Page 49 of Brutal Empire

My smile broadened.

“Yet I know everything about this company.” I fixed my suit and pulled up my tablet and began to recite the numbers from the years since I’d been absent. The number of investors that had come and gone.

“Just because I wasn’t here doesn’t mean I did not care.”

His eye twitched, and he looked at my father as if he would tell me to fuck off. He got up and went to the other end of the table. I sat down and then crossed one leg over my knee as I looked at everyone.

“I have a proposal that will be very lucrative for all of us.”

Jack’s head seemed as if it would blow up the more I went on. It was a gamble, but I wanted to do it. Before I went to Chicago, I wanted as many eyes on me as I could. An enemy of my enemy was my friend, and that was precisely why I had contacted the Estacados to invest. This deal would make headlines, and Damian would know I was not alone.

TWENTY-TWO

Location: Texas

It wasscary the way some people had the world at their fingertips. They snapped their fingers and could make mountains kneel at their feet. No one person should have so much power.

Yet power was how this world operated. Whether it be from the government, the people, or the monsters who lived in the shadows, one way or another, all of us would do as they willed.

“The most lucrative business Damian has is human trafficking.”

After everything else left me, those words stuck with me. I had no idea why Daphne had rescued me. I begged her for death; instead, she breathed life into me. She said she had been on a mission, but then she never brought up Yates anymore. She didn’t offer me the revenge I desperately needed, but Bastian did. An eye for an eye was only fair.

The moment I wiped the fog from the mirror, it felt like déjà vu. I looked at my reflection, and I didn’t flinch this time. They said your eyes were the windows to your soul, but what if the soul left behind was no more? There was no longer anything tethering me to whom I used to be, and the past few weeks had taught me that maybe it was time to let that foolish memory of what could have been go.

There was no future if I kept dragging the past along.

“Ah, pet, so young and naïve.”

My knuckles turned white as I gripped the vanity, wishing I could punch the mirror, but the problem wasn’t my reflection. The problem lay in the fact that it didn’t matter how far I traveled or how long; Xander Yates was a part of me. He stole everything from me and made sure to engrain himself into me.

The more time I spent with Bastian, the more I wanted to see myself and not be disgusted at what stared back. I took two steps back with a shaky breath to see my body through the mirror.

Even from a distance, I could see all the nicks and cuts that traveled down from my neck to the top of my breasts. My body was suspended in time. The doctor that checked me over said it was something along the lines of a professional gymnast. The dehydration and malnourishment had stopped my body from developing.

It’d been two years, and I’d yet to have an actual period. Not that it mattered. This world was cruel and dark. Why would anyone want to bring a child into this mess?

I hated looking at my body, thinking that being a woman was what damned me, but that wasn’t the case. Now that I had lived this life, I knew that it didn’t matter if you had a vagina or something between your legs. At the end of the day, perversions ran all different ways.

As my hand made contact with my neck, I tried to think if I had ever touched my body without the need to close a wound. I could feel how my artery pulsed under my touch. Shivers spread through my body, even though the bathroom was warm. My skin wasn’t smooth. It felt like scales on a reptile.

My gaze was unwavering through the mirror as my hand went lower. The top of my mound was hair-free. Yates did not like that I had body hair, so all of it had been removed. It was done so often that it got to a point where I didn’t flinch when the hot wax met my skin. The burn was the only thing that remained, but compared to the way Xander took me, that was a blessing.

I took a deep breath, and I closed my eyes before I thought about the kiss again, trying to see if it would evoke the same reaction it had the other day. The first thing that came back to me was Bastian’s smell. It was a rich, spicy aroma that I had gotten used to for the last few months. Then I recalled the kiss, and there was no use in lying to myself and pretending like I didn’t want more.

Perhaps I had been so starved for kindness that I was looking more into this than I should have. Maybe his lips on mine didn’t mean anything to him, just another girl to blow some steam off with. But when I thought about Bastian, I didn’t think abouthim—my master.

My hand dipped lower over the scar on the top of my pussy, ignoring that memory because opening Pandora’s box in this state wouldn’t do me any good. With my eyes closed, my other senses were heightened, and I could practically hear my heart like beating drums as my finger dipped even lower.

I froze.

My eyes burned as tears threatened to spring free.

For the longest time, I had accepted that I had been broken beyond repair, and I had been okay with it. I had made my peace. When memories started to come, I told myself it had been the price I paid for being a foolish girl. I went searching for love, and instead, I found myself in pools of blood.

Now I didn’t know if I felt dread because I found myself wet and aroused or glad that after everything, there was still some fight left in me. I bit my lip, trying to contain my repulsion as my finger moved, and a jolt went through my system. It wasn’t bad, but I wasn’t sure if it was good.

“Cam!”

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