Page 285 of Vile Boys

His face contorts with utter evilness and a hint of disgusting pride. “You … you’re the reason my son destroyed his chances to be a true Torres.”

The barrel is pushed into my forehead.

“No,” Ares grumbles from underneath me. “Please. Don’t kill her.”

His father begins to laugh maniacally. “You all came here to do what? Save him?” He laughs again, even more menacingly than before. “You think I took him against his will? He came on his own accord. He doesn’t want to be saved.”

“Bullshit!” Caleb yells. “He never asked you to fucking whip him!”

“He needed to be shown the punishment for defying me, for continuously killing the people I work with, for purposely getting in my way every single time just to defy me.”

“You broke him,” I mutter. “You broke his spirit. His body. His mind. Even his heart.”

“Torreses have no conscience. No remorse. We don’t need a fucking heart,” his father growls, glaring at Ares. “And yours made you weak. Vulnerable. Useless. You couldn’t even kill one man to solidify your place as my goddamn heir. You chose his life over your own, for her?” He spits on me. “What a disgrace.”

When his hand rises to strike me with the whip, Kai swiftly takes out the momentarily distracted guard with a single shot to the temple while Caleb runs toward Mr. Torres and grips his wrist, twisting it to stop him from hitting me. “Don’t you fucking dare!”

I roll away.

Suddenly, Mr. Torres aims his weapon at Ares instead. “HE’S MINE TO FUCKING PUNISH!”

Blaine runs up to us and throws himself between Ares and his father right as he pulls the trigger.

BANG!

CRYSTAL

“NO!” I scream, grabbing Blaine as he sinks to the floor.

Blood pours from an open wound in his chest, and he begins to gurgle.

“You motherf—” Caleb smashes his fist into Mr. Torres’s face and knocks him to the floor. Kai kicks the gun out of his hand and cracks the bones in his fingers underneath his boot. His screams are the only consolation I have as I wrap my arms around both Ares and Blaine, bleeding out in my lap.

“No, no, no,” I murmur at Blaine. “Please, stay with me.”

“GUARDS!” his father squeals. “GUARDS!”

“There are no more guards,” Kai growls at his father, gripping his collar. “We killed them all.”

Mr. Torres’s pupils dilate. “What? No, no, that can’t be true—”

Kai snatches the whip from his father’s hand and starts lashing out, striking him with the whip just as harshly as he did to Ares. “Does it hurt?! Do you think it hurt as much as you hurt Ares?”THWACK. THWACK. THWACK.“The pain doesn’t even come close to the years of suffering you put him through!”THWACK. THWACK.“You motherfucking piece of shit, how dare you hurt myfucking brother!”THWACK!

Kai is out of control, completely unhinged by rage as he whips his own father’s belly and face while he screams in terror from the blood rolling down his body and neck.

“Kai, please!” his father begs.

“Did you stop when he pleaded with you?” Kai responds, only to strike him even harder. “All these years, I thought you were talking with him, getting him to change his mind, to prepare him. And now I find out you’ve been torturing him all this time right under my very fucking nose?”

THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!

He doesn’t stop.

Not until Caleb grabs his wrist midair. “Enough.”

“He needs to fucking pay!” Kai grits.

“But do you really want to murder your own father?”

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