Royal Prick (A Stepbrother Romance) Read online

  Royal Prick

  A Stepbrother Romance #2

  Bestselling Author

  J.L. Beck

  Dedication

  There’s this girl named Amanda who gives me her all. This is for you, babe.

  Attention Readers:

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  xxxx

  Meet The Author:

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  J.L. Beck is the Best Selling Author of some of your favorite series, those including The Kingpin Love Affair Series, The Bittersweet Series, The Ties Series, The Project: Series, The Worth It Series, and The Stepbrother Romance Series.

  She's a 24-year-old, who plays mother to two adorable minions during the day, and wife and author by night. Whenever she can you will find her reading, lounging around the house, or playing with her two German Shepard pups Halo, and Hatchi.

  Her favorite books are those that leave a lasting impression, and that have you coming back for more.

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  Chapter One

  -Royal

  I turned the music up on my stereo, trying to ignore my mother’s annoying yelling. I already knew what it was that she wanted. She was always bitching and moaning about me fighting at school, and it was starting to get on my last damn nerve. Why on earth she thought talking about the issue would make it better was beyond me.

  All I could say was she thought way fucking wrong. Every single time she brought it up, it made me want to do it more. To disobey and see what she would say next. It was like knowing the fire would burn you if you stuck your fingers in the flames, but doing it anyway because it might hurt less than last time.

  “Royal!” Her voice was stern. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes.

  “I warned you. I told you what would happen if I got another phone call from the school saying you were fighting. What the hell is wrong with you, child?” My mother finished just as she barreled through my bedroom door. I took in her dismantled appearance. Her dark brown hair which was usually flowing freely down her back, was in a messy bun, her face had worry lines on it, and her deep blue eyes had unshed tears in them. I sighed into the air.

  Fucking Christ.

  I almost felt bad about what I had done, and about what I would continue to do, but I couldn’t. Not when it would happen repeatedly for months to come. The complaints about it wouldn’t change my mind. I growled out loud showing her my irritation and meeting her angry stare with one that said, who really cares?

  Not me. Not Royal Black. I had more important shit to worry about.

  “If this is the same shit you always bring up, I don’t want to talk about it. I’ve heard it half a dozen times now. You don’t want me to fight; you don’t want me to get hurt,” I mocked, shoving the same words she had said to me time and time again back at her.

  I was going to do what I wanted either way. I was a fucking asshole like that.

  I continued on, “You don’t want me to become a criminal. You don’t want me to ruin my future.” I air quoted her words.

  “I’m going to do whatever I want, no matter how much you tell me you don’t want me to. It would be easier if you just saved yourself the time and breath and walked away.” I shrugged my shoulders, pretending like I didn’t care that she was hurt by my words or what I was doing. Still even I could see the sting of what I was doing like a slap across the face to her.

  “Royal,” she choked out my name, and actual tears started falling from her eyes. Yeah I couldn’t do this with her again. It was difficult being the hard, cold, asshole that I was. Worst of all, because it wasn’t my mom's fault that I was this way, she just ended up having to take the brunt of it all.

  I pushed up off the bed where I was laying down. My mom had blamed herself for years for the reason her and my father were no longer together. We both knew it wasn’t either of our faults.

  “Mom,” I started, my eyes connecting with her.

  “I love you. You know that, but I have to have some type of outlet for the bullshit that runs through me. When my temper and rage hits a high point, there is only one to release it. I have to cope in the only way I know how.” I paused, forcing myself to look away and anywhere but at the tears that continued to fall from her eyes.

  “I have to find a way to remove that hate from my body, otherwise, it will eat away at me. If I do nothing, who knows what will happen. I don’t control the pain. The pain controls me.” I hated how much truth was in my words.

  There wasn’t one word that left my lips that was a lie. If she didn’t believe me, then that was completely on her. I had never lied to her about the fighting that I was doing. It was always right in plain sight.

  “You need to understand that the type of anger you have is fixable. We can take you to therapy.” It was as if she was trying to come up with a solution when there wasn’t one.

  “There is no reason to be fighting in school. Do you have any idea what kind of parent it makes me look like?” She wiped away any lingering tears, her face turning cold. I knew what she was doing.

  Coming up with excuses to make me stop, to make me feel guilty. Once upon a time it had worked. It had made me think through things before reacting. Now it did nothing. My only reaction was a fist to someone else’s face, and then there was the things I could do with my dick, but I wasn’t about to make my mom a grandma any time soon. I just liked to fuck.

  I blinked my eyes closed and took a deep breath trying to calm myself. I could feel the burn of acid rising from my stomach and up into my throat. It burned almost as much as the painful distance I was putting between us did.

  I was beyond fucked up, and I was barely over legal age. I had a long ass road ahead of me. I couldn’t bear to drag her down with me. I knew more than anyone that my mom didn’t need this shit. After everything life had already given her, with being a single parent, and doing all that she could on her own for years, then to put up with the shit I was doing on top of it all.

  Yeah she deserved better from her son.

  Still, I was selfish. I needed to do what was best for me. Not what was best for her emotions, or what she felt was best for me. My mother didn’t understand that the best thing for me was to hurt other people, when she should’ve based that off of the amount of pain I’d caused her.

  “Been there, done that.” I ignored the rest of whatever it was she had said. Therapy was a waste of time and money. Instead of focusing on the conversation at hand, I enveloped her small frame in a hug allowing her warmth to unthaw my cold heart. I had to remind myself ever
yday that she wasn’t the reason for my pain and she was the only constant in my life.

  Moments of silence lingered between us. I was praying the conversation was over, and I was positive it was until I noticed she wasn’t returning the hug.

  I should’ve known then that something was up. I felt dumb expressing my emotions and knowing they weren’t accepted. I pulled away from her, staring down at her, my tall frame looming over her small one. My hands balled into tight fists. I felt fucking stupid expressing myself to her.

  “I’ve made a decision on a few things, and I think it would be best if you went to live with your father for awhile. It might better your choices, and not only that, but it might give you a chance to rekindle that relationship?” Her voice wobbled as she spoke, as if she was afraid to even say something to me.

  The air in my lungs froze, and my body flooded with the strongest desire to destroy than it ever had before. It was an instinct of mine to take and break the very things in front of me. My glare was icy cold as I forced myself to calm down.

  “You’re fucking insane!” So much for calming down.

  I continued, “No let me rephrase that: you’re completely dumb to even think that would help in the slightest way.” I had to step away from her.

  I was too afraid that I would do something stupid like lash out at her. Air filtered into my lungs, but it still felt as if I couldn’t breathe. I was suffocating. Everything seemed to be closing in around me; each breath bringing the walls closer together.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I refused, my eyes narrowing at her. The darkness that loomed around me was starting to take effect. It was so much easier to turn off the pain than it was to deal with it. I didn’t hate my father; hate wasn’t a good enough word for how I felt about him. No, I wanted nothing to fucking do with him. The way he treated us, the way he treated my mother, the way he just completely abandoned us.

  It was as if a knife was being stabbed into my chest. Each word she spoke causing the knife to dig in deeper and deeper, and the blood to pour from the wound. My teeth clenched together, my jaw aching from the force.

  “It’s for the best, Royal. You can’t control yourself, and you need a male influence in your life. Someone that can clear your head and make you see things for what they really are.” I was distraught. How the hell could she believe seeing the man that made me this way and the pathetic ass family he left us for, would make my life easier or better in any way.

  If anything it would make things worse. It would make me darker and more volatile than I currently was. I had control now, but seeing him and his perfect little family would take that control and throw it straight out the fucking window.

  “The one person I thought would never betray me has. You don’t know what I need, or what’s good for me.” A sinister laugh left my throat. It hurt me to breathe, to speak.

  Control yourself, Royal. Don’t hurt her. It’s not her fault.

  I spoke the words to myself as I forced myself into her space. It was my mother before me, the very woman who had given birth to me and taken care of me every single day of my life. I knew that. I could feel it in my heart, but when I looked at her, really looked at her all I saw was someone who wanted to get rid of me. Get rid of the problem.

  “Sending me away is only going to make things worse. I’ll hurt more people. I’ll be more destructive. I’ll hurt him and his family. You’ll regret sending me to live with them every single day that I’m gone, and he will regret letting me into his home.” I didn’t recognize my own voice; there was too much venom in my words. Too much anger and pain.

  Her blue eyes widened and flickered with fear. She should be afraid of the things I could and I would most definitely do if she pressed the issue any longer. But that flicker of fear was gone in a blink of her eyes, and in it’s place was something that broke me. I could tell you the moment things pieced together in her mind. The very second I had lost the battle.

  There was a determination that she had never shown me before in her eyes, in her stance, in her. Everything about her seemed different.

  “You’re going, Royal! You can threaten anyone and everyone else on this damn planet, but you cannot threaten me. I refuse to be bullied by anyone and most certainly by my own son.” She pointed her finger into my chest. I could feel the point of her nail digging into my chest.

  “Even more, I don’t care if you don’t like it. Hell, I don’t even care if you hate me anymore, nor do I care what you have to say on the matter. None of it matters because you’re my child and I am your mother, and what I say goes. Therefore, you’re leaving and going to your father’s no matter what you have to say about it.” There was so much hurt in her words and it only proved my point further. It told me I was the reason for her pain, and that just added to the shit storm.

  Mother or not, I didn’t have to listen to her, and there was no way I was fucking going. The previous rage I was feeling shattered, escaping through me as I lifted my fist without warning.

  How fucking sad it was that I felt nothing. No pain, no fear, just pure rage. My fist slammed into the dry wall next to her head, pain radiating up my arm and throughout my body. That pain was my drug, my high, the only thing that would bring me the release I desperately needed. It calmed me just enough to remind me of the destruction I could cause. I stared her down, willing her to say something. I wanted her to. I wanted to hurt someone, with my fists or my words. Whichever came first, it didn’t matter. I pulled my fist from the drywall only to hit it again. I had a point to prove.

  More pain filled my veins, a high starting to build in my bloodstream.

  “Good!” I growled right in her face, before continuing, “Maybe I can destroy my father’s perfectly, perfect life, or maybe he has other kids that I can hurt. That I can taint with my bad behavior, or maybe even, destroy? A wife? A family.” The sinister smile I gave my mom caused her eyes to fill with terror; a look I had never seen her give me before.

  I knew he had a family, and if I couldn’t hurt my mom, I would hurt them in whatever way possible. Had I been in my right mind, I might have regretted it or at least felt bad, but I didn’t and I sure as fuck wasn’t the one who started this shit. There was a hollowed out part in my chest that had formed. It was filled with a hate for myself, and for the things that I had done, and the way I made her feel, but even I knew there was no other way around it. When my mind was set on something I did what I needed to.

  I knew then that I had to get the fuck out of this place. I needed to leave before I destroyed the whole bedroom or quite possibly the entire house at the rate I was going. Rage simmered just below the surface, and I knew I was on the verge of exploding even more; it was only a matter of time. I walked around her, as if she wasn’t standing right there, and headed straight toward my dingy closet. I needed to find a pair of shorts and a hoodie then get the fuck out of here. The least I could do was end my last week or night here with my mom in the only way I knew how to; with a good fight.

  “You’re not leaving this damn house, Royal! I refuse to watch you continue to destroy yourself.” My mother tried to make herself look big, tried to make her words fierce. The truth was nothing she said or did could stop me from falling into the deep abyss. I headed toward rock bottom the second she said I was my father’s problem now.

  I ignored her as if she wasn’t even in the room as I pulled the dark gray hoodie on, having already slipped into the shorts. Then I grabbed my phone off the dresser and shoved it into the front pocket of my sweatshirt along with my keys and wallet.

  “I am. It’s either this or something far worse that I know we will both end up regretting.” I raised an eyebrow up at her, challenging her to disagree or try and stop me. I needed out. I was a caged, rabid animal on the verge of biting, and I didn’t have a rabies shot.

  “Royal,” she said my name in the most defeated way I had ever heard. I wanted to run to her and wrap my arms around her. I wanted to tell her everything would be okay—that I would be o
kay, but even I didn’t know the truth in that. Okay wasn’t something that I even understood; to be okay you had to understand what was going on inside of yourself. I was a lost cause. Despite her best effort at raising me, somehow I still turned out fucked up.

  “I love you, Mom,” I choked out the words as I opened my bedroom door. I stood there for a moment, hearing her soft cries resonate behind me. I wasn’t any better than my father. I wasn’t any better than anyone. I let that sink in as I headed down the stairs and out to my car a piece of shit Honda Civic. Not all of us had the luxury of nice things.

  I fished my phone out of my pocket and called my friend Simon; he picked up on the second ring, a hello sounding on the other end of the line.

  “I need a fight,” I growled the words as I started the car and put it in reverse, slamming on the gas pedal as I pulled out of the driveway. It backfired and then roared to life as soon as I put it in drive. I started down the road, heading toward the industrial park.

  “Are you sure, dude? You just fought last night, and I’m pretty sure you have some type of concussion.” Simon tried to act like he was concerned for my health, but I knew the truth. He wasn’t, if he could put money on my fight and go home with some cash, he would.

  I always won. It was the only thing I was good at. Throwing a fist and busting someone’s face open. I had to find a better hobby, but for now this one would do.

  “Of course I’m fucking sure; why else would I call you? Therefore I’ll be at the warehouse in ten minutes and there better be a fighting waiting for me.” I hung up the phone, letting the warning hang in the air. I was overcome with guilt. The guilt of what I was about to do. The guilt that I brought on my mom as she worried and wondered if it was her fault for me being this way.