Page 91 of Sacrifice (Corrupt Empire 2)

“Yes.”

“Good. Now, that was only a taster of the footage I wanted to show you.”

My skin prickled, sweat beading at the back of my neck, but I didn’t show my fear. I steeled myself. Whatever he had to show me couldn’t be worse than what I’d already seen.

Except it was.

It was so much worse than I ever imagined.

I didn’t know how much more I could take after being subjected to video after video of men raping, beating and abusing women. There were men I knew and men I didn’t. All of it sickened me, but I managed to keep my meal in my stomach this time.

The screen finally went blank. I looked down at my hands, my breathing laboured as I tried not to think too hard about the sickening videos he’d shown me.

“Do you see now why Aiden wants to destroy your family?” the robotic voice asked me.

“Yes,” I whispered.

My hands shook in my lap. I couldn’t help my reaction. My chest ached. I wanted to curl up in a ball and cry. Cry for those women. I wanted to scream and rage at the cruelty. I wanted to do so many things, but I didn’t. I sat there staring at my lap, trying not to let my emotions cripple me.

“You know darlin’, I was good friends with your granddaddy when he was alive. Sad way to go.”

Why the hell was he bringing up my granddad? It had hit my dad pretty hard when Nick died. Lung cancer wasn’t pretty. He fought it, but he’d smoked all his life, cigarettes, cigars, you name it.

“Were you? Is that how come you know so much about their shady operations?”

I looked up. If he knew my granddad, it might mean he was of the same generation or at least of a similar age. Did that bring me any closer to working out who he might be?

“Why yes.”

“Next you’re going to tell me, you partook in the girls as well.”

That awful laugh came again.

“Why, of course, darlin’. We all did.”

I shivered. So he was a sick fuck just like the rest of them. I wasn’t sure why I was even surprised. He had shown me all those sick videos after all. I had no idea why they’d even keep that type of evidence. It was incriminating. Maybe that was why. If any of them stepped out of line, they could be ruined by those videos.

The real question was, why did this man have them? Who was he?

“Good for you, just as despicable as the rest of them.”

“Perhaps I am.”

“Normal people don’t go around kidnapping women nor show them rape videos.”

“You’re right. I’m not a nice man darlin’.”

That bloody word again. I wanted to see his face so I could tell him to shut the fuck up and stop calling me his ‘darling’. I was no one’s fucking darling.

“Glad you realise that.”

“Neither is your Aiden.”

He was wrong. Aiden was nice to me when he wanted to be. He was trying anyway. I didn’t want him to change. I saw the good inside him.

“At least he doesn’t hide behind mirrors and robotic voices. He doesn’t apologise for who he is and I don’t expect him to be anything else.”

“Your loyalty to him is charming.”

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