JAKE
"When I was younger, maybe 6 or 7 years old, I'd lived with my parents. We weren't all that well off, but we got by. My mom, she worked at a strip club just a few blocks away from my house while my dad… I never knew what he did till I was much older." I began recounting my memories of my childhood to her, noting her avid interest in my words as I spoke them.
"I'd always be at the strip club after school. In the backroom, of course, where the performers kept all their stuff. Everyone knew me so I was treated pretty well. The area where the club was located and where we lived was under a gang's rule, the Crimson Royale was what they'd called themselves."
"I've heard of them! They were notorious for shootouts and drug dealing. I heard about them on T.V." She chimed in, to which I nodded.
"Yeah, that's them. They never bothered us, not really. Sure, the shootings were loud and kept us up at night sometimes, but it wasn't like they were shooting us. So nobody said or did anything." I paused, taking in a shaky breath, a hand clasped over my mouth as I stared ahead at nothing in particular.
"My dad came home late one day. Or rather, later than he usually did. Mom had a day off that week so we spent it watching some stupid kids' show I begged her to put on and we were having a good old time laughing and chatting it up when he burst in covered in blood. Of course, my mom screamed like hell and went to see what the hell was happening, but he ignored her and looked at me."
"He grabbed me, shaking me back and forth with this desperate, guilty look in his eyes, and then started sobbing like a damn lunatic. I honestly just thought the fucker was high or on crack. He'd just kept on repeating over and over, 'I'm sorry, Jake, I'm so sorry. Miranda, Jake I'm so sorry.' like a mantra. A broken record that was stuck on a loop."
"Miranda? Was that your mother's name?"
"Yeah. Miranda, but everyone called her Sugar since that was her stage name and all. Fitted her well too. Never knew anyone as sweet as her." She nodded for me to go on.
"Then… then a car came. I heard it pull up outside, then two, then a third, until about 8 or nine of them were parked out there. It was like in those movies where cops surround the house, except they weren't cops. There was no knock, just the door flying off of its hinges and this greasy fat bastard sauntering into our house as though he'd owned it."
"I'd have believed it though. Covered head to toe in shit more expensive than I could have ever dreamed of having. Gold chains, rings, a fucking row of gold teeth! I looked at us. At my father with disgust, at my mother with that disgusting hint of lust, then at me. With me, he looked… interested. Like he'd found what he'd come here to get." I gritted my teeth, recalling the face I loathed, the face I was forced to see during all of my childhood and even my teen years.
"I wish I could remember the conversation that happened. I'm sorry that I can't or I would have told it to you, but what I do remember is yelling. My mother, crying and screaming for hours as she'd been… My father was forced to sit through it all until his body was finally laid flat with a bullet through his skull. I then remember the crackling of a fire. A big one. It was my house, my mother still inside, barely alive until she either inhaled too much smoke, or the flames got to her. They dragged me out, leaving my parents inside and set it all aflame."
"Oh my God, Jake! That's… that's horrible! Traumatising. Have you ever seen anyone about-"
"Of course not. Who could I have gone to? I was just a kid. No parents. No house. No money. And on top of all that, the cause of my misery had me captive. The only good thing was the fucker saw potential in me. A nice new addition to his collection of toys he played with as he saw fit. See, this bastard was the leader of Crimson Royale, and my imbecile of a father had gambled my life away at one of their casinos. So I was now their property. A Crimson Royal."
I lifted the front of my shirt, revealing the branded tattoo of a bloody red crown with the letter J engraved in a cursive font within it. "This is the proof of my… allegiance, my ownership rather. I would never so much as get the chance to live a normal life outside of that. That was my new fate."
I'd never told someone about my past like this before. The only people who had even an inkling of my life were the members of the Royale who'd been around when I was brought in. I felt a small movement go down my face, blinking as my vision blurred slightly.
"Fuck, look at me. All these years I've brought myself up to a standard. I killed that fucking bastard and took over the Royale. Worked my ass off and severed the ones I deemed worthless to me while I turned the rest into something else, something better. Taught myself to never be weak, never cry like a fucking bitch, but a little sob story and I crack so easily."
"Jake… it doesn't make you weak at all. I mean, if you're weak, then I'm…" She stopped and I looked up to see tears streaming down her face. I stood up lighting fast, filled with worry, concern, and panic.
"A-Amanda what's wrong? Shit, I don't know why I… I could've just said I was a fucking mob boss and gotten this over with. Instead, I layered all this other shit onto you after what you went through today."
"Yeah, that… would've summed everything up nicely. But, with this, I got to see a little under that tough guy exterior you've got. And I learned]ed more about you, even if they weren't the happiest of things. I'm happy that you trust me enough to tell me all of that. I'm sorry I don't have a sad story to tell you to make it even seeing as you're my ex's boss. Wait a minute… did- did Brandon know? Was he also-"
"Yes. Yeah, he's been a part of this for years. But don't blame him for not telling you! It's an unspoken rule in our world to keep family as out of this shit as we can."
"I get it but… it just seems like I've been lied to, you know? He told me he was an accountant for a big company, 'Horizon Innovations' and I found out that he's actually a gang member. He told me loved me for more than 5 years, yet I find him in our bed with some girl I don't even know, spending my hard-earned money on shit for her and- I'm sorry, I'm rambling aren't I?"
"It's alright. Really, it is. But, uh, looks like you DID have a bit of a sob story to tell me after all." I offer a small, sheepish smile, my words getting a snort of a laugh out of her to which she quickly covered her mouth. That, however, does nothing to muffle the second one she lets out before it turns into actual laughter. I smile softly, soon joining her in the bittersweet moment.
"We're kinda fucked, huh? Laughing like this in this situation." She giggled, hand at her chest as she took slow, periodic breaths to calm down from her chucklefest.
"Seems we are. But… I don't mind all that much if it's with you."
Damn. I've got it bad for this girl, huh?