Page 53 of Grumpy Billionaire Bad Boy

Drew doesn't bat an eye when the clerk brings him the card reader and finalizes the transaction. He taps the card on the receiver and returns it to his money clip.

I slip back into the dressing room, letting the dress slide off my shoulders and onto the floor. I hang it up, catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror. The poor lighting casts the worst shadows on my already not-so-great appearance, deepening the shades of faded purple and green covering me. I place my hand gently on my ribs, wincing at the soreness that's still present. My gaze trails over the jagged scar on my stomach and the memory comes flooding back in.

It was a hot afternoon, and my father had been toying with his favoritepet.That's what he called the girls that came to and from our house, and one of them was supposed to bear him a child—a son. Having a daughter was pointless, he said. Heneeded an heir. Someone to carry on the family name. Someone who wouldn't disgrace him.

Of course, he couldn't get a wife of his own, so he bribed and bargained for women who might be fertile enough to provide him with a baby. It was disgusting and repulsive, but there wasn't anything I could do about it. I spoke up a few times, questioning why he did what he did, but my words were met with his abuse, so I learned if I wanted to stay alive, I had to accept, or at the very least turn a blind eye, to his antics.

I always hated him; I don't ever remember a time when I didn't. And somehow, that hatred grew with each passing day. I fantasized about killing him, torturing him, even. I considered all the ways I could end his life—his threats making damn sure I never did.

He hurt me, sometimes when I didn't do anything to provoke it. He was like that, unpredictable and volatile, and after a while, I realized I had to just stay out of his way.

I felt bad for the girls that came into our house, some of them barely legal. In the beginning, I tried to help them, to come up with elaborate plans to spike his drinks when I knew he'd be having them over in an attempt to subdue his abuse. His wrath was inevitable, but I figured if I could help take the edge off, maybe it wouldn't be so bad.

He was no fool, though, and he quickly figured out what I was up to, beating me until I was unconscious time after time.

I stopped helping them for a while, staring straight ahead when his pets came into the house. It killed me in a way he could never manage.

It wasn't until one of them directly came to me that I snapped back to reality.

Madison was her name. She was beautiful, as were all of them, her eyes dimming each day that passed in his presence. Over a few weeks, we spoke in hushed whispers throughout thehouse, coming up with a code to exchange ideas and come up with a plan. If I couldn't save myself, maybe I could save her. I had to hope things weren't completely hopeless.

My father was a sick man, dragging out the torment in a slow and cruel kind of way. He was tracking her cycle, too, waiting for the time to finally plant his wretched seed.

The goal was to put extra sleeping medication in his brandy and pray that he passed out before his plan would see its way through. We'd buy ourselves a few hours to make it look like things happened, and we'd figure out how to move forward.

But I didn't find out until much later that my paranoid father had bugged nearly everything I owned, giving him access to every private detail about my life.

So, when I casually tried to slip the medicine into his drink, he barged in, calling me out with his hand wrapped around my throat.

Madison begged him that she had nothing to do with it, throwing me completely under the bus.

My father grabbed the nearest sharp object, a corkscrew wine bottle opener, and drove it into my stomach.

I remember gasping for breath, my eyes wide, my mouth gaping. I couldn't believe it. He had hit me, punched me, kicked me, thrown me into things, but my father had never done something so…damaging.

I slid down the wall, my hands cupped around the thing sticking out of my stomach, blood pooling all around me, and watched him turn to Madison. At first, I thought he was going to fuck her right there, make me witness him defiling her, and in retrospect, that wouldn’t have been the worst thing that could have happened.

Instead of that, my father fisted her hair and forcefully rammed her head against the wall.

She screamed, the sound burning into my memory so vividly I could still hear her cries haunting me now, as I lay there, unmoving, unable to do anything other than suffer.

He ripped her shirt, exposing her breasts, and shoved her hard onto the floor of his study.

With great force, he kicked her in the gut, tossing her frail body more. Lazily, he waltzed over to the table next to his chair he smoked cigars and drank dark liquor on, and pulled out a revolver.

"Please, please, I'm so…" Madison cried out. "I'm sorry." She had found her hands, palming the floor and scooting back, unable to do much else other than inch away from him.

He flipped open the thing that held the bullets, my heart pounding harder with each passing second until he slammed it shut and pointed it at her.

"You are nothing more than a fucking common whore, you're a dime a dozen." His voice was thick and phlegmy like he had something caught in his throat.

"I'm sorry," she spat out again, her gaze meeting mine this time.

I still wonder to this day if that last apology was meant for me, or if it was her attempt to forgive herself for her sins. I'll never know.

Because the next thing I knew the gun went off, the reverberation settling over me, my ears ringing. Her body thudded hard on the floor, red covering the space around her. Madison gurgled for a solid minute as my father watched, but he gave up halfway through, my sights never leaving her, not until he turned his fury on me.

He stepped around the blood coating the floor like it was spilled milk, careful not to get his loafers dirty. My father didn't even look at me bleeding out, slumped against the cabinet on his way over.

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