The Wrath Walker (The Wrath Series Book 1) by Matthew Newson (moboreader txt) 📕

My anger seethed and boiled over. All fear had vanished as my rage consumed me, and I fought against my bonds to attack the accuser of my father’s memory. “Say whatever you want about me but leave him out of this.”

Skeeter held up a hand to stop Enzo from hitting me, and then he sarcastically smacked me in the face several times. “Hey, knock it off with all of that. Can’t you see you’re bound to that chair? What are you going to do? Nothing. Why would I lie to you about this if I’m going to kill you anyway? I just figured you should know the truth since you have been fighting so hard to find it.”

“Truth. Like you even know the meaning of the word.”

“You came after my family and my interests when you come from the same gene pool as me. Your father and I were going to take over this city, but then he met your mother, and he got out before he had gotten so deep that he couldn’t. I guess I should thank your mother, because when your dad left this life, it made room for me to grow and eventually take over. If your mother would have been okay with all of this, you would be doing the same things I’m doing now. You might have taken over your father’s place as the boss of the family by now.”

“I still don’t believe you. Your word is nothing to me.”

“You don’t believe me. Well, I expected as much, but how about this? They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so how many words does this one give you?”

Enzo handed an old picture to Skeeter. He held it up for me to see. It was a picture of my parents on their wedding day standing on the steps of the church where they got married. I almost couldn’t believe how young they looked, and I felt a brief sliver of happiness as I stared at the picture. My mother had her bridesmaids at her side, and my father had his groomsmen on his.”

“Take a close look at the guys standing next to your old man, Brandon, and see if you recognize someone else in that picture other than your parents.”

As Skeeter said those words, my eyes fell on the man who was standing next to my father. He was thinner and his hair was jet black, and then I shuddered at the revelation as the small amount of happiness I had just felt died in me.

“You were his best man,” I choked out.

“Yes. I was. We were also altar boys when we were kids too. We used to get our hides beat by this one nun we loved messing with, but we just couldn’t help ourselves. There was one time your old man made the nun cry, because he kept saying, yes sister, every time she told him to shut up. She ran out of the room crying hysterically. I tell you; those were the days. Your father and I hated that nun, and we made it our mission to terrorize her. You know, kid stuff.”

“That sounds terrible. You hurt that lady for the sin of trying to teach you when you were a child.”

“You think that was hurtful? Let me tell you what was really hurtful, and that was when your garbage mother made your father leave our business, and it was right after she found out she was pregnant with you. Your father kept your mother in the dark about all the stuff we were doing because he figured it was better that way. When she caught wind of how we were forming our own thing and planned on forcing the Riccis out for good, she freaked out on him. She threatened to leave him and never let him ever see or meet you.”

“Sounds like the smartest thing she ever did, if you ask me.”

“Well, I’m not asking you, Brandon. Your dad was like a brother to me and I loved him like one too. It broke my heart the day he came to me and told me he was out, and it still breaks my heart to this day. So, I gave him a pass and let him leave on the one condition that he never say a word about what we had done or else he’d lose the family he loved more than the one he was leaving.” Skeeter handed the picture back to Enzo who put it back in his inner jacket pocket. “To this day, I never knew how your father could settle into such a boring and unfulfilling life. Reading and selling books all day. I mean, come on, what kind of a miserable crap existence is that?”

“He loved what he did,” I said.

“Yeah well, I’m just glad he is dead now, so he didn’t have to see what happened with you. It would have broken his heart to see how you turned out. Now you sit before me, and it appears the sins of the father have now come back to the son.”

I chuckled to myself. “When did the mob start reading the Bible?”

“Didn’t you just hear me say your father and I were altar boys together? We literally had the Bible beat into us as kids from the nuns at our school. You know the hardest part in all this is? I see your dad when I look at you. You look a lot like your father did when he was your age.”

It stung to hear I looked like my dad because I hadn’t really seen any pictures of him when he was younger, and now I knew why. If everything Skeeter said was true, my father had been a terrible person in his youth, but at least my mother had helped him turn his life around.

“What’s your play here, Skeeter? You’re going to kill me, and continue running the city