her like a ‘guest’.
A guest that was locked in her room and couldn’t roam the house without an escort.
“I’ll do it.” I ignored the look of surprise Flora sent my way and picked up the plate, heading out of the kitchen.
“Zander,” Nik called out, his body standing in the doorway of the security room. “A word?”
“I’ll come see you later.” I was far more excited than I should have been to see that little firecracker upstairs, to try and sort out what the fuck her problem was.
“You’re going to want to hear what I have to say.”
My spine stiffened. Whatever it was, I knew I wouldn’t like it. Nik was using his cautious voice, the kind of voice a zookeeper would use on a wild animal to try and keep them calm.
I handed the plate of food back to Flora. “Keep it warm. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Flora nodded.
Nik stepped back into the room so I could walk in and I shut the door behind me. “What? What is it?”
“Before I tell you, please remember all the equipment in here is really expensive. If you need to hit something, take it to the warehouse.”
I rolled my eyes. “I broke one computer one time.”
“It was an OrionX2 Dual System Extreme Overclocked PC and it was $37,000,” Nik growled.
“I know. You told me that when I broke it.” Well, he more or less screamed it. “Now what did you have to tell me?”
Nik gave me one last hard glare (communicating that he was still pissed about the whole thing even though it happened years ago and I bought him a new one) before dropping into the chair and typing on the keyboard.