Deal • REWRITE • BOOK 1

22; Say It Right

"My father is a pathological liar who will do anything in his power to make my life miserable, Lucien,"

L U C I E N

Lucien, I can't have kids.

Punch.

Lucien, I can't have kids.

Punch.

Lucien, I can't have-

"Someone is angry."

The force of my swing against the punching bag stung my knuckles when my anger spiked at the sound of Alex's voice, the heat around my neck caging my face in an uncomfortable sweat that made me want to shower twenty fücking times.

"Get out Alex, I'm not in the fücking-" I swung and punched the bag again, "-mood."

"You never are," he said, looking at me through the reflection of the mirrored walls five steps away from me as I kept lashing out on the punching bag until the tape around my fingers split and my knuckles were grazed with matted spots of blood. I could barely feel the pain when I had the weight of my guilt sitting heavy and uncomfortably fresh on my shoulders.

If I wasn't an already self-claimed selfish fücking bastard, I was sure Aria now thought the same.

The reminder engulfed my head with a fire like feeling when I wanted to shoot myself in the head for having done what I had, the sensitive subject she'd neglected to tell me now making everything make sense in my head when I realised why Aria had been hiding it in the first place.

Fück sake.

I assumed that I'd figured everything out on the journey back to my house since Aaron had promptly told me to get the fück out of Aria's penthouse once she'd confessed what she'd been hiding, his threatening tone and demeanour being one that I would've normally ignored, however, with the situation I had now effectively made worse, it seemed that it was in my best interest to listen to him and get the hell out before I fücked up things more than I already had.

Within minutes I'd exited the building and made my way back to my house where I was currently, the missing puzzle pieces that I'd wanted so badly now sitting regretfully in my head as I tried to put two and two together whilst taking out my anger on the punching bag in front of me.

So far I'd only deemed Ryder even more of an ásshole than I'd thought before.

The visual of his face was pinned in my mind before I used my focus and projected his face onto the spot I was punching, my fists curled tightly as I kept swinging and hitting the weighted sack until the image of his face was battered and bruised in my mind.

I wanted to kill him.

I wanted to feel the last sliver of his breath exit his throat as I strangled him until his face went blue, the sight of him struggling entertaining the demons in my mind as I kept punching until my body felt like it was engulfed in the flames of my anger.

The further I acted on it, the more I went numb.

I wanted Ryder D'Amore dead, and I wanted my face to be the last thing he fücking saw once I'd had the chance to tell him that he couldn't have Aria and never would-

"Lucien, you're going to knock it off the-"

Alex's words went unheard just as the bag unhooked from the latch, the split second fault resulted from the force of my anger that I'd been exerting physically for the past hour. I watched as the weighted sack cut the air until it was slamming against the mirrored panels on the wall, the crack of glass echoing between the confines of the room until I was staring at my reflection and breathing hard through my nose as I tried to gain my breath back.