Page 98 of Unorthodox

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I hate this.

I hate this.

I hate her.

I hate Dante.

I hate…all of it.

The files open up on my screen. I use the trackpad to scroll through the dates, the rooms. Everything my father watched. Everything he probably used to get off to later. Maybe he raped my mother while he did it. Maybe he raped someone else.

Maybe he had someone’s mouth around his dick as he watched his son get fucked when I didn’t inflict the pain on his slaves he demanded me to.

And he knew. All this time, he knew where I hid Oliver. He knew I tried to save him.

He knew, and he made sure he heard every fucking minute of it.

There’s a lump in my throat so big I can’t breathe when I open up one of the videos from my room.

My own bedroom.

I slept in there at night. When it was all over, I had to go back there and find a way torest.

When I did, the demons came all over again.

I slip my free hand into my pocket, clench the playing card.

“Let me know you’re still in there.”

I’m not, Mom.

I feel pressure building behind my eyes, and it takes effort not to reach for the gun on my hip.

I’m not in there.

I press play on the video, watch Coda drag a boy into my room.

I ball the playing card up in my fist, still in my pocket, one hand over my mouth.

The boy doesn’t fight.

Coda throws him on the bed, pulls down his shorts. The boy doesn’t move.

Coda turns to look at the camera, a smile on his broad face. He was younger than I am now. Young enough to still have a heart.

Except my father probably took that from him too.

Coda moves over the boy, and the boy…does nothing.

He doesn’t fight.

He isn’t brave.

He’s barely alive, barelyin there at all.

He’s a ragdoll, a toy. Something to be used, then discarded.

That boy is weak.

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