Page 18 of Legacy of Succession

“Daphne Knight?” I enquire with a hint of frustration in my voice.

“Don’t get all high and mighty with me. You knew full well what would happen to her and the other one, when you didn’t choose them.” Reggie steps forward as my father speaks and places a napkin over his lap. “Full English breakfast, Mr. Hane.”

“Of course, Your Grace.”

Reggie disappears into the kitchen as fast as his tired legs can carry him.

“Is she still alive?” I ask.

“I don’t always kill them.” My father purses his lips in disgust.

“No, just leave them completely broken.” I want nothing more to do with this conversation. A woman is a precious thing and not there to be beaten to a pulp while you get off in her pussy.

“She was fine when West took her.”

“Did he fuck her as well?” I’m fuming.

“She has more than one hole — so of course he did,” my father chuckles. I want to rip his head off. “Don’t start having morals now. Everything that's happening here is for you and your future. Grow a pair of balls and man up.” My father turns his evil eyes on me. They bore into my soul and deny me any hope I have of being innocent. Daphne Knight was brutally raped and beaten last night. She's probably lying dead in a gutter somewhere because of me. I can’t change what’s happening, but I can try to soften the blow for the three girls left. Once I make my choice, two more will be sold. I can only save one girl and bring her in to the hell I live. At least there, as my wife, I can protect her.

“You and that piece of paper may govern the tasks the girls have to perform, but it doesn’t tell me everything that I should do. I’m going to spend time with each of the girls today — a date around the property.”

My father lets out a rambunctious laugh.

“What’s the point? You just need to marry her, fuck her, and stick a male heir in her belly. Then, once she has given birth, she can go up in the rafters of the house and descend into the kind of obscurity that is only found at the sharp end of a heroin needle — just like your mother.”

I step back because I’m on the verge of punching my own father. I can feel my blood boiling with fury, and my hands shaking. I take hold of the back of a chair to ensure that my hands are gripped tightly around something, other than my father’s neck.

“Actually, Father” ?I stress the alien word with venom? “I would like a loving Mother for any children I have, not a drugged up waste of space like my own was. You always tell me that I’m a disappointment to you. Maybe, if I’d had a caring mother, I might actually have ended up as much of a bastard as you are.”

I don’t wait for his reply. I don’t want to hear it. I’ll take the girls out and get to know them better. I’m bound by the document that prescribes my future, but I don’t have to do everything the way my father wants. If I’m going to have to marry, I’m going to make sure that it’s with a woman who won’t be a mess by the time she pushes out my first child. And fuck, I need to look into ways to make sure that any children we have are girls, so, hopefully, I can end this whole sordid charade.

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