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Chapter 15 (Ricardo)
I jerk and thrash around on my bed, trying my hardest to ward off what's happening.
It's no use because I can't wake up...I can't get out of this hellhole.
I can't wake from this nightmare.
I'm stuck. Trapped. Imprisoned.
This is my purgatory.
A pair of hazel eyes sear into me.
A beautiful little girl's screams haunt me.
A crowbar bashing into Graham's skull torments me.
I look back to the little girl and she's no longer looking at my father...she's looking at me.
“Do something! Don't let him kill my Daddy,” she begs me.
I try to get out of the car but I can't, the doors are locked.
I bang on the window and try to break it open anyway.
But I'm too late.
Graham's lifeless body is lying on the pavement, a pool of blood surrounds his now deformed face.
The little girl's hazel eyes fill with tears and she hits the windshield “No! Daddy! Please, No!”
She looks at me again. “How could you, Ricardo?”
“I'm sorry,” I say. “I'm so sorry.”
Shame washes over me because I failed this little girl and I failed a man I looked up to.
Just like I failed my mother.
I grip the sheets...I know the worst of my nightmare still isn't over yet.
Because this part isn't a nightmare at all.
This is a flashback...a reel of torture and anguish that plays on a constant loop inside my head.
I try to scream but my mother's voice halts me. “Shut up!”
She draws up the needle full of heroin and the 8-year-old boy version of me screams for her to stop.
Just like so many times before.
I hated that stuff, it made her cruel and mean. She was no longer kind. It made her say things that broke my heart.
She plunges the needle into her vein and I feel myself start to cry.
She finally looks at me. Her beautiful face contorts into a menacing scowl.
My insides twist because I know what she's going to say.
I try to brace myself for the impact but I can't.
I never can because it hurts so much each and every time.
“I never wanted you. I should have aborted you.” She balls up her fist. “You're going to be just like him. I hate you!”
“I'm sorry, Mommy,” I tell her because I am. I'm so sorry for whatever it is she thinks I'm going to be.
For whatever it is that's causing her so much pain.
“I hate you, Ricardo. I wish you were never born,” she screams over and over again.
I don't know what I did to make her hate me so much but I still loved her even when she acted like this.
She closes her eyes and starts nodding off in her drug induced haze. I bow my head because I know what's coming.
Her body starts to twitch and she screams for someone named Bruno to stop touching her.
She keeps begging and pleading for it all to end.
She keeps screaming how much it hurts.
That's when it finally sinks in for the very first time.
And the shame for being the constant reminder of her rape washes over me until I'm screaming and crying with her.
Her screams prompt my own and it's loud enough to wake me.
I know all too well now, what Bruno DeLuca did to her and how I came to be born.
I am cursed.
I can't blame her for hating me so much.
I hate myself.
There's only one way to get rid of this feeling.
Only one way to make it go away.
I sit up in bed and scrub a hand down my face before checking the clock on the nightstand. 2am. Perfect.
The world only dealt me two choices when it came to being Bruno DeLuca's son...either I had to become him...or become a coward.
Fighting back would ensure that others died.
Those were always his stakes and the day he killed my mother, I realized he wasn't bluffing.
I had no choice but to become a coward in order protect others.
I'm so fucking tired of being a coward. But for a few short hours...I don't have to be.
I get to take on the bad guys.
I get to make rapists pay. I get to do to them what I wish I could do to DeLuca.
I close my eyes as the next thought slams into me.
I'd like to think that maybe, by doing this, I can earn my mother's forgiveness and love, despite the fact that she's no longer alive.
Because of me...because I fought back.
An arm wraps around my waist and fingers gently skim up and down my stomach. The contact jolts me for two reasons.
One—I forgot that Lou-Lou's currently in my bed.
And two—I'm not used to being touched.
Especially like this.
The only touches I ever welcome are the sexual kind.
From the kind of sex where I don't take control from women...they give it to me, willingly. And in turn, I give them pleasure.
Lou-Lou's touch is soft and sweet...it's strange. Not in a bad way, just in a way I don't understand.
And yet, I can't keep myself from touching her. She lets me touch her. She doesn't flinch or pull away anymore.
Which of course, makes me keep wanting to touch her.
The only thing I can compare it to is what happens when magnets flip and find one another.
They can't stay apart.
And now that she's told me she likes it when I touch her and she no longer feels that motherfuckers hands on her when I'm touching her.
It makes me want to do other things.
Like touch her in all the places he violated her...if only to wash all her pain away.
It makes me want to show her what pleasure can feel like... because I'm sure my father doesn't know the first thing about what it takes to please a woman.
It boggles my mind that he's even with her in the first place. He's the last person she should be with. Even if he did save her.
God, the fucking irony of it all.
But that's how DeLuca likes his prey...he likes them damaged and bruised. This way he can manipulate and control them...bend them to his will.
The fu
She's strong—the kind of strong where I doubt she even realizes the full capacity of her strength. She doesn't realize, that if cha
But she's with him...and he'll take every bit of strength from her before he tosses her aside like a used toy.
Normally his prey is too naive to realize what he's capable of until it's too late. They're too busy flying high off having the most feared and dangerous mob boss take care of them and protect them.
Oddly enough, I don't think DeLuca has Lou-Lou fooled in any way, shape or form.
She knows exactly who and what he is.
Which makes this feeling burrowing in my gut worse.
She loves him for exactly who and what he is.
Her arm fastens around me tighter. “Don't leave. It was just a bad dream. Come back to bed.”
I close my eyes because she couldn't be more wrong.