He chuckles, the sound grating over me, causing bile to rise in my throat. The way he thinks so highly of himself would be laughable if I wasn’t so on edge with him being in my space.
“Anyway,” he continues. “Dad needed something, so he asked me to go pick it up from him at his safe deposit box downtown. He told me the keys were in the kitchen in the glass bowl on the counter—you know the one.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
Malicious eyes laser in on me, a snarl erupting as he spits out, “Maybe if you shut the fuck up, Bodhi, I could get to the point.”
This is bad. Whatever he’s here for, this is so bad. Where are my roommates?
“As I was saying… I grabbed the set of keys and went down to the bank. The teller took me back to the safe deposit boxes, and I opened it up, looking for what dad needed. Some paperwork for the dealership. Except, it became crystal clear immediately that I grabbed the wrong set of keys. It wasn’t Dad’s box I had opened. It was Mom’s.”
He pauses dramatically, like that’s supposed to mean something to me.
“I found something in there that was interesting. Eye-opening, you could even say. Something I thought you may want to know.”
“So, you drove three hours out of your way to tell me about some shit you found in our mom’s safe deposit box?”
He stands, and the second the words leave my mouth, I immediately regret saying them. Charles crosses the room in three large strides, quicker than I can think to move. His hand wraps around my throat, shoving me back until my back connects with the wall. My head drops back on a loud and painfulthudas he looks at me with what can only be described as a murderous gaze.
“You never did know when to shut the fuck up, did you, brother?”
He’s squeezing hard enough that I can barely drag in a breath. My head feels dizzy, and my body has run ice cold. I’m frozen in place, and not just because he has me pinned to the wall by my neck, practically crushing my windpipe in his palm.
“Or I guessbrotherwouldn’t be the right term,” he mumbles, almost like he didn’t mean to say it out loud. He must see the quizzical look on my face because he chuckles. “You see… in that box was a letter to a man called Sergeant Major Adams, written by our dear, sweet mother.”
Charles lets up his grip just a smidge. I waste no time dragging in gulp after gulp of oxygen into the lungs that are screaming at me.
“It seems our mom had an affair with this Sergeant Major guy once or twice when I was a baby.”
Letting me go, he spins on his heel, rounding the coffee table, taking a seat on the edge of the couch. I slump against the wall, my hand going to my throat as I watch him reach into his pocket and pull out… something. I can’t even tell what it is.
Not until he opens it, dumping the contents onto the table.
Drugs.
He pulls out a card from his wallet, tossing the brown leather aside as he starts cutting up the powder, forming two little white lines. Crazed eyes glance up at me as he reaches for the wallet once more, pulling out a bill. He rolls it into a cylinder shape while never taking his eyes off me, the same bleak smirk plastered on his face.
In one fell swoop, he leans down, snorting them both consecutively, before throwing his head back and dropping the bill on my table. He lets out a rumbling groan seconds before he stands, cranking his head from the left and then to the right.
“As I was saying…” He rounds the table, closing the distance between us again. His hands don’t wrap around my throat this time, but I’m pinned to the wall regardless. “With the letter was a document—a paternity test.”
No.Before he can go any further, I already know with absolute certainty what is about to come out of his mouth.Please, God, no.
“It turns out Mom’s sweet little baby boy is actually a bastard child.”
“No…”
“Oh, yes, Bodhi. Mom cheated on dad—or I should say,mydad—and got knocked up by some fucking Sergeant in the Army. The paternity test in my back pocket proves it. Looks like she’s nothing but a fucking whore, just like you are.”
Tears stream down my face beyond my control, but my entire body is numb. I couldn’t move even if I wanted to. My mind is trying to process what he’s saying, but none of it makes any sense. My dad isn’t my dad? Does he know? Is that why he’s treated me the way he has my entire life?
“You’re lying,” I croak against the lump in my throat.
His hand cracks down, lashing across my left cheek, the sting immediate. With his fingers gripping my cheeks painfully, he gets right in my face, barely a few inches apart. “Don’t you ever fucking call me a liar again, Bodhi. You’re about to learn a good, hard lesson in learning when to keep your mouth shut.”
Shoving me back, my head hits the wall again, the pain radiating through my skull.
Charles reaches behind him, my breath catching in my throat when I see the shiny metal in his hand. He jams the barrel into my temple as I fight against the bile rushing up my throat. My limbs are trembling so hard, I’m surprised I haven’t collapsed yet.
