Son of Eros

"You goddamn lowlife!" Gregory Osbourne's meaty hand clamped around Pan's collar and yanked him forward until the boy's shoes scraped the marble floor.

"Goddamn lowlife!" the older man repeated, the veins bulging at his temples. "Did you steal my golden cufflinks?"

"No, sir. I did not," Pan answered evenly, meeting his father's glare without flinching. "As you commanded, I polished them last night and locked them in the drawer."

Pan was eighteen years old, the adopted son of Gregory Osborne, the ruthless Chairman of the Osborne Group. The latter glared some more and then shoved the boy away with a grunt of disgust.

Pan was adopted into the Osborne family in an era when celebrity adoptions sparked a viral trend among wealthy families in Cloyster City. However, the cheap thrill of taking in an orphanage kid to gather community praise soon died out.

Gregory and his wife Gemina later regretted their impulse to accept Pan. As he grew up, the boy's status quietly eroded until he was little more than an unpaid servant in the sprawling Osborne estates.

"You'd better find those cufflinks before the gala tonight," Gregory spat, jabbing a thick finger at Pan's chest. "Or I'll skin you alive! Mark my words, boy!"

Pan kept his face blank. He had long ago learned that both fear and defiance fuelled Gregory's temper. He wasn't afraid of the man, exactly—only of the dire consequences if he got too pissed.

Even though Pan's life was worse than that of a menial worker here, being thrown out onto the streets of Cloyster City was a worse, more dreadful fate.

"Yes, sir. I would do everything to preserve the honor of our family."

Gregory grunted at his poker face, shoved him aside, and stalked off to the dining room to join the family for breakfast.

Pan often referred to the Osbornes as 'our family,' but they had never truly accepted him. They tolerated his presence the way one tolerates a stain on an expensive carpet—always planning to remove it eventually.

At breakfast, Gemina, his adoptive mother, watched him with slanted, calculating eyes while he served the food. The Latina beauty, still stunning in her early thirties, had seduced Gregory in a beauty contest a decade ago and kept seducing him tirelessly to keep her place at his side.

Gemina was voluptuous, dressed to kill, and moved like a woman who knew that every male's eye followed her. However, as Pan's legal mother, she regarded him with the same warmth she might show a cockroach.

"What are you gawking at?" Gemina snapped as the boy set down the platter of eggs. "Go ahead and serve my lovely daughters already! They have places to be!

The Osborne children were four in number. Leo, the eldest, golden son, had already left for Cloyster Academy of Technology, where he reigned as Student President. He was Gregory's star child, and the latter spoke constantly and proudly about his son's accomplishments at parties and gatherings.

Then came the daughters—Lila, twenty-one, tall and curvaceous, with long blonde hair.

Christina, nineteen, raven-haired, miss perfect, the family's self-appointed moral compass, and a pretentious churchgoer.

Finally, there was little Tanya, seventeen, short but cute—a cherubic cutie pie.  She was the only one who still looked at Pan with anything resembling affection. Gemina, however, forbade the little one from treating him like a brother.

As Pan moved around the table, Lila and Christina seemed jovial. They pointed and sniggered at his face.

Pan narrowed his eyes. Gregory's golden cufflinks had vanished, and their smug expressions told him everything.

It wasn't the first time the sisters had framed him. Once they key-scratched Gregory's Mercedes and blamed Pan for it. The boy still carried the body marks from the whipping.

Bitches, Pan thought, keeping his face neutral. I'll pay you back someday.

He sighed, deciding to visit their rooms and find the cufflinks before Gregory carried out his threat of skinning him alive.

Pan finished serving, cleared the plates, and retreated to the kitchen to wash dishes. The boy left the leftovers untouched, not being hungry after his father's shakedown. In fact, hunger often sharpened his focus.

It was time for Pan to raid his sisters' kingdoms in mission mode.