Page 8 of Hostile Love
I stare at the gun, hearing the flint on his lighter strike. He slowly toasts the foot end of it. The smoke swirls around me, clinging to my skin and covering my long dark pants and short-sleeved school shirt in that fucking smell I hate so much––him.
I could point it at him instead. Pull the trigger and finish the fucker. This isn’t the first time I’ve thought about doing it.
The only problem with that is, I’d be hunted down, slaughtered in the streets and branded a traitor.
“Your brother does what I tell him to do. Whereas you don’t have the fucking balls…you’re weak, Matheus,” he goads.
My heart starts pumping and my knuckles turn white from gripping the gun.
“You’re just a little pussy who doesn’t fit into this family. Run back home to your mama and let the real men rule the world.”
“Fuck you!” I hiss, rolling back my shoulders and lifting my chin high, making myself even taller than my father.
Papá smirks. “Big words from a teenager. It would break your mama’s heart if you didn’t make it home.”
I’ve never felt this overwhelming surge of black rage before. Sure, I’ve been in a bad mood, kicked a few things, shot up paper targets, and pulled the pins on a few grenades out in the forest.
But this man knows exactly how to slither under my skin and black out my moral code.
“I hate you,” I tell him, inching backwards.
All he does is laugh. The cruel rumble makes my collar feel tighter. I run a shaky hand through my hair and spin on my heels, my laced shoes clipping the tiles as I march along the hallway, needing air.
The second I burst out into the afternoon sun, my big brother Tomás appears, having exited a blacked-out SUV sitting in the driveway.
My mind starts ticking over. Papá’s taunts whirl in my head. I’m not good enough to be a Souza, unlike Tomás.
Not strong enough. Not man enough.
He gets our father’s attention. His admiration. Respect. Maybe even his love, if that’s possible for a heartless bastard. Whereas I’m ignored.
I swallow hard, the lump in my throat making my breathing shallow sips. Tomás is my big brother. A powerful ally in a family run by a cruel tyrant.
It is the very reason why I shouldn’t have raised Papá’s gun and aimed it at his chest. But for some idiotic blip of sanity, I did.
My nostrils are flaring, because I can’t breathe properly and I’m blinking back fucking tears.
Jesus Christ. Papá was right. I am a loser.
“Mat?”
Tomás frowns, his black eyes drilling into mine and his own firearm drawn. He's not pointing it at me, though. No, my brother keeps it low while my mine stays in position.
“What’s wrong?” he asks. “Did Papá do something to you?”
I go to speak, but the words won’t come out. I love this guy. But our father––he somehow knows how to fuck with my head.
Papá plays mind games with all of us and that’s why mama hates me visiting his plantation.
“I’m not like you, Tommy,” I mutter, unable to lower my arm or move my feet.
“You don’t have to be like me.”
Out of the corner of my eye, a soldier to the left of us takes aim and makes me his target. Of course he would. I’m just a seventeen-year-old threatening the heir to a criminal empire.
My brother is a fucking god in their eyes and I’m just a billionaire cartel prince who’d never be their king.
While my thoughts turn dark, it happens in a blur. Tomás juts out his arm, aims at the soldier a few yards away from him and shoots the guy in the forehead.
