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1650 Words
Markus looked up as the door to his hospital room opened. He knew that his father was going to want to talk more about what happened. He knew that he didn’t have a lot of time before his father found out what his mother used to say about him while he was gone.
Shock hit him when he noticed that his father wasn’t alone. He’d brought Jaxon and Lukas, and one look at his brother told him Luke felt guilty about something. “What did you do?”
Trace sneered at his son, “Don’t you dare. I want the truth, Mark. What do you remember about your mother?”
Angry, Markus crossed his arms over his chest, but the hospital gown didn’t offer the intimidating aura he was going for. He was even angrier when he saw Lukas trying to hide his grin behind his take-out coffee. “I told you to stay quiet, Luke!”
“Mom didn’t love Dad, Mark. She loved his money, and we both heard her say it,” Lukas snapped as Ambrosia stopped in the doorway.
She looked between Jaxon and the others, noting the way the teen was cowering. “Jaxon, come on. This is a family issue.”
“Sorry, Am, but I’m actively disregarding that order,” Trace said calmly. “This is something he needs to hear. He needs to understand the reasons why Markus is the way he is.”
Closing the door, she leaned against it. “Fine, but I stay. As your Donna and the primary physician for the mob, I want to know what’s going on.”
“Agreed,” Trace replied. Glaring at his sons, he said, “Start talking, or see a shrink. It’s your choice, but I highly doubt that the good doctor over there will be so forgiving. Everyone knows that she only has to suggest something to get Callum and David involved.”
Lukas’s eyes widened. “If Mark won’t, I will. Mom always talked about you to her friend, Foxy, whenever she came by. She’d start telling Mom that maybe you didn’t care, and that you weren’t working. She was feeding into Mom's insecurities and making her believe that you were cheating with your assistant, students, or other teachers.”
“Stück Scheiße!” Trace growled, earning shocked looks from Ambrosia and Jaxon.
The woman raised a brow at the lithe Korean teen. “Translation?”
“It means piece of s**t,” Jaxon said. Trace had never been vulgar around any of them, but he was glad the team had taken the time to learn each language from their family backgrounds.
Trace, unable to rein in his anger now that Luke finally broke his silence, demanded, “What else? What else did that pole-dancing slut say about me when I wasn’t around? What other lies did she spout?”
“Dad…” Markus started, his heart heavy.
He knew that his father wasn’t to blame for anything, either. He knew the man was innocent of the accusations brought against him, but he couldn’t help wondering if they were true when he heard them as a child. The man had the patience of a saint when it came to children, and rarely raised his voice to them until after he started drinking heavily.
Turning his dark greys to his oldest, Trace continued to press his children. “Speak up, son. Keeping secrets like these doesn’t help anyone in the end. I’m not pissed at you or Lukas. The fights? The divorce? None of that was your fault, and I would never blame you for it. You were nearly ten, and your brother was barely seven when she demanded a divorce, and used you to threaten me. The fault was hers alone, so there’s nothing to feel guilty over, and there’s no reason for you to be burdened with my problems.”
Markus took a breath. “No matter what I say, it’s not going to help.”
“We don’t know that,” Jaxon said. “We could work on it, just like my sister and Russ did. They turned out perfectly fine, and so can we.”
Markus huffed a laugh. “Is that all it will take to get you to stop talking to other guys?”
Jaxon paled as tears burned his eyes. Where the hell was this coming from? He didn’t talk to anyone other than to get information about school stuff.
Having enough of his brother’s attitude, Lukas snapped. “How many times do I have to tell you that he’s not cheating? I’m always with him, always looking out for him, and it’s got nothing to do with you being his boyfriend. It’s because he’s my best friend, and I don’t want anything to happen to him. If you can’t see that he’s loyal to you, then you don’t deserve him. Jax, please, just forget him and go.”
Markus stared at his little brother in shock. He had expected his father to bark at him, but not his brother.
Lukas ran a hand through his dark hair. “Look, Mom didn’t care about anything but Dad’s money. The more he worked, the more he made, the happier she was. We didn’t matter to her, Mark. We never mattered! You know what I know, and that’s the fact that she readily told Foxy that she only had us to keep Dad around. Hell, she even called him her cash cow, and had the sheer audacity to laugh about it! That woman was a monster, Mark. It’s time to take off your rose-colored glasses and see what she’s done to our happy-go-lucky, fun father. It wasn’t us that caused his alcoholism. It was her!”
“She’s our mother! The woman who gave birth to us, the least you can do is show some respect!” he argued back.
Laughing hysterically, Lukas put his cup down and stalked over to his brother. Grabbing him by the front of his hospital gown, he snarled, “Respect her? You want me to respect her? She told us herself that she wished we had never been born, or did you forget that? Did you forget how she used to tell us that she was sick and tired of taking care of the spawn of the German devil she was with? How about when she would make fun of his accent and call him a Nazi? You go and forget that crap, too? I certainly didn’t.”
“Excuse me?” Their father’s icy voice cut through their argument.
Lukas looked up as Ambrosia’s face clouded over with anger. He immediately let go, stepping back from the bed.
“Repeat that,” the woman said darkly.
“It’s true,” Lukas replied softly. “She loved money, hated how pregnancy made her gain a few pounds, and hated Dad for his family history. I remember everything, Dad. Not just what happened the day she told you she filed for divorce. Naw, I can recall everything in perfect clarity, and I freaking hate that woman for taking you from us for so long. I love that Jax stood up to you for me and for Markie. He did what we were scared to do, and I love him all the more for it. I’m sorry, Dad. I know it’s a sin, but I hate her.”
His voice breaking, he wasn’t expecting to have his father hug him close. The man pressed his lips to the teenager's temple, one hand rubbing his back while the other was buried into his red-frosted hair. “It’s okay, Luke. You have a right to your opinion, and I respect your honesty. I’ll forgive you this transgression, just like you forgave mine after I sobered up. She told me in the last argument we had that she never wanted kids. She only favored you because she assumed that I would favor your brother, but I don’t do favoritism, Mark. You know this.”
His eyes clouded with unshed tears, Markus looked at his father. Thinking back on the haunting words he'd heard his mother say when he was small, Markus shook his head in denial. "No, you're wrong. You're both wrong. Mom wouldn't leave without a good reason. She wouldn't have left her babies."
Lukas growled in frustration. "I can't take this anymore! Believe what you want, but I won't let you keep blaming Jax for the same things she blamed Dad for. So he talked to some random guy at school, so what? Did you ever think he might have been helping the guy with his assignment? Did you stop to think that maybe we were in a group project, and that Jax’s the lead project manager? It likely didn’t.”
Mark’s head hung low to his chest as each logical, rational word his brother spoke picked apart his ego. Deep down, he knew his brother was right, but he wanted to cling to the memory that their mother loved them.
Apparently unfazed by his brother’s sudden remorse, Lukas continued. “Keep pushing your theories and blatant jealousy on him, and you won't just lose your boyfriend. You'll lose me, too!"
With that, Lukas tossed his cup into the garbage and stomped out of the room.
Trace, who had been watching in awe as his usually quiet son gave his older brother an earful, looked at Markus as he let out a low whistle. "I’ve never seen him so pissed off with you since the day he was born. If I were you, I’d be thinking long and hard about what you're doing to the people around you, Markus. Jaxon, you’re up, kid."
The younger man watched warily as Jaxon got to his feet. Without so much as a backward glance, the teen left the room to hunt down his best friend.
- Writer
