Filthy [The Price of Penance]

 

The Price of Penance

 

Belgrade, Serbia.

Six years ago.

 

Miloš stood in the doorway.

Eighteen years old.

Six foot two and still adding to it, his frame the kind that doorways noticed—shoulders pressing the width of the shirt he'd clearly outgrown. Even now the black cotton pulled across his chest and caught on the layered muscle underneath.

His arms were his father's arms twenty years earlier, thick at the forearm, the veins already mapping themselves under olive skin that hadn't yet collected the ink his father wore.

His jaw was set.

His feet were bare.

His long, dark hair was pushed back like he'd been running his hands through it all night. He looked like trouble that hadn't fully learned what it was yet, and that always made Lazar prouder than what he was prepared to admit.

Miloš’s gaze went to the laptop first and this haunting stillness came over him that had nothing to do with patience and everything to do with deadly processing. A body quiet the way a predator's did before it fully understood what it was looking at.

Gathering.

Storing.

Sizing up.

Lazar had watched it his whole life and recognized it because he'd had to learn his own version the hard way.

Miloš had arrived with it already installed.

On the screen, Dayo had not stopped. Her eyes were closed and she was still moving the dildo in and out of that wet pussy, and filling the office with wet, obscenely satisfying sounds.

Miloš blinked and shut the door behind him.

The hallway light disappeared. The room returned to its blue-white glow.

Then, Miloš’s gaze moved from the screen to his father's hands on his dripping pierced cock, clearly visible in the blue-white glow.

A muscle jumped in Miloš’s jaw and he didn't look away.

Lazar raised his eyebrows. “Are they dead?”

“Yes.”

“Clean?”

“All were clean hits, but I got messy with Dragan Petrović."

Lazar smiled and let go of his cock. “Understood.”

Miloš's gaze went back to the screen and drank in Dayo. His throat moved. He swallowed once. His hands were loose at his sides but his entire body had gone rigid. It was the specific tension of a young man trying very hard to appear unaffected while being profoundly, visibly affected.

Lazar blinked.

Has he never seen a naked woman before? Or perhaps, he’s never seen one as sexy as this.

His son's chest rose and fell faster than it should have. The black T-shirt pulled across his big shoulders with every breath—shoulders that had broadened this past year into something Lazar recognized because he'd watched his own body do the same thing at that age, that specific moment when a boy's frame stops apologizing for how much space it intends to take.

Miloš's cock strained against his jeans, the rigid outline unmistakable—thick and long like his father's, pressing insistently against the denim.

Lazar could see it clearly from where he sat, the fabric stretched taut over the swollen shape. His son made no move to conceal his arousal, his hips slightly forward as if offering it to the room, to the blue light, to the wet sounds filling the space between them.

Lazar gazed back at Dayo too.

No. He’s never met one on this level.

Lazar glanced back at his son, who was still watching Dayo slip that crystal dildo in and out of her wet pussy.

Dayo spoke, “Who’s this?”

“This is my son.” Lazar didn’t turn back to her. “Take a break, my love.”

A sheen of sweat appeared at Miloš’s temples.

Lazar studied his son's face. The jaw. The eyes that were Katarina's exactly—dark, direct, unreadable until they weren't. Dragan Petrović had been skimming from the eastern shipments for four months.

Lazar had known about it for three.

He'd given Miloš the name a week ago as a test. Apparently the boy had done what needed to be done.

Good.

Pride rose in his chest, drowning out some of the constant guilt that lived there. Because there was one thing that was already hard for him to stop thinking about—a son needs his mother.

That thought always came without invitation. Lazar had killed her when Miloš was only thirteen. The poor boy had grown up too fast in grief. By the teen years, he never left his father’s side, probably too scared to lose Lazar too.

Lazar let go of his cock, but didn’t put it away. "What are you doing up?"

"I couldn't sleep." Miloš's gaze remained on the screen.

Yes, son. I know. It is hard to look away from a beautiful, naked woman.

Smirking, Lazar grabbed his glass and took a sip. “Why couldn’t you sleep, son?”

On the screen, Dayo had already pulled the dildo out and was lying on her side watching them both with a wicked smirk.

Miloš cleared his throat. "After killing them. . .my body won't come down."

Lazar nodded and handed his son the glass of rakija. "Here.”

He took it and finished the glass.

“A good kill brings adrenaline. It's all chemistry. It passes."

But Lazar also knew what his son did not say aloud—the killing made him painfully, shamefully erect.

Many times—too many—Lazar had watched it happen.

Just two months ago, Miloš buried a blade in that traitor Bata’s throat and twisted until the cartilage cracked like wet wood. Blood fountained out in hot pulses and painted his son’s forearms to crimson. Bata's eyes bulged. Gurgling blood bubbled as his body jerked.

Then, Miloš's cock surged against his pants, the mushroomed head outlined so sharply that Lazar could make out the clear size and girth of it out.

This cold pride hit Lazar as he took in his son’s big cock and realized it was close to his size. It made him so happy that his own pierced cock had thickened in his trousers and the gold serpents shifted under the fabric.

Last week, Miloš had yanked a handful of steaming intestines from Ivan’s still-twitching gut. The slick ropes slithered over his knuckles like warm, living eels while Ivan gurgled up his last prayers through a ruined windpipe.

Miloš slung Ivan onto the ground, breathing hard, chest heaving, pupils blown wide.

And again. . .his cock straining so viciously against his pants that the fabric looked ready to split.

And that time. . .Lazar had seen the dark, spreading stain bloom at the front of Miloš’s pants. Thick pre-cum soaking through in uneven patches, darkening the crotch.

Lazar caught the involuntary twitch in his son's hips as if he were fighting not to rut against the dying body.

Same blood in us. Same filthy inheritance. Violence hardens the cock before it hardens the heart. How do I help him direct that. . .yearning. . .

Miloš gave him the empty glass. "When will this pass?"

"When you learn how to release it." Lazar poured himself more and took another slow, burning sip. “You will be fine, you just have to. . .practice. . .a lot.”

Miloš stared at his father’s glistening cock. "Teach me.”

Lazar blinked. “Teach you what?”

“What you’re doing right now.”

A dark chuckle left Lazar as he took a large gulp of the rakija. Once he swallowed, he handed the glass to Miloš. “There are things a father teaches a son, and there are things a man learns on his own. This is the second one.”

Dayo chuckled from the laptop.

To Lazar’s shock, Miloš put the glass to his lips, tipped his head back, and drank down all of the rakija.

“Careful. That liquid will punch you deep in your soul.”

Miloš wiped his mouth, walked over to his father’s desk, and set the glass down.

Dayo’s sexy voice filled the room. “He’s almost your spitting image, Lazar. With just a few elegant differences.”

Miloš smiled.

“No.” Lazar shook his head. “Do not smile at her. She is in a lane that you do not know the speed for.”

Miloš ran his fingers through his hair. “She’s beautiful and. . .sexy.”

Dayo chuckled. “Thank you, sweetheart.”

Lazar frowned. “Stop looking at her.”

Miloš rolled his eyes, grabbed the closest leather chair, and brought it next to his father.

Lazar widened his eyes. “What are you doing?”

Dayo chuckled some more.

Miloš sat down. “Teach me.”

“Son—”

"I've tried."

 

“Try again until—”

Miloš's voice dropped, raw and wrecked. "I fist my cock every night.”

Lazar widened his eyes.

“I squeeze and rub my cock until it hurts. It just aches. Like my balls are full of lead and my cock's too stupid to empty." His voice was stripped of everything except the fact of it. "Two years, Tata. It doesn't work. Something is wrong with the way I do it and I don't know what. Mine never drips like yours is doing right now."

Lazar looked down at his cock and how more pre-cum spilled from the tip, coating the gold serpents and mixing with the lube. The tip was so angry with lust and his body was hot for more stroking.

“Aww.” Dayo’s voice vibrated through both of the men. “Poor baby. Let’s teach him, daddy.”

Miloš put his gaze on her and swallowed.

“Didn’t I say to stop looking at her?”

“I can’t help it, Tata.”

“I have given you everything and more, but tonight I must say no—”

“Tata, please.” Miloš scooted his chair over until his muscular thighs brushed his father’s. The heat from his son’s body radiated toward him too. Lazar could smell the gun oil, blood, and sweat on him from tonight’s kills.

Miloš leaned closer toward Lazar and stared at his father’s cock. “I want mine to look that way. Does it feel good?”

It was hard for Lazar not to laugh as Dayo surely chuckled.

Lazar shook his head and smirked. “Son, I think the rakija has hit you too strong.”

Miloš's hand hovered near his own zipper.

Lazar frowned. “Do not make another move.”

“Let me feel what you feel when you watch her."

Dayo chuckled. “Send him over to my flat, Lazar. I’ll teach that baby release.”

“No, you’ll eat him up and twist his brain into a pretzel.”

“But at least he’ll learn the power of release.”

“Hmmm.” Lazar looked at his son for a long time. At the sweat at his temples. At the rigid set of his shoulders. At the eyes that were his mother's in every way.

That damn treacherous guilt hit his soul again.

You took his mother from him when he was young.

He had taught his son everything. Languages, weapons, combat, the cost of death and the price of people.

After Katarina’s death, he had raised Miloš entirely alone—no women in the house, no softness, no one to teach the boy the things that lived in the ordinary spaces of an ordinary life.

But with all of that. . .Lazar had never taught him how to receive his own pleasure.

"There is nobody else I would ask. You know this." Miloš held his gaze. "You taught me how to kill a man when I was sixteen. Are you going to tell me this is the line you won't cross?"

“This is different.”

“How?”

“It’s pleasure.”

“I want that.”

“Private pleasure.”

“Teach me, then I will do it in the private.”

Lazar looked at his son for a long time.

At the hands open on his thighs.

At the eyes that were Katarina's and would always be Katarina's and had never once asked him for anything he hadn't already decided to give.

Against all logic, Lazar felt something shift behind his sternum. A wall moving. A door opening that he would never be able to close again.

He sat with that for a moment.

In his world, there were two kinds of lines. The ones other men drew in sand and called principle. And the ones drawn in blood that had already been crossed long before the moment arrived.

Like always. . .Lazar thought about the mathematics of the situation too.

The mathematics of this room were as follows: a son who had never been taught softness sitting with blood still drying under his fingernails and asking his father for the one thing his father had never given anyone freely.

A man who had built every wall in his life out of control, distance, and the memory of a woman who had taken everything soft from him when she left—first by betraying him, then by dying.

Lazar had made rules to protect the empire. He understood now, sitting in the blue-white glow with his son's thigh pressed against his, that he had also made it to punish himself.

That maybe the emptiness in their mansion hadn't just been discipline. Perhaps, it had been penance too.

Unfortunately, Miloš had grown up inside that penance. Had learned to kill before he learned to desire. Had buried a blade in a man's throat at sixteen with his father's hand on his shoulder, guiding the angle. Had sat across from Lazar at dinner tables in five countries and absorbed everything about violence, power, and the cost of loyalty yet not one thing about pleasure.

He looked at his son's hands now. Large already, the knuckles still faintly dark from tonight. His father's hands twenty years ago. Hands that had done what they were built for tonight and were now sitting open on his thighs with nowhere to go.

He thought about his own father.

Old Vukić had taught him nothing of this either. But, he did press a gun into his palm at twelve and called it love.

That was the way of the men in their bloodline.

Pleasure had been something Lazar found alone.

In the dark.

By accident.

Then with women.

Lazar looked at the laptop.

Dayo had gone quiet, which she never did—she was watching them both with those beautiful brown eyes. The wicked smirk was gone now and replaced with a more serious expression.

She had understood before he did.

She usually did.

She’s too smart for the both of us.

He looked at his son again. His boy who had done everything asked of him and never once asked for anything back except this.

The mathematics were simple.

He had crossed worse lines with less justification and called it leadership. He had drawn knives across throats and called it justice. He had built empires on decisions that kept him awake for years and never once questioned whether the crossing was worth the cost.

My son. . .he is worth every cost.

He reached for the rakija, poured two glasses, and handed one to him. “Drink.”

Miloš drank.

Lazar finished his glass in three large gulps and set the glass on the desk.

The wall had moved.

The door was open.

There was no mathematics that closed it now.

"Okay." His voice came out low and even, the same voice he used when a decision had been made and the time for deliberation was finished. "Take your cock out, son."