AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Eyes open or closed, this was my dirty life.
Following orders, I came to terms with the truth.
My life wasn’t supposed to be pretty.
I wasn’t supposed to be right.
I was the son of a mafia boss.
And no matter what reservations I had concerning our work, my parents didn’t train me to ask questions or challenge them. I lived to be loyal. I lived to one day continue my father’s bleak legacy as an emotionless pillar.
So, I became aware, but it changed nothing. I outlined their calculations alongside my own until I understood the motivations behind every one of their words and actions.
Understanding them better than I understood myself changed nothing.
Until…until the moment I had to fill their shoes, and the resentment I harbored broke free.
It’s been a rocky road making so many changes and overturning so much of what my parents left behind, but to be certain, the first revolt was mine.
When I learned the truth with Corbin’s help, I could no longer stomach the person I was raised to be. We mapped a future where I wouldn’t have to become them once they passed.
Yet, now, I fear it was already too late. We’re nearly the same.
Right now, looking at Briar covered in my handiwork, I feel a sick satisfaction and wonder if this is what my parents felt whenever they were finished with me. Did this twisted pleasure consume them as their cold smiles reassured their shaking, battered son he’d done well?
I’m no less manipulative.
I’m no more gentle.
The only difference between us is that I would have stopped. No matter what I said during the years when I still had breath to protest, they never did.
I don’t think Briar’s right. I don’t think I listen because I care. I’m not naive enough to think I’m that selfless. All I know is that I am desperate to be wanted, and she is the first person in my life who has ever made wanting me this clear.
After so long, I am finally able to breathe.
And it smells like cake. Sweet, comforting cake.
“Honestly,” I whisper, kissing her forehead, “if you don’t want bite marks, you shouldn’t smell like cake. It’s very misleading.”
Bugsy rattles his toys, complaining for the twentieth time that he hasn’t been let out yet today, so I force myself to slip from bed and open his door. Jumping onto my finger, the little black budgie chirps, singing screams. Screams were the first sounds he learned three years ago when Corbin suggested I get an emotional-support pet of some kind to help me through my parents’ dirty work.
Corbin has always had such grand schemes for after my parents died. He understood why I couldn’t just stop or leave and make it out alive while they remained present, so he encouraged me to hold on with a constant they won’t live forever. His hope carried me through so many dark days once I began seeing them—and everything—so much clearer.
Heck.
He’s probably the reason I didn’t flee the second I could have.
He dreamed of something better for me, for us, for Veleno.
He believed that I was better than the person I was made to be.
Sometimes, I guess I believed it, too.
Kissing Bugsy’s soft head, I sigh.
Regardless of whether or not I’m able to hunt down the people who took my parents and dispose of them completely if they aren’t already gone, the fragmented pieces of my past sins will follow me to the grave. I will always be scarred. I will always need to be twice as vigilant to make sure the few differences between my parents and I are vital ones. Even though it’s been months since I’ve brought Bugsy in to witness screams, he still knows them.
Some things we just carry. Whether we want to or not.
