Page 17 of Hades

Love didn’t mean jack-shit, not in his grand scheme of things.

But he was great at lying.

Great at a lot of things. Except being accepted. The rebuff tonight continued to hurt, still weighed on his mind. He let sweet Dana use her mouth on him again, this time fisting her hair harder than was necessary, growling instructions until she got it right. He sent her back inside right before dawn with a promise to see her again soon.

Maybe he would. Maybe he wouldn’t. He didn’t have an attachment.

Rex told him the next day only Rider was being made a full member this year and Kyle was staying a prospect for another year.

Not the right fit yet, boy, you gotta pull your head out your ass. He’d told him.

Not the right fit? He’dkilledfor that man, what better fit did he need to be? He’d waded in shit without complaint and it was Rider who got the cut and the back slaps of congratulations.

Nepotism at its ugliest. He was in because of the family connection, not because Rider was better. Fucking punks, he hated the lot of them, none were worth his loyalty and he would have given the club his everything. Teeth grit together until he felt them turn to powder in his mouth, the surge of madness was unreal, it filled the void between his ears, a white noise of destruction.

Love got you nowhere, he knew that more than most, as he stormed out of the clubhouse office he pinned every one of those aging assholes with a stare, made sure to look at Rider last of all standing off to the side with his father, boy wonder smirked smugly, like he knew he’d won, and Kyle, with his voice like nails told those lousy fucks where they could stick their prospect vest and he’d make them pay, he’d make them all pay for wasting his time. Most of them barked a laugh, thought he was joking.

Kyle had never been more serious in his life.

Mad-Dog filled the doorway, a nasty sneer on his face, and Kyle understood then that old bastard had turned Rex’s ear somehow.

He’d make them all regret it.

Only anger would fuel him.

Love was for the weak.

And he couldn’t trust a soul.

CHAPTER SIX

“Hawk.”

Every now and then all a man has is bitterness.

Kyle made sure to hold onto his as hard and as tight as he could with both fists in a strangle hold through those first dark months of not knowing what he’d do with the rest of his life now his plans have been shot down by a smoking gun held by Rider fucking Marinos.

He held strong, he fought harder than he ever had, he did things he wasn’t proud of but were essential to get where he wanted to be.

It was one night, right before his eighteenth birthday, laid on his bed at home, he’d already chased several debt collectors at the door that week, the only good thing to come from his father had been the priest had bought the house outright, no doubt to have somewhere for his whores, that man was no saint by any means, the proof was in the pudding; Kyle was the spawned pudding. So, as he lay there, his mind sifting through his options, he could hear his mom in the other room talking to herself. He’d upped her medication so much she was losing reality, but it was the only way to keep her calm. She was becoming a problem, a problem he didn’t need or want. Clenching his teeth, he tuned out her madness ramblings talking to a dead man.

First and foremost, money was needed fast. Petty theft was getting him nowhere, he’d hotwired a few cars but because he had no contacts the money he got for them was laughable, pissed him off no one was taking him seriously.

When an idea came to Kyle he let it stew. It festered and grew. Could he? It was fast, easy money and for what he had planned he required all the money he could lay his hands on.

Shit wasn’t easy.

His mom relied on him for everything now, she barely left the house and even if she did she caused such a disturbance he’d fuse with anger and embarrassment. Fucking women, all of them stupid, why couldn’t they just do as they were told, to keep their mouths shut. He loved his mom, as a boy was supposed to, but she was getting on his nerves, demanding more attention than he had to give.

His idea dug deeper, he weighed the pros against the cons and when the cons were less in comparison he gave it some more thought. It wasn’t as though he didn’t know what to do. He could make it work, if he tried. He’d grown up in that environment, he was practically an expert on what not to do having lived it most of his life.

Could he run a brothel?

Fuck yeah, he could.

There was no guilt inside Kyle, he didn’t feel empathy as a normal person would, he recognized this flaw and compensated by pretending, to fit in you had to be a well skilled fake. People wanted platitudes and reassurance and pats on the head withthere there’s. People made him sick. But it was people, the dregs of the life he once knew, that would make him rich, so he could get out of this shit hole. There was no lie he hadn’t already told a million times over and with a congenial smile on his face. People fell for it all the time.

That night he made phone calls upon phone calls, he visited some of his aunts who luckily lived nearby but some had left the city, maybe they died, he didn’t know, didn’t care. Either way he talked until he was sick of faking it. All thoseI’ve missed you, let me help youstuck in his throat, but each of his aunts bought it up, gushed how they’d missed him and his mom and would love to come back.

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