Ducking into an alcove, where I am hidden behind a large pot plant, I notice the door is ajar, explaining why I could hear him in the first place. From where I am hiding I can make out part of the room, not that I can see much other than a large number of men gathered within.
My father walks past the doorway, wiping at his hands with a cloth. As he removes the cloth, I notice huge rings on each of his fingers surrounded by a wet red substance. Is that blood on his hands?
When my father shifts out of the way, I notice he was blocking my view of an unconscious man tied to a chair. What the actual fuck is going on here? The man’s right eye is swollen and blood is seeping from a cut to his forehead. His lip is split open and I’m guessing there are more injuries that I can’t see underneath his clothes.
“There is no place for traitors here.” My father snarls out, sounding like a raging beast. I’ve never heard him sound so angry. I can only hope I am never on the receiving end of that level of his wrath. It is truly terrifying. His voice alone has chills spreading up my spine and my hands shaking.
Robert comes back into my narrow field of view of the room. I hear something snap, and a sudden intake of breath, before my father speaks again.
“Ah, good to have you back with us. Couldn’t have you missing out on all the fun now, could we?” He mocks cruelly to whoever is in the chair.
My father shifts on his feet, enabling me to see the knife in his hands. I don’t even want to know what he’s going to do with that but I’m frozen solid, stuck hiding where I am, too afraid to move in case he notices me.
Before I can prepare myself, my father slams the knife into the man’s thigh, all the way to the hilt. The man screams in agony, but the noise is dulled by the gag someone stuffed in his mouth.
Pulling the knife out, blood spurts everywhere, covering my father and the floor. It’s then that I realise there are several large plastic sheets placed on the floor, covering the area under and around the man’s chair, presumably for this reason.
“Trey, your turn,” Robert says, handing the knife to one of the gathered men, who proceeds to stab the man in the other thigh, causing yet another scream of pain to erupt from the so-called traitor.
Trey hands the knife off to someone else who repeats the process and on and on it goes until I’ve lost count of how many people have stabbed the man.
Every time he goes unconscious someone snaps something beneath his nose and he regains consciousness before the process continues again.
I repeatedly swallow down the bile in my throat, not daring to believe the scene I am watching. This shit just doesn’t happen in real life. I’ve seen some violent scenes growing up, but nothing like this, not to this extent, with this number of perpetrators, all set up in such a methodical and deliberate fashion. This looks more like organised crime.
Finally, after what feels like hours, but has probably only been thirty minutes, everyone in the room seems to have had their go at stabbing the man. I have no idea how he is still alive. His blood is running all over the plastic sheeting on the floor and is splattered across the men’s clothing from when they had their turn with the knife.
Once everyone has returned to their original place in the room, and my father has taken the knife back, he comes to stand in front of the man in the chair again.
“You deserve a much worse death than this,” he says to the man, making me wonder what the hell could be a more painful, drawn out death than this, but not really wanting to ever find an answer to my question.
“But you can die knowing the deaths of your children and your girl are on you,” he states brutally in a flat, almost bored tone, “once my men have had their fun with your girl first,” he adds on after a moment’s pause, with a malevolent glint in his eye, delivering one final blow to his victim.
This gets one last reaction out of the man in the chair, who starts shouting out muffled curses through his gag, albeit weakly, due to his significant blood loss. Before he can do anything further, my father slashes the knife deeply across his neck, practically severing his head, causing an endless stream of blood to run down onto his chest.
Closing my eyes, I take deep breaths in through my nose trying to stop myself from puking. In and out Sophie; deep breaths in and out, I tell myself, until I feel my stomach start to settle.
While I was zoned out, focused on not giving myself away by projectile vomiting all over the floor, I missed part of the conversation in the room, only catching the end of what Robert says.
" - shipment arriving tonight. Trey will be in charge of it and any future shipments for the time being."
There is a murmur of agreement amongst the men before Robert speaks again, "I’m asking all of you to step up with our current operations, but I have new merchandise coming in in the new few weeks, and I guarantee I will have plenty of new playthings for you all."
His words elicit a round of cheers, everyone clearly having forgotten about the dead man sitting in the chair in front of them.
“Everything is going smoothly, for now, however, Sophie could be a problem. Her being here helps support the story I’ve been telling everyone. The residents here are less suspicious when they think I'm a family man grieving my dead wife," the asshole says, chuckling, "but she's a liability. She has been asking questions she shouldn’t be and I can't have her snooping around or doing something that could ruin this opportunity for us.
“Aiden, Tyler, keep an eye on her. Watch where she goes and who she interacts with and report back to me. Keep your tattoos covered if you’re in town. You need to look the part if you are going to be seen in public here. I won’t let anyone blow this for us.”
My father’s statement is followed by a few moments of silence where I’m assuming, whoever Tyler and Aiden are, agree with my father’s orders.
“Does anyone have anything else that needs to be addressed?" My father asks the room and gets mumbled ‘no's' in response.
"Alright. As I’ve already said, this will be our last meeting for a while. Get this mess cleaned up before you leave,” he demands, waving his hand dismissively at the now dead guy.
“Meeting’s over guys, go find yourselves some booze and a hot hole to stick your dicks in for the night,” he finishes off saying to a round of cheers and ‘hell yeahs’, making my stomach churn again and my face wrinkle up in disgust.
Before I have a chance to move, the door opens, and out comes a large group of men, most of whom look like they are Robert’s age. Nearly all of them are wearing jeans and leather jackets, with tattoos covering every bit of skin I can see; some even have tattoos on their faces. These people are nothing like the clean-shaven, suit-wearing businessmen here in Crescentwood.
Not that I’m one to judge anyone by their appearance, it just raises more questions about who Robert really is.
It suddenly dawns on me that these are the men I saw leaving the mansion last weekend. Robert shakes hands and slaps some of the men on the back in a friendly farewell as they leave.
After a few minutes, there are only two men left in the room. Both of them are younger-looking, probably only a year or two older than myself. I can’t get a good look at them without giving away my position, but they look more put together than the older guys. They still have tattoos running over their arms, but somehow they seem to enhance their features, rather than appear unsightly or unappealing.