Page 77 of Ricochet
“Good morning to you too, Dad.”
“Evening, Kieran.” He shouldered his way in, leaving me at the door. “It’s fucking evening, and you smell like you bathed yourself in a sea of whiskey.”
“Now that would be fucking awesome, wouldn’t it?”
He was scanning the living room with me stumbling behind him, when the uncanny thought of bashing his head on the glass table in front started infiltrating my thoughts. It would be quick, a little bit messy, but I would be doing a good thing for the first time in my life.
“I need you to do something for me.”
The blood on the carpet would be impossible to get out, but I could do with some remodeling.
“There’s a girl outside.” He turned toward me. How would it feel to see the life leaving his eyes? “Are you even listening to me, Son?”
I shook my head, trying to rid myself of these thoughts.
“Sorry, Dad. I guess I drank too much.”
Yep, that was me —a disappointment of the year.
Disgrace of the family.
I could never do anything well enough for him.
“You’re such a fucking mess, but I guess you’ll be okay to do this job. After all, how hard is it to fuck somebody.”
I took a step back, shocked by his words. “You want me to fuck somebody?”
“Did you become deaf as well, or just dumb?” He walked toward the sofa chair in the corner and sat down. “Yes I want you to fuck somebody, but this one is special. I need you to break her in for my buyer. She’s a bit of a spitfire, and I need her pliant. I can’t have any returns, and I don’t want her buyer breathing down my neck.”
“Dad, I can’t—”
“Bring her in!” he yelled, not even listening to me. He wants me to wreck somebody for his sick games. Sex slaves? What the fuck were our families thinking?
The sound of feet shuffling had me turning around, and what I saw made my blood run cold. Maya Aster, Ophelia’s sister, stood between the two guards with a terrified look on her face. Her brown hair was disheveled, and the clothes she wore weren’t fitting. No, they were hanging on her frail body. My alcohol-induced mind was racing with questions. Wasn’t she in Europe, or some shit like that?
Her hands were shackled in front of her, and her eyes kept flickering between me and my father.
“Kieran,” she whispered, almost inaudible, shock and confusion mixed in one. “Kieran! Oh my God!” She tried moving toward me, but the two monkeys on her sides held her in the same spot.
“Let go of me, you fucking assholes!” She started wrestling with the two of them, and as the light started hitting her face in different angles, I could see the bruises on her cheeks and on her neck. Even her arms were filled with purple and blue markings. Ophelia would be devastated if she knew where her sister was.
“Well, I will leave you to it, Son.” My father tapped me on my back, and started walking toward the two mongrels and Maya.
“Dad, I can’t do this. It’s Maya! I just… I can’t.”
He turned to me, that calculating gleam in his eyes.
“It’s better Maya than Ava.” He grinned. “Don’t you think?”
Did he just… Did he just insinuate what I think he did?
“You fucking wouldn’t.” I took a step closer, fury like no other taking over my body. “You wouldn’t put Ava through this?”
“I won’t if you do what you’re asked to do.”
Motherfucking son of a bitch.
He would do that to his flesh and blood, to his own daughter?
