Page 43 of Poison Aches

I thought as much.

“Go ahead.”

Kai bows his head slightly, then he walks away and is quickly swallowed by the surrounding darkness.

All my life I’ve done my best not to slip up.

I’ve kept myself tightly reined in.

I never burst out in emotion.

Never give in to moments of weakness or flimsy bullshit that will get in the way of what needs to be done.

Everything I’ve done up to this day has been right on target, so I can’t be blamed for the mirage my silence has created.

Nor should my actions be misconstrued.

I’m not a good guy or just a mere asshole. I’m much more than that.

“Ahhhh!” A howling, almost screeching scream rings clear in the room. “No, no, stop!” the man cries. “Do you know who you’re messing with? Do y?—”

The angry voice is cut off with a pretty impressive flesh pounding.

Then the unmistakable sound of bone being crushed and blood spilling onto the concrete floors as another sharp, shrill cry rings and echoes in the dark room.

This… the horror happening right now, the violence of it, this is who I am.

The life I’ve worked my ass off to maintain in Westbrook Blues isnotreal.

The truth is, I’ve been pretending like I’m one of them.

I’ve done it so seamlessly that there are no fucking flaws and they all bought it.

To them, I’m just an ordinary rich guy with a disease.

I go drinking with Noah. Roll up blunts, behave like young fucking billionaire socialites, and all that crap.

I’ve engaged in sports and other extracurricular nonsense with King and George in both middle and high school.

Despite my condition, I’ve played extreme sports, just to fucking blend in and to keep appearances.

Philanthropic activities? I donate to charities, keeping the Easton Family’s clean, civil side honored by the world.

Sympathy and empathy? What else screams those two useless emotions than finding out a person of status like me has a heart condition?

I’ve done all that because as the heir of the Easton Family, I need the ability to blend in both civil society and the dark underbelly people only hear from whispers and fear-induced rumors.

But my type of education was far different.

Yes, the boys and I were all ‘trained’ like fucking black ops boys, but where it ended in training for King, Noah, and George, for me it proceeded to the real thing.

On school breaks and other involuntary days off, I’d be shipped back to the south of Italy for intense ‘training’ but really, it was a million ways of trying to kill me.

I not only had to hide my condition, but I had to fucking work to be better than everyone else.

Better than my cousins.

Better than my uncles.

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