“Sweet, little Persephone.” I ran my thumb over my bottom lip, the thought of her causing my pulse to rise. I’d told him about Zachariah’s death, getting immense pleasure in giving him the “bad news.” I’d seen a single tear slide down Michael’s cheek after telling him.
“I know you don’t care about Persephone. You only loved Zachariah. He was your carbon copy, isn’t that right? A soldier you could shape and mold.” He grunted out incoherently. “But I’m going to have fun breaking her in. It’ll be my gift to Zachariah. I just wish he was here to see it.” Michael made a louder grunt, and I slowly grinned, but something twisted inside of me as I thought about hurting Persephone.
I leaned forward and rested my forearms on my thighs, staring into his cloudy blue eyes. “Will it hurt you to know I’m hurting something of Zachariah’s?” Michael’s arm twitched, and he slid it across the bed, closer to me. I reached out and held my hand out, palm up. “Go on. Take it, old man. I know you want to have a go at me like the good ole times.” He wheezed and dropped his arm several inches from where I held my palm out, and I chuckled and leaned back in the chair.
“Go on and rest, Michael. I’ll just sit here and enjoy watching you struggle to breathe.”
And I did that, but I couldn’t focus, not when I kept thinking about Persephone looking all soft and… mine in that enormous bed.
So I traced those crescent-shaped marks on the wood, feeling a semblance of calm settle over me.
“I remember the first time I dug my nails into the arm of this chair,” I said in a low voice, staring into my father’s eyes as I spoke. “You gagged me with a dirty rag, called Zachariah in the room, and watched him beat me with that willow switch you’re so fond of.”
I glanced down at the scarred wood.
“You especially liked that night.” I slowly looked at my father. “You couldn’t take your eyes off Zachariah as he beat the fucking shit out of me. In fact…” I leaned forward again. “I’m pretty sure you got off on it. Isn’t that right, old man?” I shook my head. “Sick bastard.”
Michael made more rough noises. I was familiar with them enough to know if he could speak, he would say the nastiest things to me right now.
Worthless.
Piece of shit.
Waste of space.
Only good as a backup son.
If I didn’t need more children, I would have left you to rot in that gutter you came from.
For a long time, I’d never understood why he wanted me if he hated me so much. But it had been the “backup son” comment that finally clicked into place.
Michael was a planner. He had to have things just so, right in their place, and the amount of planning he did bordered on obsessive and anal.
God forbid anything happened to his precious Zachariah, but just in case… he’d have me. A good little trained soldier to carry on his life’s work.
“It was a shame you could only father one child, isn’t that right?” I said the words mainly to myself. “That’s the only reason you pulled me into your man-made hell.”
More grunts from the bastard. That was the only thing he was now capable of. So I leaned back in my chair, not expecting an answer. I never did. That wasn’t why I was here.
I was here to watch him suffer. And watch I did.
I didn’t want an apology, didn’t even care if he acknowledged what he did to me as a child. That time had passed. Michael molded me into the man I was today.
Heartless and cold. Apathetic and uncaring. And I thought about sweet, little Persephone just thrust into the middle of all this and paying for her father’s sins.
I ran a hand over my mouth, exhaustion settling into me. I was tired, exhausted mentally and physically, but she’d etched herself into my very marrow.
I sat there long into the early morning, watching Michael struggle to breathe and enjoying every fucking minute of it.
Chapter11
Persephone
Several weeks later
Iwas staring out the passenger side window when Hades came to a stop in front of the school I’d be finishing my remaining year at. The rest of the summer had passed in a blur, and I hoped the rest of the year did, too.
Although my previous school had been private and most of the students came from wealthy families, Emerson Mann Private was in a league all its own.