Nero (The Family #3)

Sometimes blood means nothing.
Sometimes family is the enemy.
Sometimes the truth is more complicated than a lie.

After surviving the darkness of his youth Nero thought that the worst was over but he was wrong. In the wake of tragedy and betrayal Nero is forced to fight his own blood to save what is left of his family. As each battle brings Nero closer to ensuring his place as the head of the family can he live with the price that must be paid?

excerpt:
Nero age 5

“Mommy, mommy get up. Mommy please get up.” Nero whispered urgently pushing at the blood covered body on the floor. Staring at her he wanted to cry but he knew that if his father came back in and saw tears in his eyes he’d beat her again for making him soft. His father would beat her again before starting on him. As the babies cries grew louder from the crib a few feet away. Nero got up and rushed over begging them to be quiet. Racing over to a fridge his mommy kept in the room he grabbed two bottle and hurried back. There was no time to heat them if the babies didn’t quiet soon his father would come back and kill them. Pressing the bottles to their mouths he could tell that they weren’t happy but they took them. Turning back to his mommy Nero heard a little moan and shuddered in relief. She wasn’t dead.

Falling to his knees next to her he pushed back the blood matted hair that covered her face. “Mommy you have to get up.”

“I’m here little man. Mommies here.” She got out. Each word racking her broken body in pain.

Barely their fingers touched his hand before she removed them to push herself up. Tears fell freely from her eyes unchecked at each movement. Knowing that his touch would just make it worse he stared at her uselessly. He was always useless. He was too small to stop his father. His father forced him and his older brother Enzo to watch when he hurt mommy sometimes. He called them lessons to teach them a woman’s place. At first Nero tried to stop his father. He would throw his body on his fathers but when his father turned his anger on him it forced his mommy to throw her already damaged body over his to protect him. She made him promise not to try and help her but he kept braking that promise unable to watch his father hurt his mommy until the last time. His father had been so angry at his interference that he held a gun to his mommies head and told him that if he ever did it again he’d make sure that she’d never get up. Terrified that his father would take away the only thing he had Nero stood like a coward now blankly watching when his father hurt her.

Going to the bathroom Nero sat outside the door with his knees drawn to his chest. Mommy had dragged herself in to clean away the blood of his father’s latest rage. Unseeing Nero looked ahead. Why did his father hurt them? Why did he hate them? Well him and Mommy, Enzo his father adored. Even at age eight Enzo was just like their father. Enzo enjoyed causing pain in others. It wasn’t just mommy his father beat, he had others. Sometimes his father would bring home woman and do very bad things to them while they were forced to watch. Each time Nero felt sick and looked away while Enzo would egg their father on yelling out ways to hurt her. Mommy told him that Enzo was sick like his father and that he was never to trust him. Mommy said that Enzo would always betray them because he wasn’t her son though she had given him life. No Enzo was his father’s son, sick and twisted in the head. Trusting mommy Nero tried to stay away from Enzo but he would always seek him out. Sometime just to tease him or hit him but other times he thought that Enzo wanted to kill him. Nero had been lucky those times because either mommy or one of the men that were constantly in the house would interrupt Enzo before he could finish him. Nero knew that Enzo did it because mommy saw through the act that he put on when no one else did. Everyone that met Enzo was charmed by him. Only him and mommy knew the truth. Only they knew that Enzo was just a sick as his father. Nero thought that Enzo did it because mommy loved him and he wanted to hurt her.

It was one of the reasons that Nero was never too far from the babies. Enzo hated the babies because mommy loved them. Nero had found him near the crib holding a pillow over there little faces. Enzo laughed at their struggling little fists that tried to fight him. Knocking him from the crib Nero fought him even knowing that he was too small to beat him. Their father had walked in just as Enzo was breaking his nose and laughed telling Enzo to toughen him up. Nero took the beating knowing that if he told his father that he was stopping Enzo from hurting the babies he wouldn’t care. Mommy had gotten one of the worse beating ever for giving him girls instead of boys. Finally after it felt like there wasn’t spot on him that hadn’t been hit Enzo got up and joined their father. Smacking Enzo on the back his father and Enzo left laughing as Nero lay of the floor bleeding.