Ghost (Serpents of Chaos MC #5)

Prologue

GHOST

Age Twelve

Covering my ears with my hands, I rock back and forth, trying to block out the screaming coming from downstairs.

My father has only just stepped through the door, and he’s already unhappy about something and taking it out on my mom.

He never hits her, he doesn’t have to. Cruelty doesn’t always leave visible marks.

I hide in my room when he gets home, my stomach feeling sick whenever I can hear his heavy steps coming up the staircase.

It wasn’t always this way.

Before my sister Charlotte died, we were once a happy family.

But now?

The guilt is destroying us all.

But mostly him.

He was meant to be watching her that day.

And now, Mom and I are paying the price.

We can’t seem to do anything right. We’re always walking on eggshells. Dad made Mom quit her job at the library, so now we don’t have much spare money. When we want something, we have to ask him.

And he usually says no.

‘Your mom is too sensitive, and she can’t be trusted with our money,’ he always says, justifying the reason for her tears.

She wasn’t too sensitive.

He was just an asshole.

“Alec? What the hell are you doing sitting on the floor?” Dad asks as he opens my bedroom door.

I quickly get up and wipe my tears, facing him. “Nothing.”

He studies me for a moment and then shakes his head. “You’re just like your mother… sensitive, weak,” he murmurs as he sits on my bed. “She should have been here. Not you.”

My heart breaks every time he says something like that, because he’s not wrong.

I’d trade places with Charlotte in a heartbeat.

She was sweet.

Kind.

My mind goes back to that day. She was wearing a princess dress with a big smile on her face. I was going to my friend’s house to play a video game. I had returned just as she was being pulled out of the pool.

That was almost a year ago. While I imagine her in heaven, this place that was once her home has turned into hell.

Steel-gray eyes like my sister’s and mine stare down at me. “I’ve started a new business, and you are going to help me run it.”

“What is it?” I ask.

“You’re going to be delivering packages for me.” He stands up, and sneers, “And you’re going to have to man up, Alec, or the world is going to chew you up and spit you out.”

He wasn’t wrong.

It did.

And six years later, I was locked up for dealing drugs.