Always Down

Chapter 37 ? Svelare la verità

"Mio—" Rhys knelt down to my side, throwing his arm around me and shielding my face from the horror unveiling. I tightened my grip around his torso, holding onto him for comfort. "It's okay, dad didn't mean to hurt you. You know how he can be when he's angry. It's okay, don't cry."

"Get on with it, we don't have all day." Kai intervened my thoughts.

"She's trying." Riven retorted, with a hard slam down on the table. Kai narrowed his eyes at him but seeing the pissed glare on Riven's face, Zeke stepped in between.

"Go on." Hades turned to look at me and for the slightest second, his stare wavered when I wiped my eyes.

"Alvaro was so shaken up after that incident and for the first time in my life, I saw a hint of worry in him. He was scared of losing his son. He was scared of having to watch Rhys die the same pitiful way my mom did or maybe worse than that. He wanted to keep him safe, so the following month, he sent him to Sicily."

"I hated Rhys for leaving me here, for letting Alvaro treat me however he wanted. I became a used and thrown object for him and his men. I had to do whatever he desired and in return, he'd pay for my tutoring and allow me some left overs to see another day. He'd punish me for the smallest mistake and sometimes, he'd do it because he liked it."

My voice shook and I fisted my palms. "He'd tie me to a chair and scar me with different knives. I used to rebel and even tried to escape once but his men caught up to me and dragged me back. I should've known that was a mistake because he locked me in the dead room without food for days and—"

My chest hurt to remember my ugly past, my eyes stinging from the tears. "His men and him took turns to touch me until I'd passed out unconscious. They'd burn me with a blowtorch to wake me up only to repeat the same. I'd scream and cry for forgiveness for days and nights."

"When you killed him, you took me out of my misery." I lifted my head up to look at Hades. The sharp stare of his faltered under my words. "Rhys was devastated after his death. He became disoriented when he returned from Sicily. He thrashed around and killed his own men without mercy. He simply wanted to avenge his father's death but Diego talked him out of it. He had lost too many of his men because of his mistakes. It'd be foolish of him to come at you."

"Bastard." Zeke muttered under his breath.

"From then on, he began recruiting men across the globe, those who had a past feud with your father or those who wanted you dead and he formed an alliance to bring your empire to the ground."

"Funny how you say Hades saved you from your father yet you chose to avenge his death— quite the family bonding, I see." Kai taunted.

"Kai enough—" Riven cut in.

"What Riven—" He bristled. "It seems like you know something that we don't since you're obviously on her side despite knowing how she fucking betrayed us, so please do tell me."

He took a step. "Or maybe, I need to remind you that because of her father, you lost yours. You were fucking forced into this pathetic life. Did you forget that already?"

"She's not responsible for my father's death." Riven clenched his fists.

"Enough—" Hades cut in, my face paling from the sudden fixated stares on my forehead.

The guilt forced the words out of my mouth. "It was difficult for Rhys to infiltrate your base, even with his high affiliations since it was pretty heavily guarded. He wanted an insider, someone who wouldn't betray his trust and bring him information that he needed and that someone being me, so he set this whole thing up— from meeting you in that fighting arena to leaving subtle clues behind, he made sure you knew it was him."