12. Chapter 12
S o, they were my parents, after all. It was obvious as soon as I saw her face in person. When she finally saw me, I knew she was innocent. It was clear she missed me and thought I had died. Who told her that? It explained why they withdrew my missing person’s report.
She kept wanting to touch me and hug me, but I couldn’t. I didn’t know her. I barely knew Angel, but I got close to him because he was there just for me. To save me and set me free. He was mine. She wasn’t. I barely recognized her, and there were so few memories of even having parents.
But seeing my father, I knew right then he was guilty.
Of what, I wasn’t sure. He had fear written all over his angry face.
When Angel gave me the gun, I wanted to kill him.
I had bouts of anger sometimes, but not like this.
When I first got here, I trembled like a scared puppy.
Now I trembled from rage. The fire burned in my veins, turning my skin hot.
But if I killed him, we wouldn’t get any answers.
I glanced at my mother, catching her staring at me, but I looked away, trying to show nothing on my face, despite how impossible it was.
I’d never been consumed by so many emotions at once I nearly choked on them.
Not for a long time. The kind that made your heart literally hurt in your chest from beating so hard.
My mind warred with itself between running or killing my father.
I had two fathers in my life. Both of them were horrible. What did that make me?
Angel tied him up with some sort of tape, then draped the area in plastic.
He explained earlier that if he needed to hurt my father, it would be less to clean up.
My father looked at me with confusion, doubt, and fear.
He was now in a position I found myself in many times over the years.
Not tied up like that, but trapped, unable to move, sitting prone, so men could do whatever they wanted to me.
“You good, Sunshine?” Angel whispered to me. I gave him a quick nod as he proceeded.
Angel walked over in front of my father and sat on his plastic-covered desk.
I tried to feed off his steadiness and strength.
His awe-inspiring power that he oozed. My angel of death.
My death bringer. My avenger. He said I didn’t know what love was, but I did.
I loved him in all his darkness and the light he refused to acknowledge but was still there.
I’d never felt safer than when around him, and I trusted him with everything that I was.
“Let’s start with a simple question, Geoff. Can I call you Geoff?”
My father stared up at him, saying nothing while trying to look brave. I never got strong enough even to pretend to be brave before. They broke me before I learned that I could fight.
“So, Geoff, who did you sell Luca to?”
I tensed and watched the man giving nothing away to my angel, but my angel would get his answers. He was stronger than the man sitting and taped to a chair.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Someone kidnapped our son, and we were later informed that the police found him dead.”
“Hmm, and did you see the body?”
“Yes, but it was beaten beyond recognition.”
“Convenient. So, they did a DNA test? Dental records? How did they know it was your son?”
I glanced at my mother, who sat up and watched my father carefully. She had a tissue in her hand, but she’d finally stopped crying, gripping the edge of the couch.
“Dental records.”
“But everyone in this room knows that’s a lie since Luca clearly didn’t die.”
My father eyed me. “If it’s even him.”
“It’s him! I would know my son anywhere!”
Angel raised his hand to my mother. “DNA will take care of that simply enough.” Then he looked back at her. “Did you see the body?”
She shook her head. “No, Geoff wouldn’t let me. He said it was our son but that I shouldn’t look at him since he was… hurt beyond recognition. He said he was protecting my heart. Liar!”
“Sit down!” Angel yelled at her when she stood.
She glanced at him in fear and sat quietly.
“Luca, please bring me my bag and set it on the desk.”
I stood and did as I was told, then sat back down, keeping the gun on my father.
Angel rummaged through the bag and pulled out some sort of tool I didn’t recognize. “Do you know what these are, Geoff?”
“Pliers,” he said, so quietly I almost didn’t hear him, and his dark eyes were trained on the tool.
“Yes, pliers. This is a great tool. Fixes all sorts of things. Even lying fathers. One more chance. Who did you sell your son to?”
When he still said nothing, Angel grabbed my dad’s pinky, which he tried to get away from him, but his wrists were tied to the armrests. Once Angel had his pinky, he put it between the tool, squeezed, and twisted until it snapped. My father screamed and started to sweat.
I scoffed. My father had no idea of what pain truly was. Try taking two men at once when you’re only thirteen.
My mother whimpered but didn’t move.
“Who did you sell Luca to? Let’s add another question. Why did you sell Luca?”
He panted and sweated, but he held it together.
“Hmm, okay, the pliers didn’t work.” Angel tossed them behind him, and they landed softly on the rug.
He looked through his bag and pulled out a leather case, opening the zipper.
Inside was a lovely ornate knife that gleamed in the light.
You could see how sharp it was from here. I sat up with interest.
“I want one,” I said.
I had no idea I had said that out loud until Angel looked back at me with a smirk. “Yeah, you like this?”
I nodded. “It’s really pretty.”
“And deadly.”
“Yes.”
“You can have this one when I’m done with it.”
I smiled as my stomach fluttered with want. “Thank you.”
He smiled back and then focused on my father again.
“Your son over there has been through hell and back thanks to you, and I bet you don’t even give a shit.” He ignored my mother’s quiet crying and continued. “What I’m about to do to you is nothing in comparison. He was only eight years old when he was first raped.”
My father couldn’t even look at me. In fact, he kept his eyes downward. “They took him. It’s not my fault.”
Finally, an answer.
“They didn’t take him. You sold him. Why?”
Angel didn’t wait for him to answer as he trailed the knife across my father’s face too gently to cut, then down, down, down it went, stopping at my father’s penis.
That was the first sign of real fear I’d seen in him.
Before, it was fear of getting caught. Now it was fear of losing important body parts.
But Angel didn’t cut it off. Instead, he took the knife to the already broken and crooked pinky and sliced it off.
My father’s screams pounded in my ears, and I wanted to shut them out, but at the same time relish in it. Bathe in it.
“Th-they’ll kill me. Please.”
Angel took his knife and slid it into my father’s kneecap. The scream was unreal, making my ears ring while my mother sobbed. “ I will kill you. Slowly. Painfully. You’re worried about what-ifs while a monster is sitting in front of you.”
My heart beat so fast, and my breathing was nearly panting. But it wasn’t from fear or holding back the expected vomit. I was relishing Angel's work. Each word and cut and pain were bending my father to his will. Just enough pressure, and he would snap like a twig.
“Last chance or you lose a hand this time.”
“Please…” he whined.
“I said please all the time, and no one ever stopped hurting me or raping me,” I snapped. “They never cared about my pain. I was just a kid! What did you do?”
He finally looked at me. His face was pale and dripping sweat, but his eyes no longer held animosity or defiance.
“It was Misha Kozlov. He’s… the head of the Bratva here in the Capital.
It’s a smaller division, but fuck does he have connections.
He… came to me years ago, looking for a bank he could use.
I… was just starting out and struggling.
But with his investments and connections… I started to thrive and grow. Then—”
Angel scoffed. “Cowards like you fold so fucking fast. Cowards who sell their souls because they can’t learn shit on their own. So, let me guess. Your bad investments pissed off the Bratva. In return, they cleaned up your little financial mess in exchange for your son?”
“How’d you know?”
“The Bratva is known for trafficking children.”
“How dare you!” My mother hissed. “Why? I have money! My father has money! You could have come to us. Asked for financial guidance!”
“Right! Like your father doesn’t fucking hate me as it is. He always hated me for marrying his precious daughter. I wanted to make something of my own, dammit!”
“So, you sold our son because of… your pride? Are you fucking insane?”
Angel stood and rushed at my mother. She cowered and sat back down.
“Silence! Shut. The. Fuck. Up! Both of you! I’m in charge here.”
He headed back to my father and sat in front of him again. “How did he know of your precious eight-year-old boy?”
My father looked at me again, finally filled with remorse and guilt.
But it wasn’t for what he did. Only that he got caught.
“Luca… was there that day at work with me. Misha showed up, ready to fucking kill me. I would have died! Then he saw Luca and said he’d clean up my mess and let me live if he could have him. ”
Everything was blurry from my tears. My rage festered and boiled over into toxic sludge, and I wasn’t sure what to do with it. If I did nothing, surely I’d explode. I’d blow up and be nothing but blood and bone on the floor. I stood and paced, waving the gun around, uncaring that it was unsafe.
“You sold me to save your bank?”
“He… he would have taken you anyway!”
“Maybe, but you didn’t even try! You just sold me and accepted his payment and lived your happy little life pretending I was dead!
All the while, grown men would put their penises in me, beat me, and groomed me to be only there for the pleasure of men.
Eleven years! This man humiliated me. Let multiple men take me.
They ripped me apart for their pleasure, enjoying my cries, screams, and begging.
It got to the point I begged them to kill me, then they’d hurt me even more and laugh! ”
I was sobbing at that point when my mother rushed me and tried to pull me into a hug, but I hadn’t combusted yet.
I shoved her off, ignoring that she fell on her butt, and stalked over to my father.
“Once a man shoved a hose inside me and turned it on. Another time, a dildo thicker than my arm was shoved in me without any prepping, ripping me to shreds and bleeding! They hurt me in every way they could to break me. Oh, but no injuries on the outside. That would be bad business. Once they hurt me so much, I peed blood for two days.”
I wiped the tears from my face, but they wouldn’t stop. “ You did that to me because you were too much of a coward! You didn’t even try!”
Angel said nothing when I aimed the gun at my father and emptied the entire magazine into him.
When the only thing left was the clicking sounds of the empty gun, I gasped and stared wide-eyed at all the blood.
It was everywhere. All over the walls, pictures, books, floor…
all over the place. I swallowed and just stood there still, holding the smoking gun up at him until Angel took it from my shaking hands, and I let him.
His familiar presence and scent brought me back from the brink.
“Angel?”
“Shh, it’s done now. I’ll send someone to clean all this up.”
Suddenly, I no longer had bones as my body tried to collapse, but he kept me from falling into the abyss and held my body close to his.
I fisted his shirt and then combusted. My wails turned louder than my father’s screams. All that pain I went through hit me like one of those really big trucks spilling out all the contents onto the road.
The contents were my memories of pain and suffering.
Things I had to keep bottled up, or else I’d die.
Things I thought I had blacked out came punching through my mind.
It was too overwhelming, and I couldn’t stop it. All my control was gone.
I could no longer feel my legs, and I was floating on air until I felt heavy again.
It was then I realized Angel lifted me and sat down on the couch with me in his lap.
He said nothing, letting all the toxicity pour out of me.
It was all poison oozing out of my soul, and Angel was there with his protective wings, folding me into his embrace and keeping me safe.
I didn’t know how long he held me, but I had stopped crying.
Now only hollowness was left. I’d poured out all that vile waste, leaving me empty inside and exhausted.
Hopefully, now, I could fill up with happier stuff like spaghetti, bubble gum, little kisses, sweetness, and love.
For now, I had to deal with being in between nothingness.
“I’ve got you,” Angel whispered, running gentle fingers through my hair.
“I’m so tired.”
“Well, the good news is we’ve got plenty of blood for a DNA sample.”
I laughed in spite of myself, not really knowing what he was talking about. It was all in his humorous tone.
A warm and smooth hand ran over my bare arm. Hands that didn’t belong to Angel. “Luca… I’m… I didn’t know. I’m so, so sorry.”
All I could give her was a small nod before things grew dark. But I heard them talking.
“What are you to my son?”
“I… don’t know.”
“He’s my archangel,” I mumbled.