Broken Wills by Mark Manfesto

​                  It still felt like home.
            JJ stood paralyzed by forces he couldn’t comprehend, his ski mask damp with halitosis, lost in the designer kitchen. This wasn’t his fault.
            “You stupid sons of bitches,” Jack Senior said, his silk pajamas already darkening with sweat around the ropes securing him to the chair. Brian— ‘Jump’— pulled the knot tight and, with the angle of his arms, extracted a sharp cry. Midnight’s darkness lay behind the windows.
            “This isn’t like stealing money from a lemonade stand,” Jack Sr said. He looked back at Jump, “You have a gun, you beat me—”
            “I tackled you,” Brian said, scanning the kitchen for anything else worth taking.
          The old man’s leathery pink flesh turned more crimson with each word, “I’ve been a lawyer for over thirty years, I think I know what qualifies as battery. In the state of Florida, this can get you life. Is that what you want?”
           Brian pulled the gag from his pocket.
          “If you get me out of this chair right now and leave, it's forgive and forget. You’re just trying to get by. You probably hate me because I’m able to live in a place like this, but we’re not that different—”
       Brian shoved a ball of cloth in Jack Senior’s mouth and tied another around his face. The old man’s eyes bulged like a squeeze toy ready to pop.
            “Prep,” Brian said, “You’re up.”
           Even through JJ’s disdain and wish to cause the old man pain, watching Jack Senior thrash and wheeze wasn’t as satisfying as he hoped. “He can’t breathe, Jump. You see the narrow jaw, the crooked teeth? He’s a mouth breather.” The sort you could hear through closed doors down the hall.
         Brian shot JJ a captious look before untying the gag. The old man gasped through tears. “Please, take what you want, just don’t do that again! My sinuses don’t work. You’ll kill me.”
        JJ knew Brian was smiling behind his mask.
      “Tell you what,” Brian said. “So long as you don’t say a fucking word, I won’t put this back on. Prep, move.”
       JJ nodded and started down the hall past the framed memories he forced himself to ignore— posed moments from trips that no one in the photo could stand. He ran the marble stairs to the third floor and turned left towards the master bedroom. A sudden gravity forced him to peer into the empty bedroom on the right. What could he expect?
      The safe rested within the master’s walk-in closet, lodged in the foot space beneath the old man’s tailored suits. He couldn’t help but notice the opposite side of the closet was empty. Another reason to hurt him.
            41295
            He tried not to think about the safe’s code and what it meant. He froze at the shout for help from the kitchen. Stay focused, he thought.
            Lawyers like Jack Downing Sr. always kept a lot of cash on hand. Bails, bribes, bonuses, they were always ready. He checked the bags on the top row and felt something stir at the sight of the diamonds.
            JJ’s heart sped as he hurried down the steps, thinking of how this cash was justice. So what if he liked getting high. If he refused to waste his life behind a desk. He hadn’t asked to be brought into this world.
            At the sight of the bastard, limp-headed in the chair, he froze. The gag was back in and a stream of blood poured from an open gash on his forehead.
            “Take your time, Prep,” Brian said, snatching the duffel.
            “What happened?” JJ asked.
            “He was talking.”
            A sudden chill ran through JJ’s body. Jack Senior had no pulse at either the neck or wrists. He peeled the eyelids open and found pupils the size of coins.
            “Fuck, Jump…” JJ said.
            “Are you staying?” the other man asked.
     With a sudden need for air, JJ almost pulled his mask off— only remembering at the last moment the security cameras. He spared one final look at the old bull, drenched in sweat and limp. At the pounding of boots fleeing across the yard, he turned and ran.
           The only sound in the car was the passing freeway.
          “You all right, Prep?” Brian asked.
          JJ’s hands trembled on the steering wheel. “What?”
         Brian shook his head and looked through the duffel. “Almost two hundred thousand— not counting the jewelry.”
            “Maybe we keep the jewelry,” JJ said, the black ocean racing past on their left.
            “Don’t get attached to things,” Brian said. “Your mom would rather you eat than hold onto a few stones she wore once a year.”
            JJ tried not to imagine the lifeless flop of his dad’s head.
            “Good news though,” Brian said. “You’re about to come into some major money when his will goes through.”
            He felt himself shrinking into the driver’s seat. “We haven’t spoken in four years. Not even at my mom’s funeral. I’m not in his will.”
            He tossed a wallet onto JJ’s lap. “If you weren’t, would he still keep your picture in there?”
            Jack Junior looked down and saw his little league photo, bright eyed, blonde, holding the bat his dad had got him for his ninth birthday, and earnest, gap-toothed smile on his face— with the same amount of teeth he had now.
            Smoke danced through Jump’s teeth. “You’ve got a lot to learn, Prep.”
            JJ wasn’t sure of that. In the last hour, he might have learned everything he needed to know.

About the author:

Mark Manifesto is a writer, teacher, father, and lover of stories. He’s been writing fiction, essays, articles, and poetry the past seven years. He studied Environmental Science, Business Administration, Religious Studies, and Classic Literature at Saint Mary’s College of California.