Page 24 of Sweet SIN Slaughterhouse

Through gritted teeth so my dad doesn’t see, I say it once more. “Get out of here.” And he does. Spinning around quickly, Blaise races through the guard stand and out the other side and into the thick brush.

“PUSSY!” Dad shouts, standing in the middle of the road. “Sid, come by later, your mom will want to see you,” he states before turning on his heel and walking back home. Dad knows all about violence and protecting his family, not comfort. And as much as they hate each other, my dad would protect my brother in a heartbeat if needed.

I look at the guards who are acting like they are minding their business, and hiss, “Traitors.”

A bunch of, “Sorry, miss,” follow, so I decide toremind them, “You may as well start calling me Diablo. Get used to it, fuckers. Initiation is coming.” The threat is subtle, but they get it.

Leaving the clothing on the ground, they can clean that shit up, I begin to skip back home, hoping my brother is going to be okay. To the left of me, I hear someone in the bushes. “Psst, Ms. Sid.” It stops me in my tracks. Turning my head, Rogers’s face pokes out and I nearly erupt in laughter. Before I can, he puts his finger to his lips and nods for me to follow him, and I do. I trust Rogers with my life along with Jack’s and Sally’s, and that level of trust is indescribable.

“Rogers, I am not in the right shoes for a hike,” I whisper playfully, but I also very much mean it.

“We are going to the security room inside your grandfather’s, don’t worry, Ms. Sid.”

Why couldn’t he just text me to meet him there? I mean, this is kind of cool, stealth mode and all, as it helps keep my day interesting. Well played, Rogers.

Creeping through the shrubs and foliage, we reach the end and step out onto my Papa’s driveway and make our way inside through the side entrance, which is closer to the security area this way. Rogers is a master of information gathering online and through the connections he has built throughout the years. I admire him tremendously.

Stepping inside, he enters a code onto the control panel and a retinal scanner scans his eyes before the door unlocks. Opening it, we are welcomed by a dozen screens,all split into four frames, each capturing every inch of our town, and the compound.

“Please take a seat.” I do as I continue to scan each screen. Rogers clicks away on some buttons and an image of my house takes up the monitor before me. This sneaky bastard, he knew I would be irresponsible when it came to getting shit fixed.

“I had backup cameras installed around your property, Ms. Sid. I knew you wanted to be responsible for your own security on your property, but not having extra precautions in place would have kept me up at night,” he explains.

I place my hand on top of his and reassure Rogers that I’m not upset, I am grateful. “Thank you.”

“I found a note in your grandfather’s office, burnt ends with threats of unease.” That’s one way of putting it. “It had me curious, Ms. Sid.” His other hand presses the space bar on the keyboard, and a clear video plays from the night I found Tash, causing my jaw to drop, horrified.

“It wasn’t your brother, look.”

Oh my fucking god.

I pull up my phone and dial the person I know who can help me, and as they answer, I say four simple but powerful words when coming from a Sinclair. “I need a favor.”

11

ELIJAH

“You’ll have to come home eventually, your mom will miss you.” I’m not beneath using Rain to get this little fucker back here. My kid hasn’t lived with us for years, and his mother thought it would be best if we built him his own place within the family compound. As his home was being built, Blaise moved into a rental in town and never left. None of us liked him outside of these walls, but the kid's skull is as thick as this bat, and I knew he wasn’t going to listen.

Calling his phone again, it goes straight to voicemail. “I’ll fucking cut you off. You’ll have no money and no house outside our walls. You will have to move back here, you remember, right? It’s the house you refuse to fucking live in because you are an ungrateful shit.” Throwing the phone, it bounces off the couch and I can feel my body filling with anger. Since the one time with Rain, manyyears ago, my kid has been the only one capable of bringing me to the brink of a complete rage-induced blackout.

“What now?” Rain, who is very annoyed, asks. The tension within our family makes her feel things other than happiness, and that’s what gets to me the most. But once Blaise and I get going, we don’t stop, pushing each other’s buttons to the maximum in order to watch the other explode.

“He knew that diseased cunt was cheating on our kid. He would watch her. He fucking recorded it and left the VHS for Sid to find,” I seethe in disgust. If you can’t trust your family, who can you trust? Then again, our family history isn’t one to reference in this instant.

We killed my cousin, then my uncle. And this was all after I made my mom burn herself alive, and we fucked over Rain’s birth father’s dead body… Because we killed him too.

Rain’s hands cover her face, she can’t speak but her head shakes.

Walking up to my beautiful girl, I bring my lips close to her ear, and whisper, “I’m fixing it.” And this time, she doesn’t stop me.

Whether or not I do what I am implying, that is still up in the air, but to not plead with me to stop makes me feel like this could be a test. It’s too good to be true. My eyes shift, though I don’t question it, and instead, I slowly step backward, reaching for my baseball bat, which is leaning against the island, and leave.

Once outside, I howl into the sky, “Daddy is coming to play!”

Before I am able to get into the Range, I see my dad standing at the edge of his driveway, looking over at me. “If you kill him, it may be the one thing you regret, son.” Dad is always full of wisdom and shit, but I work on impulse and instinct. I nod, letting him know I heard but will not listen. Because my kid is going to regret the day he was ever born.

Pulling up to the rental,it’s a townhouse just off Main Street. It’s an average-looking three-story narrow townhouse. I called Thomas on the drive over, and he’s now standing on the sidewalk in a pair of shorts, slide-on sandals, and a black tee holding his machete. He knows better than to meet me without it.

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