Page 35 of Redemption

“What would you call a woman who belongs to a man but allows another to stick his dick in her?” my brother taunts.

“Free to choose,” I reply.

Mordred laughs, and for the first time, I see none of the little brother who I used to play computer games with. He’s a monster.

“Not when I paid good money to take her choice away. She’s mine. I can do whatever I want to her. Feed her if I choose. Fuck her when I want.” He pushes the gun closer to her head. “Kill her when I’ve had enough of her. You don’t understand. You’re weak. Our father told me all about how weak you are.”

“I’m not weak, Mordred. I’m just not twisted by our old man’s insanity.”

“He was the sane one. It’s our mother who was sick. Always nagging at him and telling him what to do. She tried doing the same with me after you left. She was there, constantly. She was a bore. Why couldn’t she understand that all she had to do was feed me and clothe me? I didn’t need her mothering me all the time. Our father was right when he taught me the difference between women.”

I feel sick. My head’s swimming.

“He took you out with him on your sixteenth birthday to lose your virginity,” I confirm.

My gaze flicks from my brother to Megan, and I see a lone tear tumble down her cheek. She knows exactly what I had to do that day but also that it didn’t turn me into a monster. My brother, however…my father won with him.

“Not sixteen. Fourteen,” my brother clarifies, appearing to be resolute about what he was forced to do. “Shortly after you left for Arthur’s army.”

“Mordred.” I take a step forward, my heart breaking for my brother. He was so young and being forced to do what he did must have twisted his mind. He holds Megan closer to him. The turmoil going on in her head, at the moment, must be substantial. “Brother, let Megan go, and we can talk about this. I went through the same thing as you. It doesn’t mean you have to treat women the way you have been shown. Our father was wrong, and he’s paid for his sins. He was an evil man, and yesterday, he died screaming and in agony.”

“You killed him.” Mordred’s eyes go wide at hearing this news.

I nod.

“It was the only way to rid the world of a man like him. He sold women against their will for money. He’d been doing it for years. I’m only sorry I wasn’t able to stop him sooner before he forced us both to rape at gunpoint.”

Mordred looks at Megan and then back to me.

He whispers close to her ear, but I can still hear his words.

“You know I am different to my brother, slave. You know it better than anyone. Have you ever seen any compassion in me at all?” He shakes her to elicit an answer from her.

“No, sir.”

“Do you know why?”

I take another step closer to them. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot movement over at the far end of the field. It’s Bors with a gun at the ready. Back-up is here. My brother moves the hand he is holding Megan with down from her waist to the cleft between her thighs. She whimpers, and I vow to burn that hand when I get the chance.

“When I was fourteen, I didn’t rape the girl with a gun to my head. I lowered my pants and willingly fucked her just the way I’ve done you, slave. My father was a god, and I would have done anything to please him. That’s where Gawain is wrong, I’m not like him. I’m the devil.”

I can see Megan is losing her composure. She knows exactly what he’s capable of. She shuts her eyes briefly before opening them again and catching my stare. Then everything happens in a split second: she raises her arm in the heavy cast and hits my brother over the head with it, causing him to stumble backward, disorientated. Megan is free, and she runs as fast as she can toward my truck. I prowl over to my brother just as his senses come back to him, and aiming our guns at each other, we end up in a standoff.

“You’re not the devil. You’re an abused child who now needs help,” I spit at him. He brings his free hand up and smashes it into my face. I don’t flinch as several of my assassin brothers appear and train their guns on Mordred.

“Put the gun down, Brother.”

“No. Give me Megan. She’s mine.”

“Not happening.”

“I’ll never stop trying to take her.”

“Yes, you will,” my response comes as quickly as his words. I take a deep breath, and with a swift movement, one of the first moves that Arthur taught me, I disarm my brother and walk away from him.

“Gawain, watch out!” Megan screams, and I turn around to find my brother reaching for a second gun in his pocket. Before he can use it, I fire mine into his knee, and he goes down. His second weapon flies across the tarmac of the runway, and Bors retrieves it.

“It doesn’t have to be this way.” I stalk back to my brother with my gun pointed at his head. “You can get help.”

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