Page 19 of Vicious Behaviors (The Next Vicious Generation #3)

“Looks like you’ve already got some battle scars,” Nonno says, nodding at the bruises on my face.

“Just one of the reasons we’re here,” my father answers, glancing toward the empty boxing ring. “Mind if we use it for a bit?”

“Of course not,” Nonno says, ruffling my hair. “I’ll grab some gloves, though I doubt I’ve got any in Marcello’s size.”

“That’s fine,” my father says. “We won’t need them today. Come, Marcello.”

I throw Nonno a weak smile and follow my father into the ring. He’s wearing his business suit while I’m still in my Sacred Heart uniform. So it’s no surprise when a few people in the gym stop what they’re doing to watch us, wondering what is about to happen.

In all honesty, their guess is as good as mine.

Once we’re in the middle of the ring, I notice most of the crowd has walked closer to it, blatantly staring at us. I shift uncomfortably, uneasy under their gaze, since their eyes feel like spotlights. As if there was no way to run from them.

“Dad,” I start, my voice low with embarrassment. “Everyone’s watching.”

“Look at me, Marcello,” he says with the same forbidding tone he sometimes uses in his office—the kind that means that I shouldn’t argue.

I do as he says and lift my eyes to his. I swallow hard again when I see something different there. Something dark, and a little frightening.

“You’re too young to understand this fully,” he begins, his soft tone so at odds with the menacing hue in his eyes, “but I lost my way once, too. Years ago. All that kept me tethered was rage. Blinding, ruthless rage. I just wanted to hurt everyone around me because I was hurting. I didn’t care who got caught in the crossfire.

I just wanted to burn it all down.” He pauses with a sharp gaze, as if daring me to ask about his evil deeds.

However, when I stay silent, he continues on, nonetheless. “And you know what I learned?”

“That we shouldn’t take out our problems on innocent people?” I offer, thinking it to be the lesson he’s trying to teach me.

He shakes his head and replies, “No, son. What I learned was that, for a few brief moments after tearing the world apart around me, I didn’t feel pain.

At least not the same kind. I could breathe again.

I could feel something other than anger and crippling rage.

I was back in control, even if it meant I had to experience a new type of suffering for all the people I had hurt.

I was me again.” My brows pull together since that wasn’t the answer I expected from him.

It doesn’t sound like the kind of advice a father should give his son.

“Sometimes,” he continues, “our minds are our worst enemy. They play tricks on us and make us doubt who we really are in here,” he says, pressing his palm to my chest, where my heart lies underneath.

“Sometimes the sound in our heads is so loud that we have to use our fists, our bodies, just to silence the pain up here.” He taps my temple gently.

“I… I don’t understand,” I admit quietly.

Even if my father wasn’t speaking in riddles, I doubt I’d be capable of understanding anything right now. Not with all the stares from the gym crowd burning holes in my back.

“You will in a minute.” He lets out a sad exhale. I become even more confused when my father begins to strip off his suit jacket and carefully drapes it over the ropes. Then, with an inflated chest and an unreadable expression, he steps toward me and says, “Hit me.”

My eyes go wide. “What?”

“Hit me, Marcello. That’s an order.”

I glance over at Nonno, then at the rest of the gym. My palms are instantly sweating, and my throat is parched dry.

“I… I can’t do that, Dad.”

“I’m not your father right now,” he says firmly. “Not in this ring. Right now, I’m what’s standing between you and your anger. So hit me.”

Then, to my shock, he shoves me hard, right on the shoulder. My father has never touched me like that. He’s hugged me. Ruffled my hair. Rubbed my back when I was sick or afraid. But this? Physically trying to hurt me? Never.

“Dad—”

He shoves me again, harder this time. So much so that I stumble two steps back.

‘Hit him,’ the voice says in my ear. ‘Hit him hard.’

I shake my head, trying to shut the voice out. I don’t want to listen to it. Not now. Not ever.

Then, to my utter shock, my father slaps me. It’s not hard enough to hurt, but it’s enough to break something open inside me. The tears immediately come, blurring my vision. Not from the pain because there is none. It’s the shock. The final crack in the dam.

I just stand there, still, taking all these new feelings and emotions in, afraid they might suffocate me.

As angry tears stream down my cheek, I stare my father in the eyes.

They look pained. As if that slap hurt him far worse than it did me.

There’s guilt, shame, and regret in them, but something else, too.

Something far more prominent. It’s resolve. Unshaken resolve.

When my father raises his hand again, I finally react. I push his chest back with both hands. Of course, he doesn’t move. How could he? He’s a grown man. I’m just a scrawny kid with too much rage and nowhere to put it.

“Again,” he orders.

“No!” I shout, my voice echoing off the gym walls—sharp, raw, and louder than I meant it to be.

“Again, Marcello. We’re not leaving here until you hit me!”

When he lifts his hand again with a threat of another slap, something in me snaps. I don’t hold back and punch him in the gut with all my might. He doesn’t so much as flinch. He doesn’t even move. But the moment my fist connects, something inside me lifts. Just a little.

However, I have no time to understand what is happening, since my father is yet again ordering me to do my worst.

“Again!” he barks, stepping forward and shoving me hard. I fall backward, landing on my ass in the middle of the mat.

‘HIT HIM!’ the monster in me starts to scream out. ‘HIT HIM! MAKE HIM BLEED!’

I don’t think. I don’t hesitate. I just react.

I get up and just start swinging. My fists go to his stomach, his chest, anywhere I can reach.

My father doesn’t block. Doesn’t dodge. He just stands there and takes it.

Every single punch. And as my fists connect again and again on his tall, broad frame, I realize something.

He wants me to hit him. He’s not fighting back because this isn’t about him. It’s about me.

With every hit, the angry voice inside me—the one that demanded my own father’s blood—gets quieter. It’s like every punch, every drop of sweat, lulls it to sleep. As if it’s satisfied by the violence unleashed on someone who could take it. Like it’s finally sated and full.

Sweat starts to soak through my school shirt, my hair clings to my forehead, and my arms are so tired they tremble. I stop and drop to my knees, gasping.

And suddenly… It’s gone. The voice is gone. And I cry. Not because I miss it. I cry because I can breathe for the first time in months. I can think. I’m just… me.

I don’t know how long I stay like that—on my knees, sweat-soaked and breathless, tears slipping silently down my face. Only when I feel my father’s hands on my shoulders do I lift my head to look at him.

“How do you feel?” he asks, going to his haunches, his voice low and soft.

The cold mask my father wore before is long gone now, replaced by something kinder. Something more human.

“I feel… good,” I answer honestly. “I feel more like… myself.”

His shoulders relax even if just barely. But the softness in his features doesn’t last. It hardens again, like steel snapping back into its original shape.

“From here on out,” he says, “you’ll train here every morning before school, and every afternoon after it.”

“Okay,” I nod, completely unbothered by the idea. If this is what I must do to keep the monster at bay, then that’s what I’ll do.

“We’ll get through this, Marcello,” he mutters under his breath, pulling me into a tight embrace. “We’ll get through this. We have to.”

At first, his hug feels like safety. Like shelter. But as I sit there in his arms, something cold starts to seep in again. A different kind of fear.

Is my father scared of me? Is that why he brought me here? Does he think I might lose control again? That I might hurt the wrong person? That I might hurt our family?

The questions come all at once, no voice whispering the answers this time.

Just silence. Heavy and raw. Suddenly, not having the voice to fill in the blanks for me makes me feel naked.

Exposed. I know I need to control my anger.

And I want to. But thinking that my father might be afraid of me?

That’s worse than a slap. Worse than any shove.

It breaks something inside me. A piece of my heart splinters under the weight of that thought.

And I don’t know if a thousand fights will ever be enough to put it back together again.