Page 125 of Cruel Games

Do I give up everything I’d been living for, give up the vendetta I held for a man who didn’t deserve my loyalty, and become the very thing that was his downfall?

Was my true calling in life to be a stone-cold killer? Was this all I would ever be? Was there nothing else in life for me but to snuff out the existence of other men like him? Men who crawled in the underbelly of the city and harmed others, climbing to the tops of their ladders no matter who they had to fuck, kill, or ruin along the way?

I lifted the backpack and took out the phone, clicking the fucking flash drive back into place in the port. And when the data had loaded, I clickedplay.

The voice clip started to play almost immediately.

“I thoughtI told you to get rid of her?”

Another voice joined the first—it was my mother, and father, I realized with a start.

“I can’t get rid of her. It’s too late. And even if I could?—”

“I could shove you down a flight of stairs. That’d fix you right up.”

“Please! I’ll do better next time, I promise. Just don’t hurt her.”

A pause. Then?—

“You’d better make sure the next one is a boy, or I’ll be killing more than just that baby inside you.”

The voice clip ended, and a video played. I recognized the setting well—it was my father’s study, and from the looks of it, the person taking the video was sitting on the couch, right next to?—

Me.

Iwas in this video.

As I watched, someone with perfectly pressed pants entered the room, and my father called me over to his side for a moment.I hugged him tightly, and he hugged me back, just like he’d done every day, thousands of times.

And then I left the room, and the person sitting next to the camera shifted on the couch, obviously nervous as their shaking hands came into view.

“You know, that daughter of yours would make a pretty penny at the auctions, Cullough. What is she, eighteen now? Nineteen? Almost past her prime. Still, she’d be a good sell. Men would pay well for her.”

“More than her mother ever earned me, probably.”His eyes lifted, and he stared at the space where I’d been standing a moment ago.“She’s too wild, though. Eighteen whole years, and I still can’t breed the fire out of her.”His gaze moved to the couch.“Doesn’t get that from her mother, that’s for sure. A more obedient bitch, I’ve never met.”

“She safe to talk in front of?”

My father nodded, beckoning my mother to his side.“She’s aware of everything I do, and she ain’t talking to nobody. Ain’t that right, sweetheart?”

He left imprints of his fingers on my mother’s arm as he grabbed her and pushed her to her knees in front of the other man.

I watched, tasting bile in the back of my throat, as the stranger pulled his cock out and shoved it down her throat, choking her on it, forcing her to blow him as her husband watched. When he was finished, he filthied her, coating her in his mess as she sobbed and collapsed into a ball on the floor.

He wiped his hands off on the side of his pants, staring at the floor in disgust.“Think that one’s outlived her usefulness. Maybe you feel like selling her, I could use a good slut to warm my bed.”

“Not for sale,”my father muttered, his hands steepled on his desk, his eyes ever watchful as my mother picked herself up off the floor and moved slowly toward the couch. She picked upwhat must’ve been her phone, and the camera shook as she moved for the exit.

“Junipers are blooming nicely, by the way. Gonna need a whole garden at this rate. They're really at their peak in early spring. Not like that girl we picked up in Khula City last week.”

“She was from my daughter’s college. You’re sniffing around too close to home.”

“I’ll remind you that you’re not the only one in charge here. This is just as much my business as it is yours. And I’ll take girls from however far or near I want to.”A pause gave his words weight.“Procurement is my department; money is yours. Unless you’d like to put that daughter of yours up at auction. Now, that might convince me to move my hunting grounds a little further away from your backyard.”

“She’s not irreplaceable to me,”he muttered, leaning back in his chair.“Start her bids at a million and a half.”

“You got it.”

The video cut out suddenly, and I started to close the phone, disgusted beyond measure, when the last file popped up. A single, five-second voice clip.

---