Page 42 of Needing More
Her breath caught in her tightening chest. Vic was not going to stop.
Vic stood on the third floor of the gym and looked down into the living room. They really were going to have to do something with those curtains. While the new privacy curtains did block out most of what people could see, it didn't block out all. From his vantage point, he could see her perfectly from certain angles and only the top of her head or her feet from others. Vic had watched his brothers leave a few hours ago, even waved at them when he was helping bring in the last load of timber from the construction crew's flatbed truck.
Finally, the flooring in the gym was done. Both the second and third floors were structurally sound and waiting for the city's sign-off. Soon the equipment would be installed and the finishing touches done, all ready to be opened and revealed to the public. His dream complete. All because of her.
She had no idea what she had done to him. How just her words acted as a saving grace, pulling him from the depths of his self-imposed misery. Others did though. Yeah, Hayden and Joel could see what her powers were doing to him, even his father noticed.
The memory made him frown.
A few nights ago, after spending yet another day together, the four of them; at his house, Vic stood on the porch and watched the two bikes as they drove down the road. Checking on his father one last time before he went to bed, Vic was surprised to see the man sitting up in the bed. Normally, he would be asleep by now, the medication long since taken effect. But now he sat up in the bed, his eyes bright and as hateful as ever as he looked at him.
"You don’t think I know what's going on?"
"And what is that?" Vic's tone was bored.
"I know," Mateo rasped. "The whole town knows what you three do with that girl."
Vic let out a cruel bark of laughter and folded his arms over his chest. "And how exactly would you know anything about the town?"
Incensed anger flared to life in his father's eyes and Vic couldn't say that the sight didn't fill him with vicious joy.
Clutching the phone in his shaking hand, Mateo slammed his hand down pitifully against the crumpled bed sheets. "I've got Facebook, you ungrateful little bastard. I still know what's happening around me, no thanks to you treating me like a prisoner in my own house."
Fucking Facebook! Vic grumbled inwardly. Nothing ever good came from giving old people access to the damn thing.
"And what exactly are they saying? Or should I say who is saying it, exactly?" Vic purred, stepping away from the door and coming closer to his father with every intention of snatching up that phone and seeing for himself.
As if reading his intention, Mateo clutched the phone to him and shot him a scathing look.
"Why? So, you can go threaten them or worse, like the piece of shit criminal you are?"
Vic smiled unabashedly. "Yes, actually. Sapphire might not be my girl—yet—but I won't let some asshole who is no doubt living in a house I fucking own talk shit, and that goes for you old man." He pointed at him.
A hatred so deep and tangible spread across Mateo's face as he looked back at Vic and they both knew he was going to rise to the challenge.
"She's not your girl and you should be happy for it. I know what she lets those two white boys do to her and she's a whore for it."
Two steps.
It took two steps to cross the room and wrap a hand around his father's throat.
Cold and unattached, Vic towered over the frail man as he held him in his grasp. Like watching a bug being pinned to a board, Vic watched as his father struggled in vain against him. It felt as if his brittle bird-like bones were covered in paper mache. If he were to push his thumb up and over, he could break the old man's neck in an instant, forever relieving him from this problem.
The fighting gasps and struggling fingers clawing at his hand were weakening and Vic watched as his father's pallid skin began to change color.
Reluctantly, he released his grip and watched as his father coughed and spluttered for air.
"If you ever say anything else about her again, I’ll not kill you," he said evenly.
Even as he struggled to regain his breathing, confusion lit his father's eyes.
Vic grinned coldly. "I’ll send you to a state home and make sure they sign you up for treatment. Hell, I'll even pay for the best. Anything to ensure that the pain and misery you feel now is prolonged, forcing you to sit day after day in your cold lonely bed while memories of the family you once had haunts you. You'll beg for death and no one will ever give it to you."
Gripping each side of the gym window, Vic leaned forward and closed his eyes pulling himself from the memory of that night. He should have killed that old bastard. Instead, he had snatched up the man's phone and spent hours scrolling through posts and conversations searching for any negative word about Sapphire. Besides one or two women clearly just jealous, the comments were tame. Just posts speculating about himself being included into Sapphire'sharemas they called it.
Hell, he wished. Frustrated, Vic looked back down at the windows and watched as the second story lights to the living room shut off.
The driving force of need within him was surging to the surface. For weeks he held himself back for her. Remembering her pleading words.
