Page 41 of Splintered Desire

This isn’t the first time he’s held a gun to my head, and I’m damn sure it won’t be the last, not unless he finally gets the guts to pull the damn trigger.

I’m not sure he could, though, despite how much I make him wish he could sometimes.

Kol looks back at Isaac for clarification, letting me know he didn’t watch the video.

His loss.

“He didn’t,” Isaac confirms, and even from here, I can see the way his jaw clenches, his molars no doubt seconds from cracking.

Kol’s eye actually, honest to God, twitches as he yanks his gun away and tucks it back into the back of his expensive dress pants.

“I told you to leave her the fuck alone, and I meant it, Jay. We have other things to worry about. A business to run, fights to organize, we’re going to let Tank watch her, and you're going to stay away from her.” He looks me dead in the eye and dares me to say no.

It’s on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t make the word come out.

Father literally beat the importance of family into us at a young age.

Kolson is the oldest, then Isaac, and I’ve always been the baby, or at least I was until Zela.

Still, I can’t say I wouldn’t have liked her just as much if she really were my sister. I’ve got more than a few screws loose, I know that, but of all the things that have been questionable in my life, my loyalty to our family, to my brothers, wasn’t ever up for debate.

“Fine.” I spit the word like it has a bad taste, and it does. The idea of surviving on only a taste of her…

For now.

We can get through the fight, then come back to this. I know it’s only a matter of time before we need to handle her.

They don’t know, didn’t see the look in her eyes. Our little Zela won’t take being a caged animal; she won’t lie down and listen. We’ll have to break her, and when it comes to that, I’ll be first in line.

“I’ll leave her alone, but when Tank’s done and we have to teach her a lesson, I get to be the one.”

Kolson is always in control; he was raised to take over for Father, even before we knew he had cancer.

That’s what his kids were to him, extensions of himself, and we fell into the molds just like he wanted us to.

Kolson never wants anything for himself, but standing here toe to toe, eye to eye, I see it.

He wants Zela, though he’ll never admit it.

“Fine,” he snarls, turning back to his desk and dropping into the chair. “No more talk of her. We need to prepare for the Vixen versus Tank event.”

If only he knew how impossible a task he had just asked us to take on.

Family dinner…

The bane of my existence.

When I was really little, almost every meal was a family dinner, mostly because we had so little food we had to share. After Dad went back to school, I mostly ate alone. He was either at work or school, but once a month, he would splurge and go to the little convenience store, grab us each a slice of the cheap, greasy pizza and an icee.

Looking at the huge spread of food in front of me, that pizza seems so silly, but it’s still one of the best memories I have.

Even with all this food, this isn’t family.

I’d never dare tell my father or Diane that. It’s not their fault; well, it might be hers a little, but I have a strong suspicion that Diane doesn’t know what kinds of monsters her sons are. It seems to be something they learned from their father, which isn’t too far-fetched considering they inherited The Pit from him.

“You gonna stare at the food all night, Munchkin?” Dad’s voice snaps me out of my thoughts, and I feel my cheeks heat at his nickname.

“Dad.”