116

116
NATHAN 

The room was spinning. No, it wasn’t spinning, the room was shaking. Shaking like my body was, shaking like the thoughts running through my head was. It was like the stupid voices in my head were trying to fight for control. 

I started going around in circles and I raised my hands to my head, trying to push away the voice and silence the noise that kept on chattering in my head. But it wasn’t working. Nothing was. 

I stopped pacing and turned back to Raina where she was curled into a ball by the wall. She looked sickly, her skin was pale, her lips were cracked and there were bruises all over body, even her eyes had dark circles around them. But even with all of that, she still looked beautiful. I had not only starved her but also tortured her and she looked stunning despite everything. 

My chest burned and on a normal day, I was supposed to feel satisfied and triumphant that I finally had her here with me after so long. I was supposed to be feeling over the moon and all satisfied. 

But I felt none of that. 

I angrily walked towards her and then grabbed her by her wrist before violently pulling her to her feet. “What did you tell him?”

She flinched and tried to struggle against me as she looked into my eyes with her stubborn ones. “Who? T-Tell… who w-what?” She stuttered, her voice and eyes filled with confusion. 

“Don’t fucking act stupid! I’m talking about Dominic. You both are toying with me!” I yelled angrily. “You’re communicating with him somehow, I know it. You all think I’m stupid but I’ll prove you wrong so start speaking.”

Her lips trembled as tears welled up in her eyes. “What? I haven’t spoke to Dom since before—“

“Where are all the assets?” I asked bitterly as I cut her off. I knew she was lying and I just had to find a way to prove it. 

“It was all given away to charity,” she replied coldly. “We did this because we knew you were after it. It was either we gave it away to people who would use it for good or to someone like you who’s nothing but a bastard and a lowlife!” She spat out and something in me snapped. 

“Don’t fucking lie to me!” I yelled, my hand flying into the air before I could stop it. It connected with her face and the sound echoed off the walls of the room as her head bent to the side. Her cheek turned red and I could tell it hurt her but she didn’t cry. Instead, she turned back to me with nothing but spitting hatred in her eyes.

And I hated it. I hated that she hated me so fucking much.

I violently grabbed her by the chin and pressed my lips to hers, kissing her hard. It wasn’t out of love but desperation and the need to show her that she belonged to me and I was the one in control here.

I wanted her to know that I owned her and she had no right to speak to me like that. Maybe if she felt it, maybe if she realized that there was no out and that she was stuck with me for life then she would understand that I wasn’t the villain in this situation. 

I bit her lips and plunged my tongue into hers but she didn’t kiss me back. When I pulled away from her, there was blood on her tongue from how hard I had bitten her and nothing but disgust in her eyes as she looked me dead in the eyes. 

The voices in my head were laughing at me again. 

“You’re not sick, you’re worse. You’re such a psychotic man,” she whispered, her voice sounding like she felt nothing but pity for me. 

My knees instantly became weak and I staggered backwards. My hands went up again and I landed another slap across her face. 

“How dare you?” I snarled. “How dare you speak about me like that? Do you realize that it's me you’re talking to?”

‘She’s right, you’re psychotic,’ a voice in my head echoed and I raised my hand to my head as I stumbled back even further. ‘Why deny what you are?’

“No… no, I’m not… they… Cale… he killed time. He killed my parents—“

‘That’s a lie,’ another voice in my head echoed. 

‘No, it’s not. Cale killed them and I think the best way to get back at him is to kill him off too,’ a third voice said, it’s time low and menacing. 

‘Wait until you see the whole proof,’ a forth voice said. ‘Don’t judge without seeing the whole thing.’

‘Oh please! Don’t forget that it’s the same Cale that made you this way,’ the third voice spoke up again. ‘It doesn’t matter if you see the evidence or not because Cale is going to come after you and he will kill you anyways. So just be faster and get rid of him before he comes for you.”

“Shut up! All of you!” I yelled out loud, trying to silence the different voices that were speaking in my head all at once. 

A thousand memories flooded my mind all at once and I pressed my head tighter against my head, trying to push them all away. “They’re lying. They have always lied to me, they always will. But what if they’re not? What if Cale really—“

I didn’t know when the tears that I had been holding back started falling down my face without restraint. I was losing it, I could feel it and nothing I was trying to do to hold myself together was working.

“Wait, Nathan,” Raina spoke up, her voice softer than before but I could tell that she was being cautious with me. “What are you talking about? And most importantly, why are you doing all of this?”

I blinked, trying to stop my tears from pouring down and it felt like I was surfacing after being under the water for too long. “I’m all doing all of this because your parents fucking killed mine!” I growled angrily. 

She looked at me with wide eyes like she couldn’t believe what I was saying or like I had sprouted two heads. “That’s the reason for all you’ve been doing?”

I let out a laugh but it came out like a choked and pathetic cough. “Not only that! It’s every fucking thing. It’s why I live the way that I do. I want revenge. I want justice and I need to put off this raging fire that keeps on burning in my chest each day that passes without me avenging my parents.”

“But… you saw the video, did you not?” She asked, her voice quiet and filled with pity. “You saw Cale in the video snippet that Dominic sent to you.”

A memory flashed across my mind. The sound of my mother’s voice, her screams, my father’s grunt and the look of satisfaction that had been on Cale’s face. 

“What if… what if you’ve been wrong all this time and Cale had just been playing you,” she continued as she pressed even further.

Wrong? I froze in place. 

Was the video real or it had been doctored?

Her words kept replaying itself in my head and I felt my throat tighten up, suffocating me as I forgot how to breathe. I couldn’t have been wrong all this time. I couldn’t have lived like this, I had hurt too many people for all Cale had told me to be a lie. I had become this all because of a lie?

“No. It can’t be,” I mumbled to myself not wanting to believe any of it. 

“Yes, Nathan. Yes,” she said, her voice firmer than ever. “What if Cale had been using you, Nathan? What if he had manipulated you right from the start?”

The room started spinning again. 

I stumbled backwards for the umpteenth time, my body not being able to bear all was being thrown at me. I balled my hands into fists by my side as I tried to breathe through the heavy weight that was pressing down heavily on my chest. 

The voices in my head were louder than ever, screaming even. Some were saying that she was lying and was trying to play me while others told me to kill while one kept screaming at me to wait, to see the rest and to find out the whole truth. 

“Shut up!” I yelled into the air. “Just shut the hell up.”

She was shaking, and for the first time I saw her genuinely terrified not because of what she had gone through in my hands but because of how I was acting. Of what I was becoming. 

I turned away, not being able to bear the look she was giving as my whole body shook. 

And more tears fell down my face. 

I fell to my knees as I ran my hand through my hair. My heart was wounded and the sound that escaped my lips was inhumane—sounding like a wounded animal. I couldn’t stop it and I didn’t even try to hide how I was feeling. 

“Why?” I cried. “Why would he do this to me?”

She moved closer to me, unsure if she could touch me or not. “He did it because he needed someone who was angry and out for revenge. Someone he could manipulate and use to his advantage.”

I didn’t want to believe any of it. But in the video, everything was glaring. 

“I need to know,” I said as I got up. “Need to know the truth. All of it.”

I wiped my tears away before I grabbed her hand, not with anger but with a sense of urgency. “Come, they’re waiting for us and without you with me, I won't get any answers.”

She looked surprised but she didn’t fight against my touch. 

I was anxious and I needed to get to the bottom of things. Fast. 

When we got to the location Dominic had sent, I expected to walk into a trap and I didn’t if I did. If it was truly a set up, I would walk into it boy at least I would die knowing the truth.

But to my surprise, there were no traps nor were there any police officers. 

There was only Dominic and Alex was seated beside him. 

The bastard was still alive and he didn’t even look hurt. 

My shoulders became tense and I felt anger bubbling inside of me, coursing through my veins and ripping apart healed wounds. 

How was Alex still breathing? I had made sure I shot him in the heart but I pushed it aside, my need to get to the bottom of things greater than every other thing. 

“Give me the video!” I said, not wanting to waste anymore time.  

Alex didn’t move or blink and neither did Dom. 

“Where is it?” I asked, my anger rising. 

Dominic finally stepped forward and brought out a flash drive from his pocket. “All you need to know is in here. The whole truth,” he said, his voice steady and as calm as his expression. “But Raina first.”

I clenched my jaw. “I’m not stupid,” I replied. “Give me the proof and you’ll have your beloved Raina.”

“Fine,” he replied with a shrug as he tossed the false drive to me. 

I caught it and quickly plugged it into my phone. I held my breath and the phone felt like a ticking bomb in my hand, like a web of carefully encoded circuits that could blow up with one wrong move. 

The video started and I knew that the woman in it was definitely my mother. 

My father was on his knees bleeding and begging for mercy. My mother on the other hand was screaming with her hand tied behind her back. 

And Cale, he was laughing and… touching her. 

“No…” I managed to say. 

I watched as my father was stabbed over and over again. I watched as Cale raped my mother over and over again. I knew I was supposed to stop watching it but I just couldn’t and my soul shattered with each clip I watched. Cake had killed them. 

I stumbled and fell against the wall as the phone in my hand dropped to the floor. I started feeling nauseous as bile rose in my throat and my hands started shaking uncontrollably. 

“They lied,” I muttered. “He lied to me. Cale had been lying to me all along. He… he…”

I ran my hand through my hair, it was unbelievable. “All these years and all the bloodshed. I did it for him because he had said… God!”

Dom walked over to me. “That wasn’t the only thing Cale did,” he said, his voice solemn. “And if you want to know about it all and get your revenge, let Raina go.”

He gestured to her, she looked tired and broken. But there was still fire burning in her eyes. 

“She doesn’t deserve any of this,” he continued. “You know that.”

I turned to look at her again, her eyes were red with unshed tears. 

She really didn’t deserve any of this but I loved her. But more than that, I wanted revenge, I needed to give my parents justice. 

With a tired sigh, I got up and walked over to her before untying her. 

“Go,” I said quietly. 

She nodded but didn’t say anything, her legs were shaky and she ran towards Alex, jumping into his arms as her tears fell down her face uncontrollably.

My stomach twisted as I stared at her. It should have been me she would feel so happy with. She should have been mine.

But I had to let her go. 

She belonged to light and I had chosen to rot in darkness. 

Dom walked even closer to me and handed me the documents he was holding. “From the looks of it, all of Cale’s wealth was your father’s. He stole everything that was meant to be rightfully yours—his only heir.”

My hands shook as I flipped through the papers. Documents I had never seen, my father’s will with his signature all over it and dates that proved them all. 

Cale had done more than lie to me. He had absolutely ruined my life. 

The voices in my head were quiet now, they weren’t gone but they were not as loud as before. 

I fell to the floor, my whole body drained of life. 

“I’m going to kill you, Cale,” I whispered to myself.