Page 113 of Devil in Disguise

As his words hung in the air, I felt a strange mix of emotions. Part of me wanted to dismiss his story as nothing more than a manipulation tactic, another weapon in his arsenal to gain the upper hand. But there was an authenticity to his tone, a raw honesty that was difficult to ignore. I questioned everything I thought I knew about the man who had raised me, the man I both admired and despised. Was he truly the Devil I had made him out to be, or was he a victim of circumstances, just as I was?

The silence that followed was heavy with the weight of our shared history, the complexities of our relationship laid bare. I knew that my decision to refuse his demand came at a cost, but in that moment, I also understood the true price of our bitter dynamic. We were bound, not just by the choices we had made, but by the wounds of our pasts.

“I know you’ve heard the stories of how we escaped,” he said, looking over at me as I nodded. He took a deep breath and continued, “It was a Tuesday. I couldn’t tell you what month it was, but I knew it was Tuesday because it was the only day she ever visited me. I loathe Tuesdays.”

Confused, I whispered, “Yet that’s the day you insist we all sit down for family dinners.”

“Yes.” Sinclair smirked. “As a remembrance of what we’ve all overcome. What I’ve overcome.”

“Wait a minute. You weren’t born at the Trick Pony?”

“No I wasn’t. I was born on a rainy Tuesday morning in August, on a country back road in Reading, Pennsylvania. That day forever changed the course of my life. My father was rushing my mother to the hospital. A deer came out of nowhere. He swerved, flipped the car and rolled several times before landing against a tree. He died on impact. When the paramedics arrived on the scene, my mother delivered me right there on the side of the road before she too succumbed to her injuries. I spent several weeks in the hospital before Veronica Meeks carried me out in her arms. Had anyone cared to look, they would have seen her instability, her vile nature, the malevolent retribution carved in her eyes. Yet, like most people, they turned a blind eye and never looked back. My first genuine memory of Veronica Meeks was when I was around four and she whipped my backside raw for wetting the bed. She hated what she called ‘lesser masculine qualities,’deeming me unsuitable, before she gifted me to Devlin Scott. That night, the pain I endured paled compared to the whipping she gave me. Over the years, I learned control. Control over all aspects of my being, but she never relented. Every Tuesday, she would show up in my room and subject me to some new hell she came up with. I became her plaything. Her whipping boy. The one person in the Trick Pony she could vent her rage, displeasure, all her animosity on, until that fateful Tuesday, when I refused to take it anymore. I don’t know what made me do it. All I know was that one moment she was laughing at me, the next I had her blood on my hands.”

“I don’t understand. What does her death have to do with anything?” I breathed, my words catching in my throat like shards of glass. The taste of bile rose in my mouth, acrid and bitter.

Sinclair’s gaze, cold and sharp as shattered ice, pinned me to the spot. The air crackled with unspoken things, heavy and suffocating. He spoke, his voice a low growl that vibrated through the floorboards, “Because only a son’s love, twisted and poisoned by years of agonizing torture, could unleash that kind of incandescent rage.”

“What?” The word escaped as a strangled gasp. My heart hammered against my ribs like a frantic bird trapped in a cage. I stood paralyzed, rooted to the floor by a terror so profound it stole the very air from my lungs. I couldn’t have heard him right. The sheer audacity of it... His voice dropped to a venomous whisper that slithered into my ears. A serpent in the garden of my mind.

“The day my mother died, Veronica Meeks was born. And that vindictive bitch spent seventeen years meticulously and systematically savoring as she made me pay for my father’s death. Every cruel torment, every calculated humiliation... it was a slow, agonizing torture designed to break me. And finally, I snapped.”

The room seemed to shrink around me as the truth settled in. Sinclair, the man I had known as a father figure, a mentor, and an adversary, was revealing a side of himself that I had never imagined.

He killed his own mother.

His words were impactful; each one a revelation reshaping my understanding of him. I had always seen him as a powerful, ruthless man, but now I understood the source of that ruthlessness. Veronica Meeks had molded and shaped him, just as he had done to me. The cycle of abuse, passed from one generation to the next, was a bitter pill to swallow.

The thunderous clap ripped me around, Sinclair’s chair screeching as he shot to his feet. My breath hitched, a metallic tang filling my mouth as she appeared, bathed in the sickly-sweet scent of her perfume—gardenias and something darker, something feral. The very woman who’d bled my sanity dry, etched into the marrow of my nightmares, materialized from the shadows.

Her eyes, twin chips of obsidian, glittered with a chilling amusement. “Good evening, Dante,” she purred, the greeting a venomous caress. Her voice, a silken whisper laced with steel, slithered into the silence. The air crackled with the unspoken threat humming between us, thick as the miasma of fear clinging to my skin. “I’ve missed you,” she breathed, her words a prelude to the storm brewing in her gaze—a storm I knew, with a gut-wrenching certainty, I was about to be caught in.

Chapter Forty-Six

Danny

Soulless Sinners’ clubhouse.

“What do you mean, you won’t fucking help me?!” My words ripped from my throat, a raw, guttural sound that echoed in the dimly lit clubhouse, the stale scent of cheap whiskey and fear clinging to the air like a shroud.

The tension in the clubhouse was suffocating, a thick, stifling cloud that pressed down on my chest and made each breath a labor. The scent of leather, sweat, and smoke mingled in the air, a potent reminder of where I was and the stakes at play. My fists clenched at my sides, knuckles white with the force of my grip, as I locked eyes with the towering figure of Mercy.

I could feel the weight of the stares from the other club members, their expressions a mix of curiosity, concern, and barely concealed aggression. The room seemed to vibrate with the collective energy, a powder keg of emotions waiting for a spark. And here I was, the lit match poised to ignite it all.

“Sypher.” Jingles’ voice cut through the oppressive silence, a barely audible murmur that still carried the weight of a command. “You need to back down.”

But I couldn’t, not now, not after everything I’d gone through. What we’d gone through. There was no fucking way I was giving up now.

I stepped forward, my gaze never wavering from Mercy’s. His face, a mask of rigid control, hinted at the storm that raged beneath the surface. I knew I was walking a fine line, but I had no choice. Dante’s future, our future, depended on this.

Mercy’s perfectly sculpted face, usually a mask of serene composure, twisted with a barely concealed irritation. His annoyance was a physical thing, a palpable wave washing over me, hot and prickly.

Like I gave a single goddamn fuck.

He wasn’t my VP.

“Sypher, easy, brother.” Jingles’ warning was a low, soothing rumble, a stark contrast to the tempest brewing inside me. The weight of his hand on my shoulder felt like a lead weight, anchoring me to the ground. “You can’t talk to a VP like that.”

“The fuck I can’t!” My words were a venomous hiss, tasting like bile and rage in my mouth. The throbbing in my temples mirrored the frantic beat of my heart. “This club, the entire fucking underworld, owes me, and I intend to collect every single goddamn cent, with interest.”

---