Hello everyone! Thank you so much for taking a step into my world. This is a story of my own about two men with pasts that have shaped who they have become. 

For Potential Triggers, please read below:

There is an age gap between the two protagonists though consent is given and both characters are 18+ when their relationship starts. If the age gap makes you uncomfortable, then please don't read. 

This is a dark romance. There are mentions of violence and assault. 

This is LBGTQ friendly and MXM!  My two protagonists are MALE and HAVE SEX AND TELL EACH OTHER THEY LOVE EACH OTHER. If you don't like reading that then don't read. You will NOT enjoy this story.

I will be posting trigger warnings before each chapter. Know your limits and take care of yourself. If reading a dark book with hard topics will stress you out or send you to a dark place, then don't read it. If it does help, I believe in HEA's. 

Please like, comment, and remember to vote if you enjoy. I hope you do :) But even if you don't, feel free to comment. As long as it is not hateful comments, your feedback will help me to improve in many ways. 

***This chapter will contain imagery of past abuse and torture and well as violence and death***

Take care and stay safe!~CANGEL

7 ½ Years Earlier

NOAH

The whip sounds like a crack of thunder just before I feel the metal tip bite into the skin on my back. I feel the searing sting hit a moment later, and I grit my teeth against the pain. I will not beg. I will not let them know how much it hurts. How much I hurt.

"You think you can steal from me?" Asks a voice from behind me.

I know who the voice belongs to, even without having seen him. Richie Ralph, right hand man of Frank Bell, current head of the 24th Street Gang.

"It was just some bread, man. I was starving." I say, my voice wavering, the muscles in my arms straining against the chains holding me suspended in the air. I know that trying to reason with them is pointless, but I can't help trying.

Another crack, and another sting of the whip lands across my lower back, stealing the breath from my lungs.

"You stole from us!" A different voice shouts. This time one I don't recognize.

"Thief!" Shouts another.

The lashes are delivered in equal measure as more and more shouts fill the room. My vision fades in and out and the world darkens between each blow. I've lost count of the number of times the whip has sounded and felt the sting of the lash against my skin. Time passes in a suspended blur of pain.

My head hangs down, my chin resting against my chin, spit dribbles from my mouth. A fine sheen of sweat covers my body and my back feels as though it's on fire. Each of the lashes send a bolt of lightning throughout my entire body and I wonder if there is a single inch of skin on my back left unmarred.

I don't remember losing the ability to scream out my pain, but they are nothing but hoarse cries now.

And when I open my eyes, I find the floor that used to be white is now red. I see my bare chest, and the small lines of red trailing down the front of my chest, soaking the waist of my pants with blood. My blood.

There's a loud clang that echoes through my entire body and I drop to the floor in a heap.

I gasp in pain and curl into myself on the floor. I guess they're done with me now. I hope they are. I'd rather be dead, than feel...this, any longer.

My arms are yanked upwards behind me; I think I groan but everything fades around me as the fire on my back explodes into a raging inferno. That is until a heat like I've never known before lands on my lower back, snapping everything back into focus. I scream loudly and scramble to escape it, but I can't. I'm held onto firmly as tears stream down my face. Faint laughter echoes through my mind. The pressure on my lower back eases but the pain remains.

I feel my body being dragged across the floor, but not before I catch sight of the metal rod and the red-hot tip. Branded. They branded me.

They're laugher grows louder when it should grow quieter. Everything twists, turns, blends slowly into each other, until it stills. I open my eyes and see the floor beneath me has changed from worn wooden boards to cool metal.

I'm no longer being dragged against the floor; I'm standing in the middle of the room. The pain in my back is gone. The red-tipped metal rod is gone. But the scars are still there.

Instead of a helpless weakness filling me, power courses through my body.

I am not weak. Not anymore.

There is a man in front of me, strung up in chains, suspended from the air with his toes just barely brushing the ground. Richie Ralph. The first man to put the lash to me. And the man who decided it'd be more fun to keep me around for a while. The last member of the 24th Street Gang yet to feel the sting of my lash.

My vengeance.

I don't see Richie Ralph for a moment though. All I see is me, hanging there. Me, being whipped, branded, crying, and eventually, begging for mercy. Begging for it to end. For them to kill me.

But there wasn't any mercy for me.

I haven't shown any mercy in the past, and I won't be showing the man standing in front of me any either.

It doesn't matter how much he begs or cries or apologizes. It didn't matter to them when I was at their mercy. And the only reason I survived was because I escaped. Twelve days later, I got free. He won't have that same chance. Because before I leave here tonight, he will be broken, bloody, whipped and branded. His voice will be hoarse from his unanswered screams and pleadings. And then, after I'm satisfied with what he's suffered, he will die.

Knowing what I know about this man's soon to be pain filled future gives me a sick sense of satisfaction. Nothing that I have done or will do to him can ever give me back what they took from me two years ago, but the fact that I have delivered some sense of the pain they caused me, gives me relief. The same relief that fills me at the knowledge that they will never be able to harm another person again.

I focus on the man in front of me, raising my hand high above my head. His back bare and unscarred. A blank canvas for me to mark however I wish.

I raise my hand high above my head, holding the handle of the whip loosely in my palm. The whip is comfortable there, like it belongs in my hand. I made sure of that, over the past year and a half I made sure that I'd be able to use it and deliver the whipping with the same surety that it was delivered to me in.

I drop my arm, twisting my wrist slightly. The loud thunderous crack fills the air and the loud cry that leaves his mouth brings a cold smile to my lips.

Again, and again I drop lashes across his back. His screams fade to hoarse cries exactly as they all had before him, and exactly how mine had before them all.

Richie's head is hanging down, his body hanging limp over the floor. I drop the bloody whip to the ground and pick up the iron from the fireplace behind me. The tip glows red and I feel the echoing flare of heat in my lower back. This man is lucky, he will only be branded once. I was branded each and every day that they held me before they tossed me into a cage like an animal. Bound and helpless and defenseless to even worse monsters than them.

I stalk closer to the man and without warning, I press the iron tip to his lower back. I don't know if he was passed out before, but the blood curdling scream coming out of his mouth right now, tells me that he's wide awake. His body tenses and bows beneath the heat of the rod but I hold it there, counting in my head to ten, before slowly peeling the iron away from his burned flesh. As soon as the rod is gone, his body goes slack, his breathing comes out in harsh pants and groans, and his hands curl into loose fists above his head. The red marred skin stars back at me as I exam my work. Blood trails down his back, sizzling as it reaches his heated skin, before soaking his jeans hanging around his waist.

I walk away and place the iron back in the firepit. I walk back to him, this time I go around him so that I can face him. I grip his hair in my fist and yank his head up. His eyes are half-mast and his skin is pale with sweat rolling down his face.

"Do you remember who I am?" I ask him.

His eyes aren't focused. His mouth's moving but no words are coming out.

I pull the gun out from the small of my back and wave it in front of his face.

That seems to do the trick. His eyes widen as they lock on the gun and then he looks at me.

"I'm sorry, man." He tells me.

"Yeah, I said that too." I respond coldly. "What is my name?"

"I—It's—" He breaks off with a sob. "I don't know. But whatever I did I'm sorry."

Not a single one of them remembered my name. Not a single one of them remembered me when I first brought them here. Some of them remembered after I whipped and branded them, some after I strung them up in chains.

"My name is Noah McCallister. A year and a half ago, I stole bread from you. For twelve days you hung me from chains and whipped me." I tell him.

"Pl—ple—ease," he begs. "I have a kid." He lies.

I know he lies because I made it my business to know everything about the men who did this to me. Richie was a sick bastard who has multiple accusations of rape, but no one who is willing to come forward for fear of retaliation. Really, I'm doing the female population a favor by offing this motherfucker.

"Lucky day for the kid." I taunt him with instead of revealing my thoughts.

"Please, Noah. I had too. I didn't have a choice." He says to me. As if I'm going to believe him. As if that makes it right. As if it makes the past disappear from my memory or the scars on my back disappear.

I place the gun to his temple and his pleas become a jumbled mess of a sob, but it doesn't bother me.

"A year and a half ago, I was broken and bleeding. You whipped and beat me. You locked me down in your basement in a cage at night. And during the day you had me dragged up the stairs and chained up and you whipped me some more. I begged and pleaded for you to let me go. You laughed at me. I begged for you to kill me. You laughed some more." I tell him as I lean into his face. "Laugh for me now, Richie. Laugh." I command.

I watch as his desperate pleas melt away from his face and is replaced by anger and rage as he realizes with certainty that he is going to die tonight. Nothing that comes out of his mouth is going to change that fact. He opens his mouth, but I don't give him a chance to respond to me. To do as I said or to tell me to go to hell or taunt me with the past or beg me to let him go.

I pull the trigger without hesitation.

His body goes slack and hangs from the chains above him.

Lifeless.

***

I shoot up from my bed panting and covered in sweat. My eyes scan the room quickly and I breathe out a slow breath when I'm alone. I scrub my hand over my face and pinch the bridge of my nose.

This particular nightmare has been a reoccurring hell of mine for the past six months. I thought that when I had exacted my revenge against those monsters, the nightmares would end.

They didn't end though. The nightmares. They morphed, twisted, and blackened along with my heart. What little was left of my soul withered away the night I tracked down the final member of the 24th Street Gang, Richie Ralph, and put a bullet in his head. I thought it might grow back a little, but it hasn't.

The world is grey around me. I don't care about any of it. Not really. Not the things, and not the people. Well, not anybody except for one person, that is.

Phillip Boston.

The person who took more from me than any member of the 24th Street Gang ever did. The only person who hasn't paid for their actions. The same person who will pay...when the time is right.

The rest is a game.

A game I'll play until that time has come. Until I'm able to take everything from him the way he took everything from me. I'll start with his businesses. Turn them to dust. I'll take his blood money. Burn them to ash. I'll take his freedom. Put him in chains and behind bars. And then when he has nothing left, nothing at all, I'll take his life.

I groan and scrub my hand down my face, pulling my thoughts away from the darkness that always surfaces after that particular memory surfaces. I glance at the clock on my nightstand and let out a sigh. 5:00AM. Too early. Way to fucking early. Still, there's no way I'm getting back to sleep this morning.

I untangled the sheets from my legs and waist and roll out of my bed, groaning loudly as I stand. Loud pops sound as I press my hands into my lower back and stretch. I sigh in relief as my bones settle back to where they are supposed to be.

I stumble my way across my bedroom and attempt to get my door open. I grumble to myself as I twist the knob and pull the door slightly upwards as I then pull the door back towards me. I really need to get that fucking door fixed.

It one of many things that need to be fixed in this shit hole of an apartment. I head out into the hallway and move to the next door down the hall. The bathroom. I step in, and turn the light on. There are two bulbs above the cracked mirror, but only one flickers on, filling the room with a yellowy haze. The counter is old and cracked. The wooden cabinet below it is falling apart with nail polish and marker drawn over the front of it from whoever lived here last.

The bathroom is basically a hole in the wall. It has enough room for a standing shower, the toilet and the sink and not much else. I have a small rack above the toilet for the towels and the pack of toilet paper. My cleaning supplies are beneath the sink. On the sink is a bar of hand soap, a hand towel, my toothbrush and toothpaste and my mouthwash. The one drawer in the cabinet holds my deodorant, a spare toothbrush, and my electric trimmer for my hair and my beard.

The rest of the room is bare and empty. Like me, it's cold, impersonal and devoid of any personality. Just the way I like it, and the way I plan to keep it.

I take a piss and move to the sink, washing first my hands and then brush my teeth, avoiding my reflection. I splash water on my face and scrub it with my hand before leaning against the counter and raising my eyes to the image in the mirror.

Hazel eyes stare back at me. A straight nose, and full lips. A square jaw. A faint scar that cuts through my left eyebrow. Clear, tanned skin, and a shaved head. Handsome, is the word a lot of women have used to describe me. Pretty boy, is how a lot of men have described me, either taunting or teasing or hitting on me.

I don't see handsome. I don't see a pretty boy. All I see when I look at myself in the mirror is a broken man when I look at the person in the mirror. I see the invisible scars and the...emptiness...in my eyes. I can see the curling ends of the scars that wrap over my shoulders, scars that hint at the mess that is my back.

It's been two years since I've last looked at my back, and I don't care to see it ever again. The scars are a reminder of what I was. Weak. Scared. Pathetic.

But that's not who I am anymore.

Despite this, I feel nothing when I look at myself. I don't feel disgust. I don't feel pride. I feel...nothing.

I know this isn't good. It's not normal. But I don't care. I'm not worried. I have a goal. A purpose. It's after that, that I'll worry.

About who've I've become. About the indifferent broken monster staring back at me. For now, I'll use it.

I'm going to finish what I've started. Those who hurt deserve to be hurt back. They deserve to be stopped. They deserve to feel every once of pain that they caused me before they find death. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Please remember to like, vote and comment! Tell me what you loved and hated, or what was confusing and what you think of Noah. 

This chapter is half dream, half waking. The first half is meant to be a little disorienting. It's a shifting dream/nightmare.

Continue to read to find out more :) 

Stay safe and take care! ~CANGEL