Page 39 of The Deceptions
Asshole!
The knowing grin Jordy gives me has ice rolling through my veins. “Welp. We have a lot to discuss. In the car. Check out is in like five minutes. I mean, we could stay and make DaddyJonathan pay for another night.” He grins, stopping short at the door to look over his shoulder at me, grinning more. If that’s possible. “Or you could move into your dorm. The quicker you take those douchebags down. The quicker you can come back home to our lovely room in the bunker.”
Home.
What is home exactly?
Home is a safe space. Somewhere you can crawl into when you’re sad, stressed, happy, crying, or any sort of emotion in between. The four walls of your home witness every aspect of you. The tears. The laughs. The freak outs.
And it protects you from the harsh outside elements of the world.
A home is foreign concept to me. A place I never had with my parents. The only home I ever knew was with the three boys who I gave myself to. Home to me was never four walls. It was human beings who would have given the shirts off their backs for me.
The only house I’ve ever had was here in Greenwood. A small three-bedroom ranch on Franco’s property. Given to us when we had nowhere else to go and only had him as an ally. It was the place the Viottos sent us when my father attempted to oust his brothers from their leadership positions.
“Make the deal with Franco and bring him into an alliance with the family, and you can work your way back to Viotto status,” Uncle Gabriel spits, sneering at his brother, my father, as we kneel before the four Viotto brothers.
Each one looks more disgusted than the next. Uncle Remiel shakes his head, his long, dark hair swaying with the motion.
“You need to prove to us that you can be useful,” Remiel’s voice dips low as he twiddles his thumb, earning a glare from Gabriel, who begs for control.
“More than useful, Rem!” he shouts, tossing a hand. “He tried to take us out and take what’s ours…”
“He should be put to death then,” Uncle Michael scoffs. “If he is such a big threat to us, then why allow the man and his family to continue breathing? We’ve already let one brother slip between our fingers after leaving us for the fucking military and law. Jonathan shouldn’t be breathing and neither should Raph.” He raises a brow when Mama gasps but refuses to lift her eyes to the men standing above us in the basement of a church in Briar Cove. It was the main hub of the Viotto family before they spread out, taking pieces of California to control.
“Because he can be useful,” Uncle Samael curses. “Despite his fuck ups, Raph has proven he has determination…”
“Yeah, for himself,” Michael scoffs again, shaking his head. “I have too much shit to do to be concerned with our little brother. Either kill him or send him to make this deal on our behalf and trust he won’t take things for himself. Again.”
“I’ll do it,” my father says slowly, getting to his feet with a grunt. He rubs at his cheek where a bruise forms from the rage his brothers rained down on him.
“There are no other second chances within the family. If you were anyone else, we would have put you the fuck down,” Gabriel hisses, glaring at his brothers.
“I understand. The foolishness won’t happen again.” My father shakes his head slowly, looking at his four brothers in front of him with pleading eyes. A gesture he doesn’t offer very often. Especially not to me or my mother.
I hold my breath when Michael reaches into his pocket, lifting his lip into a sneer. “See that it doesn’t. The second you step a toe out of fucking line and betray us again, I’ll put you down myself.” With that, Uncle Michael walks up the stairs of the basement and is out of sight. No doubt retreating to his own territory.
“We’re oddly putting our trust in you, Raph,” Remiel mutters, lighting a cigarette and blowing out the smoke. “Think of Espie and Olivia.”
My father briefly stares at our bowed heads. I swallow hard, quickly looking at the floor and counting the stones beneath my knees. We were instructed to not look up. No matter what.
“Yes. Them.” The dismay in my father’s voice nearly saws me into my soul and tears it in half. It’s more than dismay. It’s disgust. Hatred. He hates that he has to bring us along to wherever we’re going. I feel it in my bones.
“Go on then. Franco is expecting you. You’ll have a home on his property. Be a good soldier. Make the fucking connections and align us with the most powerful man in Southern California,” Gabriel grunts, tossing out a hand.
“And don’t fucking fail us, baby brother,” Remiel grunts, shaking his head. “We don’t need any more fucking disappointments from you.”
The only place growing up I knew as home was here in this town. Then, it was taken from me. Just like the place before that when my father was exiled from Briar Cove and our family turned their backs on him for all the bullshit he did.
“You're sitting way too straight,” Jordy snorts, slapping my thigh as we race through a red light at top speed, taking me out of my spiraling thoughts. “Firmer handshakes. Spread your legs more. Gotta accommodate your gigantic cock, Oli.” I smack him on the chest for his stupid comment. “Umph fuck! I'm just tryingto help, okay?” I glare at him, and he rubs his chest. “You'll have to learn how to lower your voice a little. You know what? Just pretend the world owes you something,” he laughs at that, blabbering on as he continues driving like a goddamn maniac.
Talk about blending in and being a civilian.Not. I grunt, tossing his hand off me as I slide in my seat. The stinging burn makes my muscles tense as he laughs hysterically at my expense.
Bastard.
“Would you pay attention to the road and not me.” I toss a hand, gesturing to the traffic in front of us, but he scoffs at me.
“Seriously, you’re being too proper,” he tsks, making a sharp turn near the entrance of the large campus that’s morphed from a small-scale university to something massive. A place someone–AKA Franco–has put a lot of money into. The question still stands–why? Is it because more gangs are migrating here to learn? Form alliances? Fuck, my brain hurts thinking about it.
