Page 39 of Broken Discipline
I stabbed him in the neck repeatedly, blood gushing from his arteries. My vision reddened with images from the Masquerade surveillance footage. When Ramona couldn’t take his fist in her pussy, Manner punched her face instead, until finally, she took all five of his digits.
Manner fell to the ground, blood pooling around him. I stowed my knife, then curled my knuckles, my gloves crunching under the movement. I stepped out of the way, not letting his blood get on my boots this time. Two of my men pulled up in a cargo van. One carried the corpse to the vehicle, then sprayed the asphalt with a pressure hose. The other took Manner’s key fob and slid into the driver’s seat of his convertible.
I acknowledged each of them, then headed to my car.
At the Carter Compound, I found the twins in the playroom, concentrating hard on the pages they were coloring. They were quiet; tension hung in the air. My instincts told me that Ramona must have spoken to them about the fight a few minutes ago, and that mood was hanging over them. Larkin was shading a coloring book with enough force that the crayon was losing an inch of color by the minute, and Leon carefully drew a final circle for his stick figure family. Four circles with squiggly torso lines, each with two dots for eyes, and a straight line for the mouth. I crouched down between them, putting myself at their level.
“Who’s that?” I asked, pointing to Leon’s picture.
“That’s Larkin,” he said. He went in succession from the shortest to the tallest figure. “That’s me. That’s Mama. And that’s you.”
“Wow,” I smiled, warmth rushing over me. He had included me, when I had only been officially part of their family for a short time now. “You drew that all by yourself?”
“Uh huh,” he said.
“You see my princess?” Larkin asked. “I colored her sword pink.”
She flipped to the page, then shoved the coloring book in my face. I took it from her hands. The blade wasveryhot pink, and it fit Larkin so well.
“It’s perfect,” I said.
Their crayons scratched against the paper like the tiny clawed feet of a hatchling.
“What happened the other day?” I asked quietly.
“With Kenny?” Larkin asked, her eyes focused on coloring a knight’s face blue.
“Yeah,” I said. “Can you tell me?”
They were both quiet again. I took a deep breath, not sure if I should even ask. But I owed it to them to say something.
“He pushed me and said I wasn’t supposed to play on the big kids’ playground,” Larkin said.
“Then what happened?”
“I pushed him.”
“Then he hit Larkin,” Leon said.
“So Leon hit him too,” Larkin added.
My chest tensed with pressure, my neck aching with stress. They were bothtooyoung to be fighting like that. Maybe it was a kid thing, but it seemed like it was my fault. Had I rubbed off on them somehow? Had I unconsciously influenced them to act violently like that, by simply being an assassin?
My father hadn’t told me what he did for a living until I was fourteen. He had made sure that I could stand up for myself, but he also made sure that I knewwhento fight. I wanted to give the twins a life like that, where they wouldn’t be forced to grow up too soon. But a deep part inside of me was proud, too. Even if they shouldn’t have done it—even if it was my fault, they had stood up for themselves.
But I still had to handle it the right way.
“When someone hits you, you use your words,” I said. I rubbed my forehead; it was so damn hypocritical coming from me, but I had to try. “You don’t jump to violence. That’s not okay.”
“But you said to defend your family,” Leon said. “You said that. Remember? On moving day? You said to always defend your family. Right, Daddy?”
I did remember that. I had given the twins a warning that their mother didn’t know me, and that she might do whatever it took to defend the twins, even if that meant hurting me. And I promised the twins that I wouldneverhurt them, but that I still had to earn their mother’s trust, like I had earned theirs. I still had to prove to her that I could be their Daddy.
And maybe that was finally working.
“Hey,” I said quietly.
The twins both stopped, but their hands still flickered, itching to color again. I held each of their hands, trying to figure out how I was supposed to explain this to four-year-olds. I wanted to be truthful, to say what I meant in a way that made sense, but also in a way that would be appropriate for two little kids. But I was a hypocrite. I killed people who had touched and hurt their mother. I didn’t resort to words. Violencewasthe answer.
