Page 12 of The Psychopaths

“Stop being assholes. The joke was fun while it lasted, but I don’t have a kink involving chains, so one of you fuckers better unlock these.”

My voice echoes through the space. Empty. Hmm... I sit on the edge of the cot and immediately thrust my arms out to balance myself so the rickety thing doesn’t tip over.

Shit.What is the last thing I remember?

I filter my scattered memories.Graduation. Laughing with my friends.My stepmother gave me flowers and bourbon.Lilian?

I close my eyes and consider. The stupid overly formal mask I wear in front of my father, the brute I play with my friends...the way Lilan is the only one who looks at me and seesme.All in a couple of hours. Good thing I have practice at this bullshit.

I press a hand to my head as if that will conjure upmore. Anything. I took the flowers from my stepmother, said thank you, and then…Empty.Everything is blank after that.I don’t recall eating or drinking anything. Did I get drugged by a flower arrangement?

Unlikely but maybe?

It’s not like me to panic, but there’s no escaping the unease swirling through me. With no answer or options, I shift and rest my back against the cot. It’s barely wide enough for my six-foot-three body and hulking frame. My feet hang off the edge, so it’s not completely comfortable, but it’s still better than lying on cold concrete.

What now? If it’s not my idiotic friends doing this, then who else? I briefly consider my father and his associates. This cell…it looks like there was thought put into it. And they are lazy old fucks.

There’s always my father…

The thought is interrupted by an alarm slicing through the silence, a piercing wail rattling the air around me. I freeze but not out of fear. This is deliberate.A warning. A signal.Maybe even a distraction.

I wait, nerves prickling under my skin, while I scan the blindingly white room. The lone window. No movement. The sound drills on, unrelenting. Minutes tick by, and nothing follows it, no footsteps, no voice. I force my eyes back to the ceiling, but I stay ready for the breath of movement.

After a while, I tune out the sound, and eventually, it stops, leaving my ears ringing in the silence. No. This isn’t the doing of my friends. They wouldn’t be able to pull it off without givingthemselves away. Besides, Drew and Seb are both occupied with their women.

They aren’t exactly present lately.

Who else?Father?Occasionally, he might poke his head out of his political machinations, but I doubt he’d stoop to this level. He’s more likely to hire a few thugs to give me a beatdown in an alley, as our past clashes have shown.

Father is a blunt instrument; my stepmother, on the other hand, is the weapon. It’s hard to believe, but there isn’t a doubt in my mind that she could conjure up something this fucked up, and my father, well…he’d move heaven and earth to make it happen.

Not out of love but loyalty. Maybe their marriage started with love, but somewhere along the way, it became a business transaction. There’s still the chance this could be my father’s doing. We’ve been in a standoff about my joining his company for most of my senior year...

I, in turn, gave him the middle finger while fucking the bimbo who used to be his secretary on his desk, just to show him how little I gave a fuck about the family business. I consider my options of who could have done this, and play out different scenarios in my head.

Shit, what if…?

I don’t know why my thoughts drift to my twin brother, Arson.Probably because this seems like something he would do.Lock someone in a cage and torture them to death. Logic tells me it’s not possible.It can’t be him.In everyone else’s mind, he’s dead. I mean we had a fucking funeral for him, but I know the truth. He’ll be locked in that hospital for the rest of his life. His chance of freedom is nonexistent.

Father seems to be the only option. He wants something, and I refused to give it to him. Now, he’s trying to persuade me in his own fucked-up way.

I consider what I know. To drug me and kidnap me after graduation took planning and strategy.Is this a team of people?No. Memories filter in. Only one man threw me into the back of that van.

But why am I here?

I can’t imagine this being a ploy for someone to get me out of the way—not if they’ve gone to the obvious trouble of containing me like this. In that scenario, they could just kill me. Way easier. Make it look like a suicide or an overdose. Easy.

Only two people hate me enough to go through this level of trouble. One of them is dead, and the other is in a maximum security mental institution.

I try not to think about the girl who died and her family. It’s a memory laced in bitter anger and pain. I had heard through the masses that the girl’s father committed suicide aftermyfather decimated him in the media, and the mother died soon after from a heart ailment or something.

Part of me always wondered if my father had them killed to get our family name out of the news. That’s what Richard and Patricia are good at: making problems disappear. It’s what they did with Arson and what they will do with Lilian and me if we step out of line.

There’s a click at the door, and I jackknife up, adrenaline pouring through my veins, my muscles burning, my fists clenched at my sides.

I’m ready.

A couple of bangs, clicks, and locks sound on the other side of the door.

---