Secrets & Lies

Part 5♣️: Brothers With Arms

"What your suggestin' is most concernin' Arackniss.." The incredibly soft wisened voice sounded from the other side of the tall backed brown chair on the other side of the wooden desk.

"I know Paps but do you really see another answer?" The short soft bluish-grey furred spider answered with a small nervous grin as his black fedora hat with yellow band remained in the grip of all four small bluish-grey hooks fingers. It matched the rest of his black suit, white tie and yellow shirt and matching small yellow shoes.

There was a long drawn out silence that made the barely five and a half foot tall spider demon fidgeted a little as his father deliberated on what his 'only' son was suggesting.

"Unfortunately, I do not.." Henroin finally responded in the same contemplative soft tone remaining seated. "Ya realise how serious this is if indeed what ya suggestin' is true? It makes this gang war our dishonour, it brings dishonour to my name in the eyes of our associates as our unspoken agreement has been broken." These words made Arackniss' pink eyes with black-slit pupils blink then nodding in agreement, his soft bluish-grey quiff of fluff on top of his head shook with it. At this point Henroin spun around to his 'only' son in his seat his own pink eyes with black slit-pupils narrowing as he slowly pushed himself forward into the light, revealing his face from the shadows that had surrounded it.

Arackniss was no fool. He didn't dare open his mouth to prompt his father into speech as despite his outward soft approach he could feel the intense rage bubbling underneath the surface. There family name meant everything to him, to them both as it was all they had left.

"We both know who to finger but we cannot do so without proof.." Henroin mused softly, his eyes locking with his son's once more as his two index fingers covered his pale grey moustache that covered his top lip, he was a slightly paler bluer shade from his son with a pure white mop of slicked back head fluff and wearing a black suit with white shirt and a maroon red tie, there was a red rose in his lapel and a triangle of a white handkerchief in his pocket.

"You want me to be the one to find it, don'tcha Paps?" Arackniss responded moving around the desk and dropping to his knee, taking his father's pale blue hand in his, his eyes flashing in concern for the spider demon who looked very much like an older, taller version of himself.

"I want you to be discreet about it. There is no-one I trust more to find the truth than my only son." Henroin responded carefully pulling his hand out from the grip of Arackniss and resting it on the arm of his chair as he continued. "I know that ya will not fail me. Your the only one of the three that hasn't broken my heart.." The smaller, younger spider seemed to flinch at the somewhat harsher tone when his father spoke of his siblings. It was a rarity that he even acknowledged they existed considering his devotion to the story that he only had one son.

"I know and it will never happen, not from me.." Arackniss trembled just barely managing to hold back his emotions. Then he felt it. The small hook-clawed hand he had let go of was now stroking his quiff of head fluff gently.

"I know my boy, I know.." Henroin responded as his expression softened to his 'only' child, the one that always did exactly as he was told and had never given him cause to doubt his loyalty. He had even been devoted enough to follow him down here into the bowels of this hellhole..

........................

It had taken Arackniss a while to pull himself together emotionally after leaving his father's office. While he would never show anything more than cold indifference on the outside to the goons and brother mobsters that both he and his father had 'brought into the family' over their decades in Hell, inside was a different story. He still felt the great sting of betrayal and anger towards both his siblings that had left him alone with their father for different reasons. His brother Anthony had abandoned him in their youth, meaning that his father squeezed on the pressure to 'be a better man' and his sister Molly because she had been the cause of their deaths. His sister had been the one who had finally turned the crime family into the cops and the resulting shoot out had been how him and his father had ended up down here in the first place. They were both traitors and his heart burned with unrelenting pain whenever he thought of either of them.