Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
OWEN
O ur hearts beat erratically but in time with one another’s. It’s amazing what a confession can do for you, the way it can pull you closer together or tear you apart.
A heavy feeling lingers in the pit of my stomach, knowing my secrets could destroy us, destroy her, and even though I promised honesty in our relationship, I know deep in my heart she wouldn’t be prepared for this one.
Some secrets are best kept hidden in the dark where they belong, and my mind wanders back in time to when I was thirteen as the realization of my father’s making haunts me.
My feet come to a standstill as I take in the scene around me.
I’ve only been home from boarding school an hour and already want to return. Sickness rolls in my stomach, and my breakfast threatens to make a return. I hate it when I’m summoned to my father’s basement, but it’s a necessity in our family business.
For as long as I can remember, I have been conditioned to take over his empire, yet not one part of me wants to.
Three men line the wall, each of them dressed head to toe in black suits and shirts. They stand with their hands behind their backs and their heads lowered as a mark of respect to my father.
My gaze hits the man chained to the wall. He’s been beaten and is bloody, and I can only hope he has little fight left in him. Knowing he will scream less makes this whole situation easier.
“Owen, come here.” My father points to the spot in front of him, and without hesitation, I move to the exact point he commands me.
“I’d like you to meet someone important. A friend of mine, an ally.” I know that look. I’m to show respect. I’m to be the man I’m destined to be, no matter how much I don’t want it.
At school, I’m free. I can be anything I want to be. My friends see me as Owen, the boy who loves sports, has a mean right hook, and can hold his own. But at home, I enter a cavern of darkness. A world surrounded by the deadliest, and my father in the center of it. His dealings within the underworld have become notorious, but only to those who seek it. To the outside world, he’s a pillar of the community, a businessman who dabbles in the security network.
He fails to mention the forefront of his business is a fa?ade which benefits him and his colleagues equally.
His connections are of benefit to both parties, full of wealth and knowledge while carefully entwining the worlds like only he has the ability to do.
“This is Lorenzo Varros.” He holds out his palm toward his acquaintance, and without prompting, I step forward and hold out my hand.
Mr. Varros chuckles deeply but humors me by slipping his hand into mine and squeezing as he shakes it, tilting his head and assessing me. “Nice to meet you, Owen.”
I deliver a nod but remain silent.
“Show Mr. Varros what we do to traitors, Owen.” My father’s steel gaze holds mine, testing me. His eyes say a thousand things while his lips say none. Don’t fuck this up, boy. Be the man I created. Let the darkness consume you like it does me.
Pulling my shoulders back, I step past him and stride toward the table where my father keeps his interrogation instruments.
Knowing he’s craving a performance, I select the scalpel, and like my father trained me to do, I fall into the depths of hell and move swiftly.
Using the man to pour out my anger over this fucked-up situation, I slice at his chest, stripping him bare of his skin while his howls of pain become background noise.
My mind becomes riddled with jealousy of my friends, their normalcy. I want to swim in Tate’s pool and party to the beat of the music he blares out.
Slice.
My grip tightens as each contact becomes deeper, deadlier. The beast inside me unraveling at a terrifying pace, if the victim’s pleads are anything to go by.
Slice.
To play tennis and celebrate the school holidays with a barbeque.
Slice.
My hand becomes slippery with the warmth of his blood, and I imagine it’s from sweat while training Mase at the gym.
Slice.
Loud chuckles erupt in the room, but I ignore it. As a chill runs down my spine, I envisage Shaw shoving ice down my T-shirt as I give in to the scenarios playing out in my mind, each helping to make this task more bearable.
Losing myself to the demons beckoning me, more bearable.
Slice.
Booms of clapping echo off the concrete wall, and my father’s firm grip pinches into my shoulder, then my shoulders sag.
“Well done, son.” He spins me to face Lorenzo.
My skin itches to rid it of the blood coating me, and I swallow back the bile in my throat.
Lorenzo scans me from head to toe. It’s calculating and forces me to gasp for breath. In that moment, I feel like he’s staring directly into my soul. He knows this isn’t me.
He knows I don’t want to be the monster my father is training me to become.
I want to be free.
His eyes soften slightly. “I’ll be seeing you, Owen.”
His words hold a haunting promise, and I tell myself to never become the man my father wants me to be.
When I have a family, I will protect them at all costs.
Do whatever it takes.
Because you protect the ones you love from evil, not expose them to it.
I tangle my fingers in her hair, holding her tightly against my firm chest while my cock remains stuffed deep inside her. Then I breathe in her scent, letting it encompass me, bringing with it the solace I so fiercely desire. Her acceptance.
She’s mine , I tell myself for the millionth time.
“Now tell me about your nightmare.”
She lifts her head to face me, but my tattooed fingers remain on the back of her head.
When she takes a deep breath, I feel it all the way into my balls, unable to help the way my cock throbs for her.
She swallows, and the way her eyes flicker with fear before she licks her lips and gives in to my command stirs the devil inside me, eager to get out.
“When I close my eyes, I see it all happen.” The soft tremble in her voice sends my pulse racing with anxiety.
I nod toward her. “Go on.”
“The men that came into the room and made him—” Her breath hitches as tears fill her eyes, and I want nothing more than to take away her pain, but her word sends my mind into overdrive. “Kneel. They made him kneel before they…” Tears spill from her eyes, and a shudder racks her body followed by a wake of goose bumps.
Awareness creeps up my spine like poison. She saw him die.
“Before they killed him.” She gasps and sucks in a sharp breath, stealing mine in the process. “They killed him, and there was so much blood, Owen. And I shouted for them to stop, I shouted, and Romeo was crying, and his eyes, his eyes met mine, Owen.” Her panicked words flow from her as she unravels while I remain steadfast, frozen beneath her with such volatile anger I’m too afraid to move, knowing the destruction I could cause.
They killed him in front of her.
My teeth draw blood from my lower lip as my girl breaks down, and when her sobs turn to wails, the hazy cloud of fury detonates, and I’ve no choice but to slide her off me and onto the mattress.
I jump up from the bed like a madman, and with a roar, I slam my fist into the wall again and a-fucking-gain until the plaster crumbles to the floor like my heart.
She saw her husband murdered.
The bastard didn’t even protect her from that.
I should have been there. I should have stopped her from leaving, from marrying him.
“You couldn’t have done anything.” Her fingers graze over my back, disconnecting me from my descent into the abyss, and now I realize I voiced the words I was thinking.
“I should never have let you go, Laya,” I whisper, brokenhearted at the terror she must have endured.
“I’m here now,” she reassures me, smoothing her hand over my back. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Turning to her, I swipe away the last of the tears streaking her face. I will not allow her to cry for him. “Promise?”
She smiles and toys with my mother’s chain as she raises her chin with confidence. Her words are low but strong and passionate, not a flicker of doubt in her eyes. “I promise.” And I relax against her words, knowing she believes them as much as I do, that we will weather a storm together. We will remain strong and unbroken; the way we were meant to be.