Wounds of My Heart

36. Bright Candle

☾
✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

Jordan's POV

This place is everything I've ever known, everything I've ever wanted, and everything I've ever feared at the same time. Makes no sense right?

I guess seeing guns before seeing crayons as a kid can really fuck up your ideals.

Growing up watching my dad run this place made me want to follow his steps, made me think it was right.

He came home with tons of gifts for me and my mom, tons of money, but with a shit ton more of injuries and wounds. I didn't mind, for a long time I saw it as something normal, until I realized how messed up it was. How messed up I am.

But one day I never saw him again, I never saw my mom again, not even my house. Just this place.

"They are dead." They told 6-year-old me back then. And as if on instinct, I smiled. I thought it was something good, how was I not supposed to if they usually threw parties celebrating someone's death and those where the only moments I saw my father smile.

Soon enough I understood, I grew up and stopped asking when they were coming back. I understood what dead means, but I realized it's not the worst thing that can happen to you. Living can be much worse.

With the years, I learned what happened to them. Long story short, my mother was kidnapped by another gang, our biggest rival to be more specific, and my blindly in love father went in her rescue without a second thought. Unprotected, with no backups, no plan, just his heart in his hand.

They both ended up killed and their bodies were delivered in our door.

This created a growing rage inside of my heart, a rage that keeps me going, keeps me focused. I don't want whoever did that to my parents dead, no. That's too considerate. I want him to suffer for a lifetime, just like me.

That's my goal, and now that I'm in charge I can make it happen, I can take those decisions. But I'm not stupid, I take one step at the time.

My aunt, my father's younger sister, inherited his position when he died since I was too young to do so. She has been doing that until a few weeks ago when she decided to retire, and now, finally, that position is mine.

I have waited all my life for this, I was willing to do anything to make my dreams a reality, even if it meant more death, including my own. I had nothing much more to lose anyways.

The only person I used to care about was my aunt, she acted like a mother to me, but eventually she got busier and I barely even see her anymore. I loved her and still do, but with her absence I lost the fear of her dying, what was the difference if alive she also wasn't around?

But now it was different, I am different. That rage in my heart isn't everything that makes it beat now. And that scares me, the feeling is unfamiliar, even if it's something good I'm scared.

Adira has quickly grown on me. She is all I think about now, all I care about. Her presence brings peace and tranquillity to my heart, she is like a candle in the darkness of my mind.

But what would happen if I blow that candle? What if someone else does because of my fault? I wouldn't forgive myself.

This world is dark, there's not such thing as a bright candle. And that's not because it can't be, it's because it doesn't take long before it extinguishes.

I don't want that to happen to Adira, just like it happened with my mom.

"Jordan get your ass here!" I heard my aunt yell right after I entered the building. I reached her office and small hands immediately wrapped around my leg.