POKERFACE

The Father | Capitolo Una

Nothing changed.

It was as if I time-traveled to a decade ago.

The walls still a mahogany shade of red, no pictures ever hung on them till this day. His desk in middle, well organized down to the dust with two picture frames standing. The aura of this room felt hauntingly daunting, morbid even. An awful feeling that filled my soul as I stood in the middle of it all.

A photograph of him as an infant in my grandmother's embracement, the other of me as a pre-teen in my mother's caught my eye. This man doesn't have any type of morals as he so proudly claims he does if he still has such thing up.

I still have the vivid memory of being booted out of his office when I was younger. It was almost like a sacred place, I wasn't allowed to hear or see what went on behind these big wooden doors. I still faintly recall hearing the argument that night from my parents' room loud in my ears.

A naive child who didn't have the slightest taste of the real world.

My childhood was destroyed when I found out what my father did for a living. Knowing he had blood all over his hands from his victims whether they deserved it or not, blood slowly dripped down his hands. If I didn't move far away from him, it would drip down on me as well.

I tried so hard to run away from him and this life.

"You can't run away. The past will only be too happy to chase you," A favorite quote of his, I even said it in his voice, a voice that can make all the heads turn in a room.

Well, it did and it tripped me.

But here I stand once again at his feet, after such a long time, years maybe. It wasn't by choice, no. If it wasn't because one of his men threatened me with a gun to my back outside an empty gas station, I wouldn't have been here.

He could've asked his men to be nicer, especially towards his daughter. One grabbed me as if I was an animal restricting my hands against my back while the other threw me into his vehicle, bringing me face to face to who I've been avoiding for years.

His face didn't change either, other than a couple more wrinkles on his forehead and under his eyes. More gray hairs here and there. He never lost his fit body shape, he always maintained it. He looks good for a fifty-one-year-old man who runs such thing in the underworld.

They say you should fear an old man who made it that far in a job where men die young.

"How'd you find me?" I utter with my teeth clenching hard, my molars grinding hard against each other. I felt hot blood run to my face, heating up my cheeks red with anger.

"No thank you? A thank you for all the sacrifices I've made for you would be nice. I made sure everything was fine with you, school debt was paid, your rent wasn't due, and I still can't get a simple thank you?" His eyes never fell off of mine, after so long I felt like a child that was going to get a good scolding.

"I never asked for it." My voice barely coming above a whisper.

He speaks with such power and confidence, it was probably the only thing I admire from this man, "—Lets redirect the conversation to what I was saying, before I was rudely interrupted. We are going to put you into use. I'm sure those degrees will help with something in the future."

"Who is we?" I question back, in complete bewilderment, my voice this time being heard loud and clear possibly even outside the office with the small cracks of the door.

"I'm going to put you into use." He fixes his sentence quickly as if that would make it any better.

"You can't do this." I pace around the room, fingers tangling throughout my hair, hoping the pain of the yanking would somehow break me out of my nightmare.