“Wyatt!”
Blinking, I saw Ethan standing in front of me, staring wide-eyed. My legs shook a little, but I managed to stand straighter. Ignoring him, I looked around him to my father, who now stood with his back turned to us, fixing the tape on his arms.
“Mom would be ashamed of me? What about you? Since she died, you’ve walked around like a kicked dog—”
“Wyatt, enough!” Ethan hollered at me as I laughed.
“Ethan,” my father said, standing up straighter, rolling out his arms as he turned to face us. “If you ever interrupt your brother and I again, I’ll break your arms and legs before tossing you out of the ring myself. Am I clear?”
The stunned look on Ethan’s face, how his green eyes widened while father’s only got calmer, deadlier, just brought me so much joy. I couldn’t help the grin on my face.
“He’s interrupting still, old man. Why don’t you break one leg and arm now so he gets the picture?” I asked, not realizing at first that I was hopping in place, more than ready, until I saw my father lift his fist up.
“You worry about yourself.”
“I have nothing to worry about,” I replied.
He tried to hide it, tried to be cold, but I saw it, the small grin on his face. And I didn’t care whether Ethan was in the ring. I charged him…ready to kill him…and he charged me, ready to do the same damn thing.
I wasn’t a kid anymore.
I wasn’t even his son anymore.
I was just a motherfucker in his ring.
We fought till the sun began to set. Blood, sweat, and saliva on each other’s fists; the more I hit, the stronger he seemed to get, the more he punched back. Grabbing my head, locking it into his arm, he squeezed, choking the air out of me…
“So this is where your monster lives, huh?” he laughed right into my ear as I tried to elbow into him. But he just held on to me tighter.
“I’m going to kill you!” I sneered at him through the pain.
“You can try…but you’ll need to get in line, son. When I’m done killing those in front of you, we can try again!” he replied as my vision started to blur. My legs went numb, and suddenly I was on my back, gasping for air. He crouched down beside me, blocking the light from my eyes. I saw double of him as he spoke down to me. “You think because you are my son that I will not kill you…you are wrong.”
“Rule 1…” I managed to say, gasping for breath.
“You kill for family. You die for family because you can’t trust anyone else,” he recited back to me. “What about it?”
“We don’t kill family…you’re bluffing…”
He huffed as if he were going to laugh. “None of the rules say you can’t kill family. Rule 15 makes it clear—”
“If you betray the—”
“Being weak is a betrayal,” he snapped at me. “Being stupid is a betrayal. If it comes down to you over your siblings…my business…I won’t choose you.” He stood up straighter, walking to the edge of the ring. Pietro lifted the ropes for him to step out.
“Would you have chosen Mom?” I asked, laughing and placing my hand over my stomach, slowly sitting up from the mat. I watched as he paused a few feet from the door. “I call bullshit. Either bullshit on you killing me for the family’s sake…or bullshit on you loving Mom so damn much.”
“One day, Wyatt…you will learn…chaos for chaos’ sake is just brokenness.”
What? “Which dead philosopher did you steal that from?”
He didn’t bother saying any more than that. I wish I could have seen his face. He just kept walking forward, got on the elevator and left only Ethan and me around the ring.
“You’re a fucking idiot.” Ethan said while stepping into the ring. I tried to get up from the ground. All of me hurt, worst of all my legs, and I stumbled forward, Ethan caught me, lifting my arm over his shoulder.
“I’m fine,” I said even though I didn’t have any strength left to move away from him.
“You’re a fucking idiot is what you are,” he muttered again, moving to sit me in the corner of the ring.
“I heard you the first time!—Ugh!” Gritting my teeth, I held on to my side, trying to fight back the pain.
“Biggest fucking idiot I’ve ever met,” Ethan said one more time, handing me a water bottle.
“I think you might be malfunctioning…run back to Dad so he can reprogram you to kiss his ass like a good little solider,” I snapped, snatching the bottle from his hand and drinking.
Just like my father, he didn’t react, just shook his head. “What good comes out of going against him? Of provoking him by bringing up Mom?”
For a smartass, he was such a dumbass sometimes.
“Why don’t you provoke him? Why don’t you push back?” I asked.
He frowned. “I would if he was wrong! Don’t you see—”
“No, I don’t see! I’m told. This or that. Now I want to see…I want to see if he’ll keep to his word…if he’ll really kill me.” I grinned up at Ethan before splashing the rest of the water on my face.
“Wyatt,” he said in his warning voice…the one he used on the fucking guards.
Rising back up to my feet…without him…I placed my hands on his shoulders. “Big brother…it’s no fun working inside the rules. Dad might be right…or maybe…just maybe even he doesn’t know what he’d do.”
“So your plan is what? Cause chaos until he kills you?”
“Want to take bets?” I grinned so wide my cheeks hurt.
Ethan shook me off his shoulder, moving away from me, but not before saying, “Dead
