All I Need

Chapter 16 - Tonight

Elias

We had two strict hotel rules.

Number one: No innocents.

Number two: No client is to interact with employees.

Originally, the hotel only operated under the first rule. The second one was created when Rachel started living here. I made it for her, to keep her safe and lower the chances of her relapsing.

After our altercation, I heeded Rachel's suggestion and went straight to room 410.

Instead of beating her up, I decided to beat up a forty-five-year-old drug dealer who had been charged with four counts of possession, three counts of assault, and one count of attempted murder... all in the last year of his life.

But then again, was I any better than him? If I was arrested today, how many counts of murder, assault, and racketeering would I be convicted for?

I ripped open the door. He was sitting on the bed, texting someone on his phone.

Isn't that what your dad used to call you? A fuck-up?

I threw him on the floor and my fist connected with his jaw.

You're a twenty-year-old alcoholic, just like your brother and your father were.

I got on top of him and continued to deliver punches to his face.

You didn't save her. You let your daddy beat her until every bone in her body was broken.

Blood stained my knuckles. I could barely recognize his face anymore but I didn't stop, I couldn't stop.

You wouldn't want to repeat history, would you?

Rachel knew how to hit me where it hurt. That was why people couldn't be trusted. I fell in love with a monster and I didn't even know it. What if Kaia turned out to be the same thing?

She wouldn't. She didn't know anything. Kaia didn't know what I did for a living, my family history, or what made me cry at night. She didn't know, and I would keep it that way for as long as I could.

Trust issues cause two things. You either trust too easily or you don't trust at all. If I was being honest, I didn't know which one applied to me. But considering how my feelings for Kaia were creeping up on me a little too fast, it would be safe to go with the first one.

A narcissistic, woman-hating asshole.

Apart from being an alcoholic, I was nothing like him. I refused to believe that. Everyone who had shitty parents vowed to be nothing like them when they grew up. I did it, and so did daniel.

I tried to save my mother, I really did.

I was only a child.

As soon as Daniel told me he killed Jason, I was proud. I was so proud, that he finally did what we should've done years ago. I just... I wished he suffered more.

We were only children.

Who beats their wife and makes their kids watch? To teach them a lesson? What kind of lesson was that? To be an abusive asshole? What kind of man did such a thing?

No man did that. My father was not a man, he was a humiliation. He was the kind of person that ruined other people. He destroyed everything he touched, literally.

By the time I was pulled back to reality, I had killed the drug dealer. I beat him to death, and I didn't even feel any better.

Maybe Rachel was right. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.