I imagine being in his position isn’t exactly easy either. He grew up in this world the same way I did, where killing someone is just a Tuesday and everything else pales in comparison.
Murder really dulls the senses.
“Please stop calling me Jason…” My teeth gritted, and hearing my birth name roll off his tongue felt fake.
“I will not have you make a scene.” His fingers dug into the sensitive skin above my elbow, and I winced—only on the inside.
I let my features fall back into place, the mask fastened back into place. These three days were just an annoyance, and it would all be over soon. I clamped my eyes shut, trying to picture the spare bottle in the glove box of my car. Xanax brimming to the top. The allure of being a ghost, the sedation of feeling constantly numb, painlessness, and mentally removed.
That was the only thing I was sure of as much as I was the consuming energy of my father—the pain I was born feeling.
Long before the four firstborn sons were sent to learn what carrying our last names really meant, I knew I was different. I wondered what death felt like. I wondered why I had a nagging feeling of pain that had no real source I could find in the depths of my mind. I wondered why I felt numb to the joys of life people seem to chase.
My mom took pity on me when I was seven. She bought me a cat thinking maybe I had anxiety or needed a companion. She was wrong. I didn’t need a companion; however, I did have anxiety. I honestly wasn’t sure anything would have fixed me even if we could all go back.
That was my first taste of death, when I decided to take my cat’s life. It was a high that hit my lungs as I sucked in my pet’s last breath in between my lips. It was a kind of high that Xanax couldn’t stomp out.
The only way to feel that kind of high again was killing.
Too bad I was ignoring the itches, until a name appeared from an anonymous number with a location.
Everything else was a cock tease: choking girls until their hands grasped onto me, begging me to stop, the self-punishment, the skipping doses just to remind myself the pain was still living and breathing...
“Duchess, this is my son, Jason.” My father practically dragged me to the woman’s side. Normally there weren’t many women, let alone my age and as beautiful.
“Pleased, just Jessica is fine. You must be a Rothschild. It’s easy to spot in the eyes.” Her smile stretched, and I felt a sense of calm against her Russian accent.
Anything resembling calm made my shit list. I didn’t want to be calm. I wanted to be satisfied and fixed. People really needed to stop thinking women were the key to all my problems.
My father’s hand slid down her back with such ease I wondered how close they truly were. Maybe he was just interested, and this was how power plays were made.
“Don’t talk much, do you? Typical Rothschild. Silence is the devil you trust; speaking is the temptation you don’t.”
Her voice was raspy, deep for a woman, and her lips were so swollen it made you wonder how you were understanding her with the accent at all. I couldn’t place her accent specifically, maybe a hint of Russian under something else that was presented as polished.
I shrugged. “Not much to say.”
She started walking, and I trailed along in the hopes it meant I wouldn’t have to talk to anyone else if I stayed close enough.
“Are you excited for the hunt tomorrow?” She sipped her champagne, and I twisted the top off my bottled water. If I wanted my meds to work, I needed to stay away from alcohol. In my youth, I was reckless enough to not care, and that almost did turn into rape.
When you attend school with three other people you make acquaintances with the townies, and those townies are the life of your private parties. Well, I took double my Xanax that night, thinking whatever the alcohol reacts with means there’s another dose floating around in my body untouched.
Wrong.
It meant the alcohol made me feel out of control, dazed, and confused on another level.
Hormones were another reaction I didn’t account for.
The girls all in bikinis giggled their way into the heated pool, so warm that the steam mixed with the crisp air, shrouding any clarity in a heavy fog. A girl with a beauty mark under her brow took a liking to me. I didn’t really know why when I was exactly who I am now then.
Asshole.
Quiet.
Mentally unstable.
Tattoos warning you to back off.
This girl didn’t care. She pressed against me in the pool, hands gliding up my chest and abs under the water until my hormones shrieked with pain.
She could give you all the hints, be naked and touching you, but you still had to ask if you’re sure… which I didn’t.
It was my fault it went further than she expected. It was my fault when she ran out of my room and cried to her friends I tried to rape her. It helped create the monster inside me that has its own set of urges and demands.
Now I stick to water. No alcohol.
Now I wait for women to ask me if I’m sure.
Now I kill people so the bad doesn’t lean into rape or mistakes I can’t take back.
“Want a drink?” The blonde with the hint of Russian in her voice asked me, with her hand resting on my forearm.
“I don’t drink.” Moving away from her touch, I saw her neutral mouth fold into a frown.
Leaning in, like this was a game, she asked me, with her lips against my ear, “What do you do for fun?”
Giving her a playful smirk with my eyebrows tense, she laughed into me. I could smell her sweet clove cigarettes and the warmth radiate off of her icy skin. She was the opposite of my new secretary. Jessica was a friend of the devil himself, and Abigail was an angel.
I was walking a line between these two, wedged uncomfortably and not by choice.
“Have you seen them? I heard they keep them on the property.”
She was practically giddy as we stepped through the floor-to-ceiling sliding doors leading out to the balcony that spanned across half of the house with two staircases on either side. This spot overlooked the whole compound. The fountain, the perfectly manicured trees, and the lush grass rubbed in the kind of wealth that belonged to whoever owned this place.
Fuck a drought, right? That was in the category of not affecting the 1%-ers.
Us.
Ignoring every question, I didn’t expect her hand to cover mine and her lips to chase mine.
I still let her. Human interaction in small doses was recommended by my therapist, and thinking of Abigail had my cock stirring.
She wasn’t even scared as the gun pointed towards her. Her thick eyebrows stayed in place, expressionless, staring at me, like I wasn’t scary at all.
Jessica’s full lips tugged my bottom lip between hers, and I felt her hand grasp my forearm, like she was sinking too quickly.
She was.
I could feel her melting into me, not breathing, holding it all in her chest. Letting my head bow, I contemplated rejecting her.
“Don’t say it. Don’t tell me you’ve got a girlfriend. Doesn’t Daddy have rules against that?”
“There are rules. No distractions. Vic entertains girlfriends. Not worth the trouble.” My voice was flat, factual, and non-emotional.
Her hand tip-toed up my arm, along my tattoos. “I’m worth the trouble. Come on, I heard they’re down here somewhere.” She was still glowing at the thought of seeing the ones we would be hunting tomorrow.