Broken Promises

This story is by Allie April Knox and was part of our 2025 Fall Writing Contest. You can find all the writing contest stories here.

The bar was still, silent, a rare occurrence but far from an unwelcome one. Usually the place was filled to the brim with rowdy gang members, leather-clad men and women, gray-streaked and fresh-faced, spread from counter to door. They’d be celebrating a victory or squabbling over a stolen beer or licking their wounds after a messy dispute. 

But not that night. 

No, that night was quiet. Quiet nights were always memorable, partly because they were rare, but mostly because they represented milestones, pivotal events, turning points in the bar’s history. 

None of those events, however, would ever shine quite as bright or prove to be quite as painful as the night Benedict Manu raced to save his daughter from a den of beasts, only to find she’d long since donned their skin and claimed them as her family. 

And standing there in the jagged shards of her broken promises, staring at her father, the only thing dear Beatrice could think was—

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. 

He was horrified. It was written all over his face, etched in the slack lines of his shoulders, the part of his lips. He gaped at her, eyes catching on the thick burn scars across her back, sorrow flashing across his face, and then his attention settled on the jacket she’d put on. 

More specifically, the Hyena emblem on the back and the way she’d slid into it like it was made for her and only for her. 

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. 

It was supposed to be years—decades, even—before she told him. Before the lies came to light and her shame was laid bare. Before she revealed the depths of her half-truths and falsehoods. Before she confessed just how many promises she’d broken, the number of times she’d betrayed him. 

And this—her, standing in a bar she’d been forbidden from entering, with a gang she’d promised to stay away from, wearing a jacket that represented her deceit—none of it even scratched the surface. 

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. 

No, now it was going to be hard, and painful, and she’d probably lose her dad in the process, all because Benedict Manu just had to be the kind of father he’d never had but always wished for. 

A good one. 

“What are you doing here?” she asked, steady, borderline accusatory, as if she wasn’t bracing for his disappointment, as if she weren’t trembling in her boots. “Did Uncle Steven call you?” 

“Yeah. He, uh… yeah, Steven called me. Said you and some of the other kids had gone with Pen, but he wasn’t sure where. We went to her place first but couldn’t find you, so I figured we should come… here.” 

He cast a glance around the bar, eyeing the still-as-statues, quiet-as-church-mice gangsters. Their silence was strained, stifling, choking, a far cry from their usual loud, laughter-filled, roughhousing selves. 

It put Beatrice on edge, even more so than if it’d just been her facing her father and the consequences of her actions. 

Despite their stillness, despite their silence, Beatrice knew these people. She knew what one person’s crossed arms meant, or another’s hard stare, or a third’s apparent indifference. She knew each and every one of them was saying I’m here and I’m not going anywhere. None of them spoke a word, though. 

No, this was between Benedict and Beatrice, no matter their audience. 

Her hands twitched, itching to reach for her dad but afraid of what would happen if she did. Instead, she inhaled deeply, focusing on the steady beat of her heart, reminding herself of the reason she’d done all this in the first place. 

To find out the truth. 

“You can’t yell at me,” she said, nearly blurted, proud of the confidence that masked her desperate plea. “You can’t criticize or scold, not when you did the same thing when you were my age.” 

“Yeah, well, at least I had an honorable reason.” 

“‘Honorable’?” She scoffed. “You endured the Trials like all of us did. You took the Oath so your dear little brother Steven wouldn’t have to, and then you threw all that to the wolves when things started getting a little too messy for you. You may have had a so-called ‘honorable’ reason, but you betrayed your people while carrying it out, Butch.” 

A cruel smile tugged at her lips at the sight of his surprised, bug-eyed stare, mirthless laughter bubbling up from the bottom of her chest and spilling out her mouth. 

“Oh yeah, I found your old name. That’s what happens when you stab your friends in the back. They’re more than willing to tell all your dirty secrets.” 

Benedict looked a bit like he was having a conniption, fists tight, jaw clenched. Beatrice would be worried about that, if she weren’t already furious about the whole situation—the words being said, the day it was happening, the way it was going. 

“You have no idea what you’re talking about, Beatrice. I was trying to keep the gang safe, not betray them.” 

“By tipping off the cops? How is that ‘keeping them safe’? D’you know some of them spent eight months behind bars because of your plan to ‘keep them safe’? That there were kids who didn’t have their parents because of you? What happened to the Fourth Law, Dad? What happened to Never betray your own?” 

“The First: Take care of each other,” Benedict countered. “I’d rather be exiled and hated than watch my people burn themselves to the ground.” 

“Oh, well then, good for you,” she said scornfully. “Too bad you’re gonna take down the two of us while you run drugs for the Distiller.” 

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. 

She’d imagined it would be over a school break or a visit home or something like that. It’d be after dinner, when they’d moved to the couch to watch a movie or each picked up a book for an evening of quiet reading. She wanted it to be akin to a passing comment, a mere observation, a presentation of information. 

It was never supposed to be like this. 

She never wanted it to be angry or vindictive or cruel. She didn’t want an accusation, a confrontation. She didn’t want to be the bitter daughter facing her hypocritical father, no matter how true that might’ve been. She hated to be this two-faced, backstabbing monster she’d become, all because she’d wanted to know what her father did after the sun went down and she turned in for the night. 

“How could you do that? Dad, how could you traffic drugs, after calling in the gang for the exact same thing ten years ago?” Her vision blurred, hot, angry, and she furiously blinked away the tears. “And why couldn’t you just tell me? All I ever wanted was the truth, Dad. Why couldn’t you trust me with that?” 

“Beatrice—” 

“Why, Dad? Why? Why couldn’t you just tell me?” 

“Because I was in debt,” Benedict confessed, dropping his head in defeat. “Because the Distiller paid the bills when you were in the hospital after—after the fire. I don’t know how he knew, but he did, and he paid. And we were good for a while. You came home. You recovered. You found a new normal. Two years, and then he came calling. And I became his puppet on a string.” 

He sighed, a ragged sound, dragging a hand down his face. 

“There’s the truth you’ve been looking for, Beatrice. I hope it was worth it.” 

Benedict turned on his heel and left, the door slamming shut behind him. 

And just like that, the bar was back to normal, loud, carousing. People clapped Beatrice on the shoulder, her back, and then headed to the counter for a drink. Someone was in front of her, hands on her shoulders, asking if she was all right. 

Amidst it all, though—amidst the noise and the people and the final welcome into her one, and possibly only, family—Beatrice’s world shattered. 

Because when he’d moved to leave, in the second after his hand uncovered his face and just before he turned away, Beatrice had caught a glimpse of Benedict’s eyes. 

He’d been crying. 

And that broke Beatrice’s heart in two. 

The last time—and the only time—she’d seen her father cry, she’d been lying in a hospital bed, writhing in agony despite the high dose of morphine she’d been put on, after a fire had nearly killed her. It was the same hospital stay the Distiller had paid the bills for, which made it all the more painful that Beatrice had promised herself she’d never cause her father pain like that again. 

She would be adding one more thing to her list of broken promises.