Wesley
Chapter fifty-three
The house is eerily quiet as I make my way down the stairs to get something to drink.
Mom went out of town this weekend and Dad disappeared earlier this afternoon. It’s getting late, I thought he’d be back by now.
I hate him. I hate that he’s my father.
Most of all, I hate myself. I let him rape my best friend. I could’ve stopped him, but instead, I believed the worst of her.
She says there’s nothing more between us, but I’ll continue to prove to her that I’m sorry no matter what it takes.
As I get closer to Dad’s office, I hear muffled voices. When did he get home?
I tip-toe down the hallway, stopping at the half open door and listen.
“Today’s the end for you, asshole. You’re nothing but a pedophile.
But you screwed up and messed with the wrong girl.
Sierra is family, and you’re going to pay.
Your boy put a wrench in our plans, so we had to be clever and come up with something new.
While this isn’t the way we wanted this to go down, it’ll serve its purpose. ” There’s grunting in response.
I take a step forward, trying to peek around the door to see who’s talking when it opens and I stumble, falling onto the floor.
“Look what we have here.” One of the men chuckles as he squats down, taking hold of my hair and pulling my head up so he can look me in the face.
“How about this, Malcolm? Your son’s here. What should we do with him?”
I can barely see over the desk in this position. I can hear mumbling, but nothing is legible.
“How silly, Tank. Why don’t you remove the tape from his mouth?” I hear a rip before a scream pierces my eardrums.
“Leave my son out of this. I don’t know who you are, but you’ll go to jail for this. Do you know who I am?”
“Yeah fuckface, you’re the pervert who drugs and rapes underage children!” another voice booms.
“The kid wasn’t in the plan. What do we do?” another voice asks.
The guy holding my hair lets go and I barely stop my face from hitting the floor. He stands and pulls out a phone, making a call.
“Get up and get in the chair,” a younger guy orders me, and I see he’s wearing a Tiger Tail shirt.
They’re here because of Sierra. Dad must have contacted them to see Lilac, not knowing who she was.
Do they know I’m the one who turned over the flash drive to her uncle?
“Wesley, son, it’s going to be okay. I’ll give them money and they’ll go. That slut couldn’t have enough to pay them shit. I’ll offer more,” my dad spews, like he’s in charge even though he’s restrained in a chair.
I wonder what he would think if he knew I’m the reason the truth of what he did to her came out. Though not the way I intended for it to happen.
The older guy has moved over to the corner, speaking in a hushed tone on the phone. He glances over at me every few seconds. A minute later, he’s hanging up and stepping back over to us.
“Well, isn’t this an interestin’ turn of events, Malcolm? It seems the video of you rapin’ Sierra was found by your son. He wasn’t the one who spread it around school, but he did turn it in to the cops, and gave it to Sierra’s uncle.” My dad’s eyes go wide before he looks at me with venom.
He tries to jump from the chair only to be stopped by the rope holding him to it, and the large man, gripping his shoulders.
“You sack of shit, you’re a worthless excuse for a son. You could’ve had that tight little snatch of hers if you had manned up and took it from her. Instead, you danced around her skirt tails.”
I’m out of the chair and across the desk, punching him in the face before anyone can stop me.
Large hands grab my shoulders, pulling me off of the desk and slamming me into the chair. My father starts screaming but is quickly muffled by tape going back over his mouth.
“Whoa, now that’s some fire there. Maybe the son has some balls after all.
Wesley, can I call you that? Doesn’t matter.
You see, you walked in on somethin’ you shouldn’t have.
Your dad, well, he’s not walkin’ out of here.
Tonight he’s takin’ his last breath. The question is, what do we do with you? ”
“I don’t care what you do to him. He’s not my father. He’s nothing more than a waste of space, a good-for-nothing piece of shit. But I can give you something else, to make his demise just a little sweeter.”
The older man sits on the edge of the desk and gazes at me.
“What do you have?”
“He has a safe. I know the combination. In it, he has more flash drives. All with names on them. I haven’t looked at them, but I’m sure they’re more of the same as Sierra. I’ve heard conversations as well. He has some sick fucking group where they record sexual encounters and share them.”
The guy looks back at my dad with a smirk. “I think you’re wrong about the boy; he’s been very helpful. And Malcolm, I hate to say it, but he doesn’t seem to care for you at all.”
All the guys in the room start laughing and I’m not sure if I should be scared for myself or join in.
“Open the safe and get me the drives.”
I stand hesitantly from the chair and move behind the desk, opening it up. I just hope my dad was stupid enough to leave them there. He always seemed to think he was above everyone, so I don't see why he wouldn’t think that about the law too.
I spin the dial until the lock clicks and I pull open the door. Reaching inside, I move papers around, looking for the envelope they were in. I don’t see it at first and start to panic.
“What’s the holdup, boy?” the man asks. “I know you weren’t lying to me.”
I take a breath and slow down. Then I see it, tucked under a legal pad, and I pull it out. Holding it in my hand, I can feel the flash drives inside.
“Here you go.” I hand it over and the man opens it, pulling out one of the flash drives.
He holds it in his hand as he steps around the desk. “Move him out of the way.”
Tank pulls the chair with my father in it backward, giving the man room to access my father’s computer. He powers it on and the password screen comes up. He looks over his shoulder at me, eyebrow raised in question.
“I know he changes it.” I think for a minute and it hits me. “Try Lilac.”
The guy chuckles but types it in.
It works.
“Aren’t you a smart one,” he says as he sticks the flash drive in the hole and opens it. A naked, passed out girl shows up on the screen with my dad fucking her. “Bingo.”
He pulls out the drive and places it on my dad’s desk, along with the rest. It’s only then I notice he has gloves on. Looking around the room at the others, I realize they all do.
“Okay, Wesley, this is how it’s going to go. Dear ol’ Dad is having some remorse for what he did and just can’t live with himself.” He reaches out and one of the guys hands him a letter. “Does this look like your dad’s handwriting?”
He holds it out so I can see, but not touch. I take a look and shock hits me. If my dad didn’t write this, then someone is an amazing forger. “Yeah, spot on.”
“Good. Well, that’s his suicide letter. The cops are going to find it along with these new videos, thanks to you.
So you have two options. You can go to your room, pretend you never saw us, and not say a word until you make the call to 911 and put on the best show of your life.
Or option two is that this turns into a murder suicide.
Your father was so angry because you turned him in that he killed you, then himself. What’s it going to be?”
No matter my choice, my father is dying and I can’t find it in me to care. I have no feelings for him whatsoever.
He raped my best friend and god knows how many others. He’s treated my mom like shit, turning her into an alcoholic, and I have no love for him.
“Option one,” I announce.
“Good choice. Perhaps there is hope that you won’t become like your father. Just remember, if you ever speak of what happened here, we’ll be back and there won’t be a choice then.” His stern face and clenched jaw tell me he means exactly what he says.
“You don’t have to worry. That’s not my father, just some stranger who pretended to be.”
“Then get out of here. When you hear it, wait thirty minutes, then make the call and give the performance of a lifetime. Got it?”
“Yeah.”
I take one last look back at my father and walk to the door.
I’m actually happy that he’s about to die. The world will be free of the monster he is.
Shutting the door behind me, I make my way back up to my room and sit down on the edge of my bed, chewing on my nails.
I’m thankful my mom chose tonight to be out of the house, so she wasn’t put in the middle of it. I don’t think she could sit back and let it happen like I am. Maybe I’m just dead inside.
But I owe this to Sierra.
I don’t know how much time has passed before I hear the gunshot. But once I do, I check the time on my watch and wait.