Velvet Sin Ch. 01 - Teaser (Patreon)

This house had once felt like a prison, and now it felt like the gates had been left wide open. Dominic watched them; his stepmother sipping from her wineglass like it was medicine, and Maria peeling off her jewelry with lazy motions, one earring at a time. He felt the old ache start to stir beneath his breastbone. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.

When Richard had brought Teresa home four years ago, Dominic had tried to believe things might finally get better. Teresa was kind, beautiful, and carried herself with a grace his father didn’t deserve. And Maria, just a teenager like him at the time, had been quiet but clever, guarded in a way he understood instantly. For a few brief weeks, maybe even a couple of months, the house had felt almost normal, like maybe the old man had finally changed.

But Dominic had known better. Richard Parks was a master of performance — polished charm in public, handshakes with pastors, firm eye contact with neighbors, the kind of firm but “devoted” family man people admired at barbecues and company functions. Behind closed doors, though, the man was a demon, a secret drinker and seething, bitter tyrant who measured respect in bruises and silence.

The first time he’d heard Richard snap at Teresa, it was like a whipcrack in a chapel. The words had come fast, sharp, laced with bile, and he’d watched the color drain from Teresa’s face like someone had pulled a plug. Maria had frozen, eyes wide, as Teresa quietly ushered her out of the room. It was the last time she let her daughter bear witness to that side of the man.

He didn’t know the details — not really — but he could sense that Teresa had some kind of leverage over Richard, something serious. Something she kept in her back pocket like a holy relic, just damning enough to keep Maria out of his reach.

Dominic had once overheard an argument behind the closed bedroom door, her voice low but unyielding, and his father’s tone… cowed. No yelling, threats, and not even his usual bluff of ‘calling the boys in blue’. That alone had stunned Dominic. If there was one thing his father loved more than booze and power, it was parading around the fact that half the local precinct owed him favors.

Whatever Teresa had on him, it was enough. Still, the safety she carved for Maria came at a price — she took the beatings herself, silent and steady, like a shield. But she wasn’t alone, as Dominic had made sure of that.

It had started small. A hand reaching in to pull her back. A shoulder nudged in front of a strike. Words spat with defiance, just enough to redirect Richard’s fury. Over time, it became more deliberate… more calculated. He learned how to bait the old man, how to provoke him just enough to keep his fists away from Teresa. If he had to bleed for it, so be it.

Back then, he was still carrying the soft edges of adolescence — pudgier, rounder, easier to bruise. But the years wore it down as he trained, lifted, and learned to stand his ground like an oak against a storm. His body thickened, hardened — not the chiseled look of movie stars, but the solid, immovable bulk of someone built to take hits and stay standing.

By seventeen, he’d gotten bold. When Richard raised his voice, Dominic raised his chin. When he so much as looked at Teresa the wrong way, Dominic would say things like ‘Why don’t you come take a swing at me instead, tough guy? If you’re not too scared.’

That rage — it always came, slurred and wild. But it came at him, not her, and he took it, without complaint, without backing down. Not because he thought he was invincible, but because someone had to. Now, with the old bastard rotting in the ground, the weight of all those years began to lift from his shoulders like steam rising off pavement after rain. It didn’t vanish, not fully, but it loosened. In its place, something new began to stretch inside him. A slow, warm unfurling.