12
Ifill the glass for the third time, not bothering to stop at just a couple of fingers like I had the first two times. What’s the point? I’m just going to drink it too quick and have to repeat this process in a few moments anyway.
The house is eerily quiet, too quiet though I’m far from alone.
A couple of men are stationed through the house, they know better than to make their presence known, especially when I’m in this particular mood.
I stare at the smashed mirror on the other side of the room and then down at my split knuckles. There are still shards of glass inside the wounds, I couldn’t get them all out so I may as well let them fester.
That was a stupid mistake. Fucking her, feeling her… seeing her cry.
I can still smell her on my skin, taste her on my tongue. Sweet, sweet little bird.
I take a healthy sip of the whiskey, feeling it burn down my throat, warming that desolate place inside of me.
But it’s not so desolate now, is it? No, that would be simple. That would make this whole thing easy but when has my life ever been easy?
Never is the answer to that.
I was young, too young really when my father introduced me to the evil of this world and this life. At ten, I witnessed him kill a man. At twelve, I stood by as his men tortured and beat the living shit out of another. At sixteen, he put the gun in my hand.
“If you want power, son, you have to take it. This life is cruel and dark and the only way men like us make it is if we become just as cruel and just as dark.”
“What did he do?”I asked, looking at the grown man on his knees in front of me. His face was covered in dirt and blood, one eye was swollen shut, his bottom lip split and still seeping fresh blood over his wet chin. The blood and the tears mingled together, causing it to run faster and drip from the tip of his chin. He looked broken. So very broken.
I knew what my father was. I wasproudof him. I vowed to be just like him. I would take the power. I would hold this city in the palm of my hand and I would control it all. He was right, in this life nothing comes easy. Nothing is given and if you let it, it’ll all slip away, and you’ll be left to rot in a ditch of your own making.
There will be those who will want what you have, those who will use force to take it from you, the enemies will be vast and plentiful, each one worse than the last but you had to be bigger, better.
“He stole from us.”My father said,“He tried to take something that did not belong to him. He was given trust and he used it. For that, we do not forgive. We show no mercy.”
“When do we show mercy?”I had asked.
My father stepped towards me, he gripped my wrist and forced me to level the gun with the man’s head.
“Mercy is something no one can tell you to give. Despite what many believe, we are not evil. We feel and we hurt like everyone else, we may straddle the line between right and wrong but what is power without consequence? When you rule this city you will understand that mercy will come to those who deserve it.”
“And this man doesn’t deserve it,” I concluded. Because he didn’t. He may have worked for the family for a few years, he was even trusted but he broke that trust and every action, good or bad has a consequence. To keep power you have to prove your worth. If I didn’t pull that trigger and I gave him mercy, people could see me as weak. As the Silver too compassionate to do a damn thing about a thief.
I still remember the way the trigger compressed under my finger, the loud bang that echoed around the small room. It made my ears ring. Blood splattered up the wall as the bullet pierced through his skin and then his skull.
I threw up after that. My father patted me on the back and told me he was proud. It was only few weeks after that that I did it again and then again until killing became something of a chore. When I ended a life now, I felt nothing because the people dying deserved it in one way or another.
This life isn’t for the faint of heart, you come into it knowing that your life could be cut short in a matter of seconds but we continue anyway because the rewards are just as great.
The Silver’s have run the City of Brookeshill for generations and for generations to come it’ll only be the Silver name that rule these streets.
Killing Wren Valentine gives everyone the same lesson. Try to take what’s mine and you’ll feel my wrath. And I would do anything and use anyone to make sure they knew it.
When Wren is dead, when her father has felt the pain, then I’ll do what is needed. I’ll kill the man. Slowly. Painfully. Unforgiving.
This ismycity and I’ll be dead before it goes anywhere else.
I know what I have to do. I know it and yet here I am, a busted hand, half way to drunk because the girl has got in my head.
This shit doesn’t happen to me.
I’m Alexander fucking Silver. I’m fucking king!