Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 120186 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120186 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
I step out of the truck into the cold.
As I head to the door, someone’s on their way out, and music, shouting, and laughter blast from behind them. It’s jarring, but I force myself to get used to it as I walk across the lot and grab the doorknob. This is better than sitting at home feeling like I might crawl out of my skin. It isn’t the overlapping voices I hear once I’m inside. The music fades to a dull roar in the back of my head while I weave through clusters of people on my way to an empty barstool.
It’s him. His voice. It rings in my head so loud, my body vibrates.
“You’re the worst of them all.”
“You spend your whole life trying to be worthy. Trying to prove yourself. Trying to earn what your brothers got by birth. And no matter how hard you try, it’ll never happen.”
Rick notices me once I’ve claimed my stool, then raises an eyebrow to silently ask whether I want the usual. I might come in here too much if we can communicate without words. Who cares? I’m not in the mood to chat.
“At the end of the day, you’re not a real Bishop. Your mother is Emma Porter.”
Closing my eyes doesn’t help smother his voice. The man is dead, cold, but he’s still alive in my head. I snatch the glass of whiskey as soon as it touches the bar and down it all, then slide it toward Rick before he has the chance to get distracted. His lips draw together. He’s no doubt wondering what happened to make me this desperate to get blackout drunk. Thankfully, that won’t stop him from pouring another. We’ve gone through this dance before.
“...taking their heir and making him my weapon.”
Bile rises in my throat when I think about what he said. What he did. Systematically, day by day. How he raised me to hate my own blood. To look at the Porters as enemies. It was deliberate. For my entire life, he treated me like some kind of experiment, testing whether nature or nurture would win out. Testing how completely he could twist me up? And how much he could punish my birth mother who had to witness it all.
“I told her if she ever tried to see you, I’d kill you myself.”
Another drink shows up right on time, and I down it the same way I did the first. It’s still not enough. It’ll never be enough. I signal for more while my blood boils and my heart pounds in time with the music hammering in my ears.
He called me a fucking dog.
Told me I wasn’t really his son. That I was weak because I came from Emma. In just a few minutes, he stripped away the one thing I thought was mine. The belief that I belonged, that he would eventually see I was worthy of being treated like more than a useless fuckup.
Something inside me snapped then.
I could hear it in my head. I still hear it now.
It lingers over the drunken laughter, the shouts for more beer and whiskey, the blaring music rattling the stool. Everyone in life has a breaking point. I guess I didn’t know it could be literal. I didn’t expect to be pushed so far that the strain would take whatever was still holding me together and snap it like a piece of dried, dead wood.
When I finally snapped, it provided the one thing I never had. Something I didn’t even know I was missing until it showed up, rushing in and filling all the cracks inside my skull. It quieted the noise, silenced the questions, and the constant push and pull I fought against. All of that ceased to exist, and a sort of icy peace settled over me.
Clarity formed in my mind. And for the first time in my life, everything was crystal clear. I knew what I needed to do. That no matter what happened, he would never see me the way I wanted him to. Yeah, I had killed my father to protect my family, my brothers, and Saint, but more than anything, I killed him because if I didn’t, there would never be peace for any of us. Looking back, I wonder why I ever wanted to be like him. I guess the need for his approval outweighed everything else.
I raise the glass of whiskey to my lips. I have a hell of a thirst, and I doubt what’s left in the bottle behind the bar will be enough for me. To bury the truth, to satisfy these new demons. In the end, my father didn’t believe I’d pull the trigger. He stood there, so sure of himself, practically daring me to shoot him.
I smile to myself. For once, I proved him wrong. I get a small tingle of satisfaction, knowing that his last thoughts were probably filled with shock, with horror that his fuckup bastard son had ended him.