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“Fuck you,” he snarls.
“What?” I look up, genuinely surprised by his reaction, but take too long to realize it. The tip of his knife flashes in a silent, swift warning, before it slices through my cloak.
CHAPTER 3
ROMAIN
Pet. I’ve hated the word ever since Edouard used it for me all these years ago.
“You’ll be my pet,” he said that day, nearly four years ago, when I finally had the balls to enter the lion’s den and claim freedom for Maman.
It had taken courage. A lot of it. I’m not typically a daredevil, and we simply had too much to lose for me to play Batman. But when I came home from school that day and had caught her completely wrecked on our worn-out couch, something had stirred inside of me. Looking back, I’d needed another four years for that bubble of anger and sorrow to finally burst and transform me into someone less pathetic. A night like this. But back then, seeing her like that, had deeply hurt. She wasn’t just her usual tired and depressed self, no. She had been agitated and anxious at the same time.
She needed cocaine. The way she’d glazed up at me when I entered the living room, grunting in disappointment. It was the dealer she’d been waiting for, the dealer she’d wanted there at that moment, not me, her son.
And her words…
“You worthless piece of shit.” Her eyes had turned to slits, and flashed with anger. Her words had left my mind stuttering with sudden shards of agony.
“Maman.”
They’d hurt me deeply.
She let out a tired huff. “That’s all you’ve got to say? Per usual? I need it, chéri. I need it to feel better.” Looking up, her lips had ticked up maliciously. “Don’t you want me to feel better?”
“Of course I do.” I hesitated, but the accusation settled in my chest, making it constrict with sadness. With resilience. It was time to end this craze. This…this necessity that was about to destroy our tiny family of two. She was all I had.
I remember barging out of the trailer, pumped-up energy building in my gut with every step I took. I was going to settle this for once and for all. No one could treat my mother like this, not even the most notorious family in our town. I’d find a way to pay off the debts, perhaps take on those extra shifts at the petrol station to help making ends meet.
“Let’s get things sorted then,” I decided. “On y va.” We left, and though I didn’t own a drivers licence, I took our Renault 4, an ancient car—since Maman was in no condition to drive—and headed straight for the Beaumonts’ residence.
They owned the entire street at the other part of town. Two large mansions and some flats they had supposedly built for their loyal lackeys. I didn’t know if that rumour was true and I didn’t care. I wanted to pay back Maman’s debt and be rid of it. Of him. Edouard Beaumont. The son of the Dictator, as they whisper-called him in the streets, and the most handsome guy I’d ever laid eyes on. Thick, strawberry blond strands styled into perfection, with his sides shaved short, leaving the top of his head untouched. His face was a mixture of arrogance and pure, dripping sex appeal, with a cool, calculated look in those grey eyes that were framed by thick brows and curvy lashes. He looked down upon the world and wanted to remind us of that fact every, fucking day.
I hated him. Hated how I worked myself in a frenzy every morning with my hand, while my mind remembered his plush, arched lips. Hated how it left me imagining what they’d feel like on my flesh during those most vulnerable moments. Hated how I was poor and he was rich, and how life was unfair like that.
“Be nice to them, Romain,” Maman warned, unaware of my burning rage. She’d joined me, and though I wish it had been for support, I feared that she might beg them for her dose once we got there. “They pay me well.”
How the outcome of that day was so different from what I had in mind. I imagined myself being strong for once. In the name of family, I was going to protect Maman.
I ended up paying off her debt with my own physical self.
I imagined telling them to keep their shit away from her, because she was vulnerable.
I ended up going on my knees for the only boy who made my heart race and my cock thicken in my pants.
“And just exactly how many cars do you need to wash to be paid thirteen thousand euros?”
“Uhm..” I stammered as I stared into Edouard’s glare of superiority, begging for Maman to step into this weird situation and drag me out, but no words would come. We both knew the answer.
“You remember how you always wanted to have a pet?”
“Kneel, boy.” Someone grabbed me by my shoulders and pushed me down.
“Non!” I wanted to yell, but it had already happened. Somehow here I was, terrified, alone, with Maman behind me. She couldn’t have been further away right then.
“Look at that.” Edouard looked up at the massive right-hand of his dad, Manuel something, then slowly made his way toward me, making my heart rattle in my ribcage. He kneeled in front of me and smiled, then reached out a hand, adorned with rings on each and every finger, and traced them over my burning cheek. His eyes shot up. “You’re right. I have always wanted a pet.” Then they met with mine. “Why don’t you fetch him a nice collar and a leash?”
“What?” Bristling at those words, I tried to get back up my feet, spurted on by an embarrassment so scorching it threatened to overtake any normal sense of sensibility. “Maman, aide-moi.” The plea didn’t leave my throat, because it got stuck, forming bile I couldn’t swallow away.
