"No fucking way. Fuck off. Too personal, asshole!" I shook my head, backing away. "My last father fucked me over in so many ways; you'll just do the same." I bared my teeth in a cold snarl.
"Ryan, I'm not going to hurt you." The man said to me, holding up his hands in a gesture of peace, but I knew better, I knew he was just going to harm me just like Corvair Anderson did. That's all anyone seemed to want to do…Except my new family…They would never hurt me. "Please, Ryan, hear me out…." He continued, reaching out to me.
I drew back and turned to go but I felt a hand on my shoulder and a warmth spread through me that I'd never felt in my life. At least not since I was a very small child, two at the most and a plump face I hardly remember stared down at me smiling with unconditional love, no lust or hidden hatred, just warmth… I was wary, but my guard was dropping. I turned to him and reached into my coat pocket, pulling out a pistol. "You have five minutes to explain before I shoot your fucking brains out of your head."
"Fine….Ryan, listen closely, my name is Jack Kuhn, I used to be a doctor back in London, I helped the people of White Chapel for free while I served the rich for a lot of money. Your mother was the heiress to a banker's fortune, but….I was….framed for some rather brutal killings and your mother turned to prostitution to care for you."
"Liar! If she was an heiress why should she ever need to be a whore for money!?" I shrieked, finger clenching slightly on the trigger.
"She squandered her fortune on silly things while I was still around. She always was a bit vain and silly, your mother…" The man called Jack shook his head. " From what I gather, what Corvair did to you, he first did to your mother, prompting her suicide, Ryan….I've dreamed of the day I would finally see the man you'd become….I dreamed how proud I'd be, what a virtuous and respectable fellow you'd be…But Ryan…I must say, I'm appalled." Jack Kuhn looked crestfallen and almost downright miserable.
"Appalled!? Appalled!?! Why, that's a laugh! I've been appalled my whole life. Appalled of Corvair Anderson's advances, appalled of the streetwalking strumpets who walk this miserable fucking planet like the plague, appalled of everything…But mostly of myself." I spat, eyes bulging with rage. How dare he be appalled!? He didn't know the half of it.
"Ryan…I've killed too. But Ryan, I've repented and you can too." He came closer to me, arms outstretched towards me, motioning me into his arms. I refused the invitation.
"No….Not just yet…You'll answer me a few more questions or we'll see if Kuhn blood really does run through your veins." I sneered, knocking away his arms and aiming the gun again.
"Of course, my son, what would you like to know?" Jack asked, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to another. His feet probably hurt, but what did I care? If he truly was my father, he was never there for me, so why should I provide him comfort?
"Why did you not rescue me from Corvair Anderson if you knew what he was doing to me?" I snapped, eyes flashing with rage and a sudden deep and ugly hatred, blind fury so much so that I almost shot Jack right through the middle of his head.
"I only managed to escape when you turned fourteen and by then I'd already hurt you planning your revenge. Four years ago, Ryan, how fast time flies." Jack mused absently, looking up at the sky. "I allowed you your revenge rather than stepping in, but only because I was a killer myself then, although if I may say so, I killed far worthier candidates for death than the poor and lowly ones you kill."
"Oh? And so you killed high up on the food chain, the lions among men who will be missed by family and their adoring public. Corrupt as I'm sure they were, you being so pious and self-righteous, 'FATHER'…I'm sure you would have been caught had you not fled England." I smirked disdainfully at him; I'd bested him in my crimes, for my victims weren't missed so I had no chance of being caught.
"At least my victims deserved it, Ryan. Yours have done nothing to you." He shook his head sadly.
"I…." I began. I what? I wanted to be close to someone, close enough to touch but not to fuck? I wanted to make sure no one suffered what I had suffered from Corvair? Or maybe I was a man obsessed. These woman…I was obsessed with them, I didn't love them, didn't WANT them, didn't lust for them, I was obsessed with them, everything about them. Particularly how gracefully they fell from my arms when I stabbed them or how they fell from the window and landed like an angel, spread eagled with a halo of blood and the glistening broken glass shining from their bodies in the moonlight. "I…..I….they…..they just deserve it. They are scum." I finally said, after a moment of thinking. "Listen…Jack…In my travels I have met a holy man from the Far East and he once told me if you meet your father, kill your father. This is supposed to show me that I am free of all other rule and bound to nothing, only to live as I have been made to…I never thought I'd be able to make good on that, but as I have met my true father, I can now prove that this proverb was true. Your five minutes are up." And as I held up my pistol to Jack's head and squeezed the trigger, he made no protest, but simply fell to the ground, dead, with a hurt expression on his face that looked too much like Gareth when I had killed him. I shuddered a little. Would that expression haunt me until the day I died?