#HeTouchedMe – Chapter 33 – Inherited Brutality #amwriting #amreading #sylLit

by @SylviaHubbard1, posted in He Touched Me, Stories By Author, Uncategorized, Work In Progress

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 Author’s Notes…

This was a tough brutal truth to write.

Perhaps because I had to bring the crazy.

I needed to pull from the darkest part of my soul to show people what I wanted to do to them when I was really made if I had the strength like FT or Magnum. And even though it could of taken something else to fix the problem, how I handled it made such a statement.

I was below the Titanic deep and dark on this one.

Getting to the Resolution and Conclusion. Lmk what you think

Enjoy. Happy Reading. Your Author, Sylvia Hubbad

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By continuing to read, you acknowledge that you are over 18. Otherwise, please leave this site and block it from your memory. If you’re a pearl-clutching heifer, please go too because I ain’t got time for that either.

Companion Books

Stealing Innocence 1

Black’s Innocence

Sin’s Iniquity

The Other Side of Love (WIP)

Tanner’s Devil

Dreams of Reality

Emperor’s Addiction / Heart

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…Enjoy. Happy Reading. Your author, Sylvia Hubbard

Chapter 33 – Inherited Brutality

You’ll give it all to me or never see another day, Zuri.

Zuri could feel the weight of Brenda’s words and what the formula truly represented. It was more than just a recipe locked away from greedy hands—it was the culmination of her father’s life’s work, a breakthrough that could potentially reshape an entire industry and save so much money. The lengths Brenda was willing to go to in order to retrieve it only underscored its power and peril. Even in that terrifying moment, Zuri’s resolve only strengthened: she wouldn’t let it fall into the wrong hands.

Lucas moaned, pulling Zuri from the terror of staring down at the gun her mother aimed at her as Rodney drove further and further away from the office building where Magnum and her lawyer were.

Brenda and Rodney must’ve ambushed Lucas somehow, catching him off guard, striking him with a heavy object, and rendering him unconscious. Between the two of them, with Rodney not being one hundred percent, they must’ve maneuvered Lucas into the back seat, setting the trap for Zuri.

Zuri leaned over to take a look at the gnash on the side of Lucas’s face.

“Give me your phone,” her mother ordered.

“You won’t get away with this,” Zuri warned, tossing the phone in the front seat so she could hurry and attend to Lucas’s wound. She tore the front of his shirt and pressed it on the area that was bleeding. He moaned incoherently and twitched a little. “What the hell did you hit him with?” she hissed.

“You don’t worry about it,” Brenda snarled, her grip tightening around the gun, betraying a hint of desperation. “Now, where’s the cash? The jewelry?” Her voice wavered slightly, but she masked it with venom. “That old bitch was out of her mind before she died and told me all about it. She said he hid it somewhere I’d never find, but I knew if I kept watching and praying, his shit would float. He valued two things: his precious career and his little brat. And he wanted to keep both of them to himself.”

“You’re insane.”

“Where’s the formula, Zuri. I know you have it!” her mother demanded.

Zuri had to think fast because once they got what they wanted, she knew they no longer needed her. “I don’t have it on me! It’s at the house.”

“Liar!” Rodney grumbled.

As she glanced in the mirror, the sight hit Zuri with a visceral force. Her stomach flipped, and a wave of nausea surged, making her knees weaken at the sight of his jaw wired shut, one of his eyes swollen so grotesquely it looked ready to burst. The bruises scattered across Rodney’s face and neck told the story of a vicious assault, leaving a bitter taste of rage and helplessness in her mouth.

Had Magnum done that?

“It’s at the house behind a secret compartment behind my bed. Daddy gave me his diary, but I was so in love,” she sneered, cutting her eyes at Rodney only briefly because she barely wanted to look at his horrific face. “I never paid attention to the information.” This was semi-true. There was a diary and other trinkets in a small metal cookie canister she’d hidden from her mother, but it wasn’t the journal. That was one of the things she wanted to go back to the house for.

Yet, as they neared the location, the reality of the situation pressed on Zuri. She estimated they had about fifteen minutes before reaching the house, knowing that time was slipping away. Lucas’s faint pulse and shallow breathing haunted her with every passing second, each mile adding to her desperation. She hoped this short window would allow Magnum enough time to locate them and orchestrate a rescue. The countdown had already begun in her mind, each tick representing her resolve to hold on just a little longer.

Then she remembered that Magnum had ordered FT to tail Brenda. She glanced behind them, wondering if any of the vehicles behind them was FT.

Why should he want to save you? His seeming disinterest clung to Zuri like the relentless fog that had swallowed her childhood home, mysterious and unnerving. She imagined FT knowing that her intentions to come between him and his brother would make him welcome someone else to do the job, so he wouldn’t have to soil his hands and turn his brother against him.

“If we get there and no box is where you said, you’ll be sorry, and after you’re gone, we’ll go after that drunken new lover of yours,” Brenda threatened.

“That’s why I sought Magnum for safety until everything calmed down. I knew you’d eventually be put in jail, and I could get back to the house. It’s why I kept checking the cameras so I could see when I could get in and get to my stash.”

She could see her mother was scrutinizing what she was saying, and then formed a believable thought; it made sense.

Tossing a receipt and pen in the back, her mother demanded, “Write down where the money and jewels are.”

FT was not going to save her, even if he was following them, and Zuri felt full dread envelop her because Magnum probably wouldn’t get there in time.

The brother’s absence last night left Zuri both relieved and worried. She had noticed fleeting shadows playing in the edges of her vision, perhaps from distant headlights or the crunch of tires against gravel, faintly echoing her own fears. Was this surveillance real or imagined? Yet she wondered if his quiet retreat last night was strategic to this current moment, perhaps part of a plan to get rid of her without killing her himself. She remembered how he had probably foreseen moments, and that he most likely thought Brenda would eventually do this, so that his hands would be clean getting rid of Zuri. The question she grappled with only heightened her anxiety about what lay beneath FT’s inscrutable facade and for her demise.

Don’t make this easy for Brenda or Rodney. And pray, Magnum knew how evil his brother really was.

Instead of scribbling the bank information, Zuri wrote down the lab’s address. She even put the lab number on there. There was no way Brenda or Rodney would get into that secure area without authorization. As she held the pen, a memory flickered—when she signed her father’s will after his passing, the same kind of pen had been in her hand. She remembered the firm squeeze she had given it then, symbolizing the weight of responsibility and protection. Afterwards, she slipped the pen in her coat pocket, hoping it could serve as a lifeline if she got close enough to her mother to use it as a weapon.

“What’s this?” Brenda demanded when Zuri handed her the paper.

“It’s where everything is that Daddy left me. The lawyer didn’t trust the banks because he realized you’d been stealing from my trust, so he set up a room for me there,” she said. Giving her mother a half-truth and a lie made it hard for Brenda to tell whether Zuri was telling the truth. “You can use my birthdate to access the keypad.” With the high security surrounding that place, Zuri knew there was no way in hell they’d get past the front door.

Since Brenda didn’t deny the accusation of stealing from the trust, Zuri was fully convinced her mother was nothing but a greedy bitch, and would do anything to get more money.

“Vee can keel her ooww!” Rodney sneered as he pulled up to the house.

“We can’t yet. We gotta make sure she’s telling the truth about the box,” Brenda said, ordering Zuri out of the car, holding the gun aimed at her.

Zuri hated that she had to leave Lucas because no one would be holding pressure to his wound, and she silently prayed they wouldn’t kill him before help arrived.

As Zuri stepped out, the car’s engine idling was drowned out by the crunch of gravel underfoot. The cold metal of the gun seemed to magnify every sensation, the wind biting at her skin as she felt the relentless gaze of her mother boring into her. The anticipation was a heavy, suffocating presence in the air, making each breath feel like an act of defiance.

Brenda dug her nails into Zuri’s arm to drag her in front of her.

Instantly, a flashback to a childhood memory of her mother’s vicious nails digging into her skin and painful pinches. The terror filled her, and the knowledge that the viciousness of the past had never disappeared.

“You hated me,” Zuri surmised as Brenda handed her the house keys.

“Hated you?” Brenda snarled behind her. “The minute he saw you, I knew I lost whatever I was going to get from him. I despised you, and I needed to make your life miserable.”

Taking her time unlocking the door, Zuri decided to get as much information from her mother as possible. If she were going to die, at least she would know the truth. “Why was it so important to get things from him?”

“What else was he good for? I ripped him from his family, and he was a nobody, but when his old man died, I knew that was my opportunity, but your father still didn’t confess about the damn money, so I got rid of him. Gave him a slow death by poison and enjoyed watching him die. And then started feeding it to his greedy, hateful mother, but when she didn’t reveal what I needed, I knew I had to have a different approach with you.”

Zuri pushed open the door and walked in, with Brenda following behind. The house smelled like old water and dust. The lights were still on around the house.

Brenda shoved her towards the stairs. “Hurry up!”

Taking the stairs as slowly as possible, Zuri said, “You were going to institutionalize m” She paused before asking, ‘Was it because you were afraid I’d see through your lies, or is there something else that terrifies you, Mom?’

“Not just that. Get you with a baby, and Rodney was perfect. We’d been fucking around behind your father’s back for years at my job, and then I got him to romance you. Told him all the things to say to make you feel safe and think you were loved. Tried all we could to get you pregnant, so I could institutionalize you, take the baby, and claim your full inheritance, but nothing worked,” Brenda grumbled.

The treachery her mother revealed broke Zuri. By the time they got to the top of the staircase, Zuri’s step faltered from the tears welling up in her eyes. “All this time it was fake.”

“What did it matter? All your memories were gone. You were living in some bratty dream world, your father paid some weird doctor to concoct a world where you thought you were the center of the universe.” Brenda dug her fingernails so severely that they went through Zuri’s coat and started to draw blood from her. “Get the fuck up or lose your fucking knee, cunt!”

Demanding, Zuri asked, “Why is the journal so important?”

A flicker of something like nostalgia crossed Brenda’s face, momentarily softening her hardened expression. “Because that formula will give me more!” she barked, force immediately returning to her voice. “Your father raged on and on, but was weak-willed and never believed it could work. I blame his mother for not giving him the confidence to go out on his own, but that’s why it was so easy to convince him to be with me.” She shook her head slightly, as if shedding the memory like an unwanted skin. “I worked my ass off all my life in this stupid job, and what do I get? Nothing, but with this, I can get something back. I can show people I’m not stupid. I’ll sell it to the highest bidder and then go find a beach to live on for the rest of my life.”

“You never cared for me.” Zuri struggled to her feet and proceeded to her bedroom at the end of the hallway.

“Why should I? You were supposed to be an instrument to tie him to me, not take him away from me. It was all about Zuri, and I hated you more and more each day. Getting you hooked on drugs right under his fucking nose was the only thing that made it better. By the age of twelve, you were so coked out of your mind, you’d put anything in your body to get you high.” Brenda cackled, and she shoved Zuri in the bedroom toward the bed. “Get it!”

Zuri pretended to fall, but she really did need to collapse, feeling the wicked deception of her mother on her shoulders. The length this woman had gone through to make sure her own daughter’s life was miserable was unfathomable, but Brenda was confessing like it was nothing. In that moment of hitting the floor, a fierce determination sparked within her. She knew she needed to act quickly. Her mind raced back to the pen she had slipped into her coat pocket earlier, a small but potentially powerful tool. No more would she be seen as the victim. Zuri vowed to use every ounce of wit and courage she possessed to turn the tables on her mother. This silent promise ignited a newfound sense of strategy in her heart, readying her for what needed to be done next.

Brenda used the back of the gun against the side of Zuri’s face, almost knocking her out. “Get it, now!”

Through her tears, Zuri crawled and pushed the bed away where she had hidden the metal container.

At the same moment, Brenda’s phone rang. “What the fuck does he want?” she sneered. “He can’t even fucking talk!” She answered the phone, still holding the gun on Zuri. “Rodney, what do you… Who the fuck is this?… Where the fuck is Rodney? Hello? HELLO!”

The door downstairs creaked open, and Brenda rushed to close the bedroom door.

Zuri couldn’t believe someone had gotten there so fast. It must be FT! He’d come to save her!

“Get the fucking journal and give it to me! That stupid, drunk lover of yours thinks he can fight a bullet?” Her mother cackled again while shoving the dresser in front of the door. “I’ll show him!”

Of course, it couldn’t have been Magnum. He couldn’t have gotten there that fast. Her mother must’ve mistaken FT’s voice for Magnum.

Opening the wall portion, Zuri heard heavy footsteps slowly climbing the stairs. She pulled out the metal box and stood up.

All of a sudden, all the noise outside the door went quiet, and Brenda pressed her ear to the door, waiting for any noise.

BOOM! BOOM!

The impacts came urgently, insistent. Zuri felt her breath catch. Something heavy was being slammed against the door, a relentless battering.

BOOM!

Each strike was sharper and louder than before, vibrating in the floor as if echoing through her own chest. A low, gurgled groan followed each thud, a chilling cadence that made Zuri shudder.

“You’d better stop it!” Brenda raged at whoever was on the other side of the door. “I’ll shoot her dead.”

There was a moment of quiet, and then Zuri gasped because she felt a heat in her chest.

“You kill her, and I will rip your throat from your body,” Magnum snarled in a low growl.

Brenda shot at the door, and Zuri screamed at the same time she heard Rodney scream.

“Zouuu zzhoot eeee,” he groaned.”Jissh.”

Zuri covered her mouth and backed away from the door at the next squishy bang against the door.

“Eeeeh tooooph,” Rodney begged miserably.

A double bang immediately followed this plea. The second one caused a huge crack in the door.

Brenda stepped away from the door, terror washing over her face as her eyes darted frantically. Her hand gripping the gun began to tremble, a faint sheen of sweat appearing on her brow. She struggled to comprehend what was emerging through the slit, caught between disbelief and impending doom.

Zuri realized it was Rodney’s face. The sight of her once nice-looking ex-boyfriend, now reduced to a tool for Magnum to break through the door.

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AUTHOR, MOTHER, SPEAKER, JOURNALIST, CONSULTANT & MORE! Divorced Mother of three, Detroiter, Sylvia Hubbard, is not only an award winning best selling author of over 28 books, but also founder of one of Michigan's largest interactive literary community, The Motown Writers Network/The Michigan Literary Network.

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