TW: sexual assault
IAN
I used to love the rain.
The cold, soft tickle as it slid down my back. The muddy splashes when I jumped too hard, the wet dirt getting everywhere. Cher always laughed so loud-loud enough that I couldn't help but laugh too.
"Look at me, Ian! Look! Haha, look!"
"Careful, Cher, you're gonna slip! Mum, tell her to be careful!"
"Cher, listen to your brother-Cher! Now look, you're all bruised...look at your shoulder... it'll leave a scar..."
The rain was always fun. Always safe.
Until it wasn't.
Because nothing stays safe forever.
One day, you open your eyes, and the same rain that drenched you in laughter-
"WHERE'S CHER?! WHERE'S MY MUM?! GIVE THEM BACK!"
-if hard enough, could also wash away your smile.
━━✦❖✦━
EIGHTEEN YEARS LATER
I didn't need to open the envelope to know who it was from. The Romano Insignia sealed it.
Dear Ian,
You didn't think I'd forgotten you, did you?
Three years is a long time. Long enough to grieve. Long enough to grow.
Long enough for a dog to think it's a wolf.
Don't fool yourself.
I let you run. I let you play pretend in your little sandbox district, smoking your lungs black and fucking anything that looked twice at you.
Did it help?
Did it make you forget?
Because I didn't.
You have two choices.
Come home.
Or I'll come get you myself.
And when I do, Ian, you won't be walking back.
I'll drag you through the streets by that pretty fucking hair.
You always looked better on your knees, anyway.
See you at the coronation.
Yours, always.
Klaus Romano
---
I let the letter slip between my fingers, A muscle in my jaw twitch.
And that was how my world came crashing.
━━✦❖✦━━
Years had passed, yet there was the fucking rain, pitter-pattering against the rooftop as I listened with my back against the bed that wasn't mine.
Biting back my whimper as Klaus drove that fucking weapon of mass destruction into me.
"I told you not to do that," he hissed, yanking my wrists off my lips and pinning them to the top of my head. "Let me hear you. My old man's dead, isn't that fucking enough?!"
My eyes hardened. "I said..." He thrusted hard. "Ahh, ngh... ahh, Klaus... rough, too rough..."
The tears trailed down my cheek as he drove into me again, only slowing down when my lips parted, eliciting what was more of a sob than a moan.
It was a ritual now. The words didn't matter. He never stopped. He needed me broken, and I needed him needing me because if he left, I'd have nothing left to hate but myself.
"You hate me," he muttered, his knuckles trailing down my cheekbone. "No matter how I try to make it up to you, I'm still his son, so you'll never forgive me."
I held his gaze, afraid that if I turned away, he'd break me.
It was pitiful. The Boss of a province under a man he was two years older than just to gain favors.
One I was trying to hate as much as his father.
"If you know I'm just using you, why do you come back?" I asked, turning away, damning the consequences. "If you know I hate you, why do you still follow... mmff—"
His palm clamped over my lips, my lids flashing open when he held my legs together, pupils burning into mine.
For the second time, I felt fear.
"Klaus..." I whispered, feeling the blunt tip at my swollen entrance. "Don't... Don't do anything you'll regret..."
But that night, I was faced with the truth—the power I held was just an illusion.
Don Romano. His sons.
I thought, as right before my eyes, my soul broke into a thousand shattered pieces...
I was still a puppet.
Hours later, as my body lay throbbing in pain, Klaus sat beside me, head in his hands.
Regret? I don't want regret... if only he would make it easier to hate him.
"Ian... I'm so sorry," he breathed, raking his fingers through his hair. "I wasn't in my right mind."
How was one so different from his father, yet so alike?
My rough, bloodshot, lazy pupils drifted to him. He looked like a wreck, his knuckles bleeding. I didn't need to be told he'd broken the mirror again.
My gaze narrowed back to the rain drumming against the roof.
More reaso
ns to hate the rain...
If only it was that easy to hate him.