Page 126 of Heartless Game

In that moment, everyone else disappeared. My siblings, her mom…it was like my father, Tovah, and I were the only ones in the room.

I launched myself at my father as he pulled the trigger, knocking him out of his chair and onto the floor.

The shot went wide, the bullet hitting the window behind Tovah. Glass shattered, high pitched and eerily musical.

“You fucking shot at her?!” I’d hated my father for years, for causing my mother’s death and trapping me in a life I hated. But I’d never, ever felt rage like this toward him before. I’d never felt this kind of rage toward anyone, not even myself.

He struggled against me on the floor, gun still in his hand. I reared back and punched him square in the throat—right above his bandage.

“Don’t you ever—” I began.

He choked, eyes bulging. Blood leaked, staining the bandage and my knuckles. An inhuman satisfaction filled me.

So I punched him again.

“Fucking—"

And again.

“Hurt—"

And again.

“Her—"

He coughed over and over, choking on blood and his own sins, as my monster unleashed his unholy anger on him. My father fought to free his hand, but I just kept whaling on him.

“You fucking asshole, you’ve done so many horrible things, and I’ve accepted all of them. Would’ve let you get away with this shit. Until you tried to take the woman I love from me.”

“Isaac!” Tovah yelled from across the table. A warning.

I wasn’t fast enough. My dad raised the gun he was still holding and pistol-whipped me with it. Pain shot through my head, turning my vision grey. Holding my head in my hands, I rolled off him, and he crawled away and clambered up the chair until he was standing.

As my vision cleared, I saw him aim the gun again.

“This is the man you were always supposed to be, but your loyalty is in the wrong place,” he croaked.

“I’m not a man, dad. I’m a monster,” I slurred. Dizzy, woozy, and sick, I stumbled to my feet and launched myself at him again, this time grabbing him from behind. We grappled for control of the gun, my hand slippery from his blood, his own hand shaky from the pain I’d inflicted on him.

Tovah was still yelling my name, but I couldn’t concentrate on her. I needed the gun. Needed her safe. Needed this nightmare to end. Because everything I feared was happening; loving someone only for her life to be at risk because of my family.

With a surge of energy, I grabbed the gun, but I couldn’t get it out of my father’s hand. The most I could do was turn his wrist around, so the gun was pressed against his chest.

All it would take was me pulling the trigger, and he’d be dead.

But I was behind him, holding him in place with my arm locked around his neck. I’d learned how guns and bullets worked at a young age. If I shot a bullet into his chest, there was a 70-30 chance it would pass through his body—directly into my heart.

The world slowed back down in that moment, as my father tried to turn the gun back around.

If I shot him, and I miraculously didn’t die, I’d be forced to take on a life I loathed.

If I shot him, I’d probably die.

But if I didn’t shoot him…

…I lost everything that mattered. Because she was everything.

Tovah was on her feet now, my father’s man still pressing a gun against her skull.

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