Rejecting my Stepbrother's Seduction

Fire.

It roared in my ears and the heat made me struggle to breathe. Even though my skin wasn’t on fire, the heat was still burning at my skin. Within the crackling blaze, I heard a familiar voice shout my barely audible name. “Su… ki…!” The voice sounded far away, a voice that belonged to a man that I’d longed to see for so many years. My grieving heart felt as if someone was squeezing the life out of it as I struggled to reach the voice calling out to me, a voice that only grew louder. “S… ukia…! Sukia!” I desperately tried to make my way through the consuming flames, knowing that the one I was desperate to save was in danger.

“Daddy!”

I sprang up with a loud gasp as if bursting out of the water to finally refill my lungs with air. I panted heavily with trembling hands, trying to yank myself out of my heart-pounding dream and pull myself back into reality. Sweat dripped down my forehead as I slowly recovered from another nightmare. Once I had caught my breath, I took in a deep inhale while running my fingers through my curly, dark brown hair. My rugged voice was filled with frustrated annoyance. “Fucking hell…”

Looking around my surroundings, my memories rolled back into my brain one after another. There was a digital clock on the floor with red numbers that told me it was 3:06 a.m. I was sitting nude on a stained mattress with a naked, bruised man sleeping not too far from me, I could still see his beaten dick despite the position he was sleeping. To me, it looked like he was passed out from alcohol and whatever else he was hyped up on. I only accepted payments from the wealthier men who came from the east-side of the city where everybody was filthy stinking rich. The fact that a rich man was down in the darker, west-side of the city where he could get stabbed and robbed easily only meant that he was trying to escape his wife and kids for a “good time.” Men like that always came drooling at my feet, begging to touch my skin and grope my ass, and I charged them hundreds of dollars for it. That, and I couldn’t pass up the chance to get a hold of people who were born with a silver spoon in their mouth and beat them black and blue in bed however I pleased.

Last night may have been a heavenly dream to him, but it was just another night for me. I stood up on the worn-down bed and stepped over his snoring body, walking over to his clothes and shamelessly digging through his things. Taking the $400 he owed me and the rest of the money he had on him too. “I’ll take that… and that… and that,” I mumbled as I also took his silver watch and gold wedding ring then put everything I had snatched up into the pockets of my ripped-up short shorts jeans. Once I put on my blank tank top over my lanced bra, I took the liberty of taking his expensive-looking work shoes and dropping them in the dirty toilet.

“Have fun explaining to your wife bout your missing ring and shit-smellin’ shoes, you fat bastard,” I grumbled with a cruel smirk. I didn’t care I had slept with another woman’s man. But it did still rub me the wrong way when a man was unfaithful.

As I left the motel room and walked along the metal balcony, I was about to make my way downstairs but I stopped when I saw a man leaning against the railing right before I reached the first step of the staircase. He wore a long, black coat with a black fedora to match it.

“You gotta be fucking kiddin’ me…” I muttered under my breath. I already knew who it was before he even showed me his face by lifting his chin.

The man grinned at me. “SuSu, SuSu. My darling, how are you doing?” He said with a charming grin and spread out his arms as if he wanted a hug.

I stayed rooted in place, my olive-green eyes narrowed in clear annoyance as I crossed my arms. “The hell you want, Richie? I already paid you for the last batch I bought. And the fuck’s with the getup? You look like a ripoff of Batman.”

Richie cringed and stiffened as he looked around warily. Like the rest of my dealers, he was overly cautious. “Shit, Su! I told you not to say my name out loud!” I rolled my eyes, earning his sigh before revealing his intentions. “You never paid me in full.”

“Paid you in what now?” My crossed arms switched into hands resting on my wide hips. “I done paid you EVERYTHING. You scammin’ me?”

Richie’s hands then clasped together as his charming grin turned more dangerous. “Business is business, sweetheart.”

“Fuck you. And you can say goodbye to my services too, asshole.” I snapped and walked past him. But as soon as I was about to leave, he quickly reached out an arm and gripped my shoulder tightly.

“I’m afraid I can’t let you g–” Richie’s threat was cut abruptly when I spun around and aggressively shoved him up against the metal railing, my elbow dug deep into his chest and threatening to push him off the second-story balcony. Pulling out a pocketknife that I always kept on me, it unsheathed in the blink of an eye and I jabbed it right beneath Richie’s chin. Just barely hard enough to form a little bead of blood.

“Not gonna lie, Richie, I never took you for a man with big balls.” My voice was deep with anger, Richie’s legs trembled as he stared down at me wide-eyed but didn’t dare speak as I growled my words through my teeth. “Pull a stunt like that on me again and I’ll chop off your dick and ram it up your ass. You understand me?” Richie was still frozen in place. It wasn’t like he could nod anyway with my knife right beneath his chin. I think he gets the point. So I got off of him and withdrew my knife, giving it a twirl before sliding it back into my pocket. Richie slid to the ground, his legs still quaked and he was still dead silent.

Yeah. I think he definitely got the point.

“Stay out of my line of vision. If I see your ugly mug again, you’ll regret it.” I threateningly slid my thumb across my throat before turning my back on him and walking down the staircase.

Richie was left silent with fear as if his tongue had been cut off, and it almost was. He had forgotten who I am and what I’m capable of.

I’m the definition of danger, of a cheater, a liar, cruel, and shamelessly proud about it. I never planned on making a better life for myself, finding love, getting married, having kids. None of it interested me. No man had ever mustered the willpower or lack the common sense to ever fall in love with me and no one ever will, or so I would tell myself.

Until he walked into my life, a man who made me question everything I thought I knew about myself. He didn’t see the crooked troublemaker I am, somehow who embraced the chaos. He saw something that I couldn’t find in the mirror and it made me imagine ‘What if I could be better?’ For those I love and for the ones I thought I lost to my selfish mistakes. I thought his true love was the healing remedy for my pathetic life. If only I could go back in time and warn myself I was about to be shackled to the man I loved and hated, a man who controlled my last breath. Come the first glimpse of golden rays, my life was about to be flipped upside down by this man, the one I had to call my brother.