16. Chapter 16
A lfonso Varga, my father, was more than a stern man.
I looked at him in fear rather than up to him, though I always did my best to please him.
He never hit me outright or lashed out at me when he was angry.
All his ire was carefully crafted into a lesson of pain doled out during sparring sessions while learning Tae Kwon Do or using knives and other weaponry.
I stopped counting how many times I had to see his personal physician to get stitches or heal broken bones over the years.
It was seven years ago, and I was big enough and had graduated from college, telling myself I wouldn’t be afraid of him anymore.
There wasn’t much I was afraid of in this world.
I had to be strong if I wanted to kill, and I couldn’t fall into emotions and empathy.
Nothing much hurt me more than he did. He carefully built my walls, so he could be the one who tore them down.
But now, sitting across from him in his office had my fucking palms sweaty.
He leaned back in his leather office chair with one leg over his knee, sipping brandy as a cigarette burned in the ashtray.
The plume of smoke danced lazily up toward the ceiling before dissipating into nothingness.
His dark hair was slicked back from his face, whereas mine always fell forward in a floppy mess.
I got my pale green eyes from my mother, but his were coal black and made by the devil himself.
You didn’t know where his pupils began and ended.
Suddenly I felt inadequate, wearing dark wash jeans and a black Henley.
I looked like a slob compared to him wearing a three-piece suit.
I did my best not to fidget, but it was difficult as hell the way he stared at me, scrutinizing me like he could read my deepest and innermost thoughts.
It didn’t take much effort since he was the one who crafted me. Molded me like soft clay.
“I haven’t heard from you in months. What do you want?”
Since being on my own and graduating, I tried to avoid him whenever I could for my own sanity.
I had enough broken bones and scars. Now, I had to deal with something more personal.
If I were any other man, I could just walk away and never look back, but he’d always find me.
He’d never let me completely go, so I had to find a way to live with him.
That meant sharing the people in my life, and if I didn’t tell him, he’d find out anyway.
It was better to come clean and be honest, making any sort of punishment he chose to dole out in the form of training more bearable.
“There’s… something I need to tell you, Father.”
I waited for him to acknowledge or respond, and when he didn’t, I swallowed to stimulate saliva and continued.
“You should be aware that I’m gay and… I have a boyfriend.
It was time you found out, and I wanted to tell you before you learned of it and I had a chance to explain it to you.
I didn’t know I was, not until I met him.
To be fair, I didn’t know I didn’t like women either.
There had never been anyone before. I had been too busy… training to think of anything else.”
I blew out a sigh now that I wrapped up my little coming-out speech.
He frustratingly took a sip of his brandy, then grabbed his cigarette and inhaled one last drag before putting it out.
Everything he did was methodical and with purpose.
His silence and lack of acknowledgment were an answer in itself.
Fuck him. He didn’t have to like it. It was my life now. I was a grown-ass adult and a killer.
“What’s his name?”
I almost didn’t tell him because I didn’t want him to know him, but he’d find out anyway. “Ben Jacobs.”
“Does this Ben know what you do for a living?”
“Yes. He’s not innocent himself.”
My father stood and walked to his little bar, and poured himself another drink, then downed it. “You realize I cannot accept this.”
My heart froze. “Accept what?”
“Get out.”
“What?”
He looked at me with black eyes burning with fire. Glowing coals in the dim light of his office. “Get. The. Fuck. Out. “
For the first time in my life, I felt the burning need to tell him to fuck off. That he was done controlling my life and hurting me. “Fine! You know what? I’m glad I told you. Now I can finally be free of you.”
I walked out of his office, ignoring his scoff.
I wish I could say that was the end of it. That I’d moved on with my life with Ben and our happily ever after. But, of course, my father had to make everything about him as tragic as possible to punish my insolence and daring to love outside the norm.
Ben and I wrapped up a heavy session of sex in celebration of my freedom from my father, then after we showered, we headed to a bar to get drunk.
He looked so beautiful with black hair and blue eyes.
He was bigger than me, but I never cared.
Life was fucking good. I had a man I loved in my life, my father was out of it, and we had just graduated college.
But I still worried my father would do something.
Telling him the truth angered him, and allowing me to leave unscathed was too easy.
I couldn’t help but worry he had something planned for me.
I expressed my worries to Ben, who told me to forget about it.
That his father and his men had our backs.
Ben’s father knew about our relationship already, and even if he was also in the criminal underground, he was surprisingly tolerant, threatening to kill anyone who got in his son’s way.
So, I let my guard down and danced and drank with Ben.
It helped that he had a bodyguard with him at all times.
We laughed and got tipsy and sweaty until the bar closed.
Ben and I stumbled out with his bodyguard in front of us as we walked to his car parked in a garage down the street. Good thing we didn’t have to drive.
I should never have gotten drunk. It made me too slow. My lack of reaction time was my failing.
The car was still a block away when two quick pops from a silencer were fired from a dark alley.
The bodyguard instantly dropped. Several men came out of the darkness like phantoms and dragged the bodyguard into the alley.
Before I could grab my gun, someone came up behind me and hit me over the head with something.
It didn’t knock me out but rendered me incapacitated long enough for them to take my weapons.
My alcohol-induced mind searched for Ben, who looked to be in the same state as I was.
Several hands clawed at us and dragged us deeper into the alley and away from prying eyes.
I struggled and tried to get away, but it was useless.
Soon, the sounds of tape being stripped could be heard, and the sticky substance was placed over my mouth.
Ben was behind me, so I couldn’t see him, but I was sure they did the same to him.
A sharp prick of a needle entered my skin, and while it didn’t knock me out, it left me immobile and even dizzier than I was before.
A man bent over me, looking like the devil himself, though that could’ve been the drugs. He smiled with sharp teeth and a grin too wide to be possible. “Your father says to let you live, but we can do whatever we want to you. Your friend needs to go, though. And you get to watch.”
“No…”
I wasn’t sure he could hear me through the tape and drugs, though I probably didn’t say anything at all.
He patted my face and laughed.
Soon, my body was being readjusted, and my head turned to look at Ben.
His eyes were wide, staring back at me, but he didn’t look drugged.
Several men stripped all his clothes off with knives, uncaring that they cut him in the process as he fought them.
Tears spilled as the overwhelming sense of helplessness kicked in full-throttle, knowing I was about to lose Ben, and had to watch.
I put out my cigarette in the ashtray and lit another with shaking hands. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”
Luca hadn’t left my back, squeezing tighter. “Your pain is my pain. My pain is yours. We will share everything.”
I blew out another plume of smoke, swallowing the growing lump in my throat, unsure if it was from Luca’s words or reliving my fucking past. Probably both. “If you say so,” I whispered as the dark night passed away from the window, and I returned to that dark alley.
It was hard to focus from the drugs and alcohol.
My body was unable to move, no matter how hard I willed it to do so.
It wasn’t a drug that paralyzed me so much as made me limp and heavy.
Breathing became difficult as my nose filled with snot from crying.
My fingers barely moved as they tried to inch toward Ben.
They rolled him over onto his stomach and turned his head to face me, then tied his arms behind his back while two men each held down one of his legs. He thrashed and grunted, but it was useless. There were too many men.
The men were demons. All in black. Evil. Maniacal. They didn’t have human faces. One of the demons dragged his sharp knife and dug into the webbing between each finger on Ben’s hands. He screamed through the tape, and while no one could hear, his pain was branded into my brain.
When I tried to move my head away, they forced it still. “Your father wants you to watch. To make sure you never defy him again.”
My eyes rolled into my head as I started to lose consciousness from the lack of oxygen, unable to breathe from my nose. The demon must have noticed because he yanked it off. I gasped for breath, but the tape was pointless since I couldn’t talk or scream.
The one with the knife continued to dig flesh out of Ben. There was blood everywhere, and his eyes were rolling back, trying not to pass out. Next went his ass, cutting literal chunks out of it. Ben thrashed to no avail, feeling everything they did to him.
“Spread his legs.”
“No…” I tried to say. “No.”
The man squatted behind Ben with his knife and shoved it in.
I couldn’t look away. The pain in his face was forever imprinted in my memories, but all I could think about was trying to get to him.
To make them stop. I’d never been more useless or helpless.
It was then I realized how little control I had over my life.
My father owned me in every aspect of it. I would never escape him.
The coppery smell of Ben’s blood assaulted my nose. Even to this day, I can’t stand the smell of it, despite what I do for a living. It nauseated me, but I always managed to choke back the rising vomit.
Ben was so far gone, but I could tell he was breathing, even through my tears, because they rolled him onto his back, and his stomach rose up and down in panicky movements.
Then they cut up his front. His screams behind the tape grew quieter and quieter until he finally died.
Whether it was from bleeding out or the pain, I didn’t know.
I think I screamed in my head because I couldn’t scream outwardly, but I wasn’t sure. My Ben was gone. No matter his father’s protection, he still managed to die. Now, it was my turn. Not to die but to suffer even more, as if witnessing Ben dying wasn’t enough.
They stripped me of my clothes and cut me, mostly on my chest and back. But like Ben, they got in between my fingers and inside my ass. I felt it all, yet was unable to move and scream.
As I lay there, bleeding out, a man bent close to my head. “Your father sends a message. He says that you have two days, then you are to see him, drop to your knees, and beg for his forgiveness. He won’t care if you’re still bleeding or not. He might even let you live.”
Another man squatted next to my ear. “Your drugs will wear off in a few minutes. I suggest you start moving before he finds you and finally kills you.”
The men left Ben and me there to rot. Well, they left me torn to pieces, but not so much that I couldn’t live.
After they left, my body wasn’t so heavy from the drugs, and my mind grew clearer.
It wasn’t the need to please my father and beg for his forgiveness that had me rolling over onto my bleeding stomach, dragging myself and tearing up my flesh further.
The only thing that would keep me moving and alive was to see him dead by my hand.
I tolerated his abuse, but with the torture and death of my lover, I would strip the flesh from his bones.
I dragged my body to Ben’s corpse and kissed his bleeding lips goodbye. Then I dragged my body toward the street. The only way I could live was if someone found me. There was no way for me to walk in my weakened state.
By the time I reached the sidewalk by the main street, I couldn’t hold on any longer. I reached as far as I was going to get, no matter my need for revenge. Pain and blood loss won out.