Chapter 5 #2
She was still wearing the diamond tennis bracelet I watched him clasp onto her wrist hours before…
still wearing some designer dress she must have changed into at her parents’ house for this obviously pre-arranged rendezvous .
They’d been seated at a table in the restaurant I had made reservations to take her to myself that night… I even watched them dance…
I turned from her, hoping for a moment to gather myself. She tricked me…fucking hurt me …
“You’re dead to me… Whore .”
“Damien!” She stormed around to look me in the face.
“I saw you! I saw you with him! You lied to me! How long, Gemma? How long have you been screwing Chad’s gilded cock?”
Her shocked expression morphed into what might have been regret. Though I wasn’t sure if it was for betraying me or for getting caught.
“I was good to you… But you’re all the same when it comes right down to it, aren’t you? All whores , willing to spread their thighs for the highest bidder!”
The sorrowful look on her face flashed to anger, and she lifted her hand to strike me. I caught her wrist before she could.
“ You don’t get to touch me. Ever again,” I snarled, then shoved her away. “ These chains are broken … You’ve got an hour to gather your shit and disappear.”
Grabbing my leather jacket from the back of a kitchen chair, I left the apartment.
I had always been acutely aware of the fact that Gemma was out of my league. That it was only a matter of time before she’d realize it herself. The aggravating reality of the situation was that I brought the emotional pain upon myself. It would be a long time before I ever did again.
When I’d become old enough to ride, I traded in Dom’s dirt bike with some of the cash I earned on the streets to procure myself a used Indian Scout Motorcycle.
I was looking forward to giving him this bike when he got out.
I could hardly wait. Now that Gemma and I were over, he’d be able to move in.
I was eager to begin repaying my brother for what he’d done for me.
Going into business together, establishing our own crew, was part of that plan.
This breakup was inevitable, I told myself. She’d been able to turn a blind eye while I was still small-time. However, I knew Gemma had plans of her own…and I don’t think I ever truly fit into them.
I parked near a playground that reminded me of the one Dom and I used to frequent as kids when our mother threw us out. We’d spend hours collecting the loose change that had fallen from the pockets of rich kids.
Pulling a weary drag on my cigarette, I dismounted the bike and headed for one of the benches near the swing set. I missed my brother. That’s what the pain in my chest was, wasn’t it? Not over another whore who didn’t choose me…
Gemma already had hours to vacate the apartment, but I had no immediate desire to return, nor did I care whether she took everything and wiped me clean out. Growing up dirt poor made me a bit of a minimalist anyway.
I was sitting on a park bench in the dark, staring at the swings, when I heard Chad’s suped-up Charger pull into the lot behind me.
“There he is! Yeah, that’s his bike!” one of his minions shouted. The car doors opened and slammed shut. I didn’t bother looking. Not even at the approaching sound of their footsteps thudding on the pavement.
I didn’t bother standing when Chad and his frat buddies surrounded me, either. I continued to stare past them at the swings, remembering how Dom would dare me to jump.
“Gemma’s with me now,” Chad stated the obvious.
“I gathered that… I hope none of your frat bros are more well off than you, or you may come to find her in one of their beds next.”
“Wow… Real nice coming from the guy she was with for the last few years.”
“Those years clearly meant the world to her.” I really should have seen this coming. There were signs. Two and two certainly added up to whore .
“Well, I can’t have you talking about my girl like that. Get up, so I can knock you the fuck down, dirtbag .”
“I’m not fighting you over a whore, Chad. You won .” I removed the pack of cigs and Zippo from my jacket and lit up again. “ Bought and paid for .” I blew the smoke up at him. “She’s yours. Fair and most definitely… square .”
His frat bros chuckled before one of them said, “I thought he was supposed to be some kind of badass?”
“Did you ever love her, Damien?” Chad asked. “Are you even capable of love? She told me all about the weird satanic shit you used to do with her.”
Weird satanic shit… I couldn’t help but laugh inwardly at the bleak future of her vanilla sex life with this yuppy douche.
“Look, Chad …” I turned to him, allowing a sinister grin to slice my features while I played with my lighter, rolling it across my fingers like a coin.
“I’m willing to bet your little sister’s cunt will feel just as good around my cock as Gemma’s did.
Hell, I’ll even let you know next time we cross paths at a party, and I slip her some of that X she’s developed such a taste for. ”
“Motherfucker!” Chad shouted, slapping the lighter from my hand. It landed on the walkway and slid across the cement with a metallic scrape.
They all seemed to grab me at once.
Two of them restrained my arms as the first of their strikes expelled breath harshly past my lips, sending my cigarette to the ground near my Zippo. Fists pummeled my abdomen, slug after slug, until I could hardly pull in air at all.
“Not so tough, are you?” Chad taunted.
“ Five …on one …” I’d managed to wheeze. “I’d laugh…at your…pathetic… predictability …if I could fucking breathe!”
I could barely stand after they worked me over for another few minutes, blackening my eyes, bloodying my mouth. When they released me, I dropped to my knees, clutching my abdomen, hoping they had satiated their need for violence.
Coughing and gasping, I never heard the chain…only felt the cold steel and the bite of its constriction around my neck.
Immediately, my fingers went to my throat, clawing at the metal links. Jerked backwards and dragged on my back across the ground, they laughed and kicked at me while I struggled.
“String the devil up!” Chad barked the order.
Fuck! Do they mean to kill me? I wondered and began thrashing against the chain harder, though to no avail.
Through their laughter, I heard the chain clang loudly over the metal swing set, then the rapid clanking of links being pulled taut.
Hoisted up from the ground, the chain constricted impossibly tight… Facet joints in my neck forcibly cracked. They pulled until I was teetering on the steel-tipped toes of my boots.
I fought against the rising panic, even as the increasing pain in my throat became blinding . I barely heard her car door slam as I thrashed and clawed.
“Stop it!” Gemma screamed, running toward us. “Stop it! You’ll kill him!”
“So what? Who’s gonna miss him?” one of them laughed, then went on to brag about his and Chad’s families’ legal connections and influence in the courts.
“Pull him higher!” Chad’s voice demanded among the taunts and cackles. “Let’s see how much he enjoys asphyxiation!”
The ringing crescendo in my ears almost made it impossible to discern the rest of their mocking words, while the chain lifted me off the ground completely.
I heard the crunch of my trachea in that moment. It reverberated all the way up my skull.
They’d heard it too.
“ Oh God!” Gemma’s voice was riddled with horror and desperation as she begged, “ Let him down! Please , Chad! Please!”
Though I was sure I was destined to meet my wretched maker at any second, my foolish heart found a sliver of comfort in that moment, believing she did perhaps care for me after all.
The chains clattered loudly over the metal post like a ripcord, and my body crashed to the ground.
She was there, kneeling beside me, struggling to remove the chains from my throat.
They loosened, though I was unable to pull in a normal breath.
It was as if I was breathing through a thin straw.
The blood rushing back to my brain made my head pound in agony as well.
I attempted to say her name through the paralyzing pain in my throat. Nothing but a faint, rattling rasp emanated from what I knew then was a crushed larynx.
“Oh shit…we really fucked him up!” one of them said.
“Shut up,” Chad shoved his frat bro aside and loomed over me.
“Can you hear me, dirtbag? Your former associates are backing me , now. You’re fucking dead on sight!
So is your fucking brother. They aren’t too keen on your plans to start a crew of your own when he’s released, so I suggest you get the fuck out of this town. I run things now.”
With a swift, brutal kick, he nailed me painfully in the ribs. Though it was Gemma’s next words that hurt the most... Shattered any illusion I’d ever had about True Love…
“Take the chains and let’s get out of here! I have an alibi in place for us. It’ll be his word against ours. He’s never been one of us, anyway. Nobody will believe him… not where he comes from.”
T wo years later… Chad and his frat minions overdosed on a bad batch of fentanyl laced cocaine. At their graduation party, of all places.
Only Gemma survived.
Rumor has it, she went a little mad after Chad’s burial, though she never spoke of the reason she’d broken down hysterically when the floral arrangement was placed upon his casket.
I know the real reason why...
It was the words written on the white ribbon beside his name…
“ T rue Love.”