Page 42 of Taking Over the Dark

Ellie and Nash head inside Dario’s house while we head out to Dario’s carnage room, where he conducts all his torture.

I hum in appreciation at the security as Dairo puts his code in the padlock. We get John hung up from his wrists and ready to be questioned. With this being Nash’s dad, none of us knew how he would take it, but the disgust on Nash’s face after John called him what he did back at his house was the nail in his coffin. I think it was enough for Nash to see he hadn’t changed one bit.

The numb expression on John’s face once he’s hanging in front of us tells me he’s either been through this before or thinks he will get out of it.

Dario comes up beside me and starts speaking directly in his face. “Your daughter has been taken.”

John doesn’t react to that news, and nothing changes about his demeanor. I’ve never wanted to harm a person more than Nash’s dad… well, my dad. I want to do foul things to that piece of shit as well.

I could just torture them together…

Call it the “Anti-shitbag Dad Training.” It would have hours of therapy a day, somebody in there using them as a punching bag purely because they think they’re untouchable, and a healthy dose of humiliation is clearly needed for both of them.

It would be like the pray the gay away boot camps, but instead it would fix the shitty fathers they decided to be.Ohhh, we could do the shock therapy on them! It’s been proven that itdoesn’t help anything, but we’ll use it anyway. Or maybe force them to take some DMT to kill those horrendous egos they have.

Dario smacks my arm, pulling me out of my joyous daydream. “I don’t even want to know what you were thinking about. We have the video of Willow being assaulted.” His voice cracks like he’s holding back tears, and I find myself grabbing his shoulder to comfort him. He adds, “I don’t think John here cares, though, but I don’t know what will hurt him. He clearly could give a fuck less about his children.”

Looking up to the man helplessly hanging by his wrists, he barks out, “They’re both fuck ups. I don’t give a shit what happens to them.” We’ve clearly hit some kind of sore spot with that one.

Dario’s down his throat before I can get my first word out. “Your daughter is a goddamn doctor at the age of twenty, and your son is a starting rookie quarterback in the pros… how in the hell are they fuck ups?!”

John growls out, “They’re both…”

“Bisexual,” Nash says from the back of the room as he walks in with Isabella.

John immediately thrashes around again at the reminder that his kids love whoever they decide to love.

I try to get Nash to leave again, not wanting him to feel like he needs to be in here. “Nash, you don’t have to do this. We have it.”

“I think I might be the most triggering thing to him, though…” Before I know it, Nash grabs the sides of my face and kisses me like he needs me to breathe. Then it hits me that he’s doing this because he wants to piss his dad off, and I have never been more okay with being used in my life.

John starts yelling, “This is exactly why I don’t give a fuck about them anymore! Men shouldn’t tongue other men! You’re a fucking disgrace, Nash. And with this being with one of your teammates… you should be ashamed.”

Nash sucks in a breath with that last sentence of his dads, but I don’t let him have those thoughts bouncing around in his head for long. I pull away, grabbing his face, mirroring what he’s doing to mine, and whisper to him, while we’re nose to nose, “We love who we love. You don’t need to be ashamed of anything, Nash Hayden.”

His dad hisses, “He’s not a goddamn Hayden.”

“No, he’s a Barone,” Marcello growls while walking up behind us. “Who has you strung up like a puppet working for them?” Marcello carries on, completely skipping over the heartfelt sentiment he just said to Nash.

“I’ll never fucking tell you.”

I question him, “So you value money over your daughter’s life?”

He doesn’t say a word.

I need to kill him.

* Y’all Want A Single - Korn

THIRTY

NASH

“I don’t care about the lives of fa—pussy men.” He stops himself before he repeats the slur in front of Marcello. He’s clearly not wanting to get his shit kicked in again. A part of me wants him to repeat it so I can see him in pain again.

?*I want him to suffer.

Suffer like I was forced to my whole childhood, teenage years, and into adulthood.

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