Page 12 of Cruel God

Piper placed his plate of food in front of him, and the way he stiffened, his eyes quickly darting up to her and then back down again, told me all I wanted to know. Mr. Riggs enjoyed little Piper far more than he wanted to last night. The way he stared at her with guilt that swathed his face, his eyes—I could practically smell Colton’s shame from across the table. If only he knew who she really was.

Damn, my love for playing games was making me itch with the need to tell him who the sweet little Piper was. But not today. Soon, perhaps.

“So, tell me a bit about yourself, Colton Riggs.” I kept my gaze on him as he took his knife and fork before looking straight at me.

“Aren’t you supposed to do background checks before you hire people?” He placed a fork of food into his mouth.

I grinned. “I usually do. Your employment happened rather…suddenly.”

“It did.” Colton leaned back into his chair. “Yet you don’t strike me as the kind of guy who would hire just any Joe on a whim. Makes me wonder exactly why you were so quick to offer me a job.”

Oh, this man was not to be underestimated; that much was clear. This might be more fun than I initially anticipated.

I shrugged before picking up my knife and fork, cutting into a piece of bacon before placing it in my mouth.

Colton never took his eyes off me while I chewed. The last time the air in the dining room had been this thick, heavy with tension was the day I had finally decided to challenge my father. For years, Victor Cain abused his place as a parent and used it to mold his only son into the kind of man equally evil. That was until the day I decided to take my father’s empire away from him. The day I decided thatshewould be mine forever.

Chapter 4

Past

It’s been weeks since my father made me do it. Days since he forced me to become what he was. A monster. A wicked beast with no regard for human life.

Ever since he decided I was old enough to know what the Cain legacy really stood for, he had been giving me test after test, telling me how I needed to complete specific tasks as part of this twisted initiation into the family business. Even though I hated most of it, I did it anyway. Mainly because the first time I told my father I wanted no part of this sick fucking empire he had built, I got my ass tied to a chair and was forced to watch a woman get beaten with a cat o’ nine tails. It was the kind of whip implemented for the most severe physical punishment used during the Napoleonic wars. The whip was made of nine knotted thongs of cotton cord, specifically designed to lacerate the skin. I bet when this torture device was invented, they didn’t have shit like hardcore sex in mind where men would beat women until they bled, and then squirt their cum all over the raw, gaping wounds on their backs.

I had to sit there and watch for what seemed like hours while a woman screamed and cried with every lash that struck her naked body. Tied up and hanging from a ceiling by her wrists meant she couldn’t run from the pain. She couldn’t try and dodge or get away from it. All she could do was hang there and anticipate the burning pain to erupt every few seconds.

Eventually, my screams drowned out hers. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I pissed myself twice and vomited when the woman’s blood eventually splattered on my face.

The woman died that day, right before my very eyes. The masked man who dealt the lashings ended up having too much fun, fucking her from behind, her blood smeared on the white T-shirt he wore. Eventually, he choked her to death. But it was only when her head lolled to the front, her lungs expelling the last bit of air left in her body, that he came—so hard, so violently, he bit into her shoulder through the flesh which would now soon start to rot.

That was the moment I soiled myself. A teenage boy sitting in his own piss and shit, covered with vomit and someone else’s blood. That was the day my mind broke. Everything inside me broke, and I realized there was no fighting my fate. There was no running from what was in my blood. Evil. And the sooner I accepted that, the better…for me.

After that day, I played along with my father’s initiation charade, doing as he demanded. My broken mind eventually mended itself, only now it was wired differently. Things I couldn’t stomach to see no longer affected me. Pain and suffering no longer had my gut feeling like concrete had been poured down my throat.

I didn’t like the things I was forced to witness, the things I had no choice but to endure. But I didn’t give a fuck about it either. I was numb. Indifferent to whatever the fuck my father threw my way. So, the day he informed me of my next task—I didn’t think much of it. I was convinced I had endured far worse. It didn’t keep me up the night before I was scheduled to perform this task, and I slept like a fucking baby, not the least bit intimidated by what my father expected of me.

But I. Was so. Fucking. Wrong.

Witnessing women get beaten and murdered, sold and tortured didn’t come close to the scar that one particular task had left me with. And now, days later, I still couldn’t take a breath without it hurting. Not because of any physical pain, but because I felt like I didn’t deserve it. I didn’t deserve to take a single breath. I didn’t deserve to fucking live. I was just like him. Victor Cain. The man who acted like the world’s greatest father when in fact, he was the world’s greatest dictator. The fucking antichrist.

I sauntered down the hall on my way to the room where my father always addressed the new “cargo.” But since he had been away on business, his little speech meant to intimidate and show everyone he was the king of this castle had been postponed. So, while we waited for him to grace us with his presence, the girls had their numbers tattooed on their wrists and prepped for training. It amazed me how strong a mindfuck it was for them, getting those numbers engraved on their skin. Each and every one of them left the tattoo room looking despondent and defeated, as if those numbers sucked the fight and life right out of them.

Pushing the double doors open, I walked into the large open room, my father already busy with his speech of bullshit.

His eyes caught mine, his irises flashing with contempt because I arrived late, not taking my place two steps behind him when he started. But I was too busy throwing up the croissant and scrambled eggs I had for breakfast to be on time. The reality of what I had done, the memories of what he made me do to prove that I was ready to dabble in the family business still fucking haunted me and tore my mind apart.

I took my place a few steps behind him, clutching my hands in front of me and craning my neck to look up at the painted ceiling. I didn’t want to see their faces. I didn’t want to look at any of them today. Why? Because she’d be there…unless she ended up being a wild one who got put down like a rabid dog.

“Do as you’re told, and you’ll come to no harm,” my father said with a fake tone of reassurance resonating from his voice. “Now, you’ll be taken back to your chambers to clean yourselves up. We have some special guests coming tonight, and I want you all to look your best.”

I breathed in deeply, praying it would be the end of the world before my father’s clients arrived for tonight’s auction, wearing the masks they thought could hide their depravities. But it was always in the eyes. The darkness. The vile intentions.

The sound of bare feet softly crossing the tiles had me look down and right into her eyes. I sucked in a breath, my stomach dropping to the soles of my feet. It felt like someone had thrown a thousand ice cubes over my face—my skin ice-cold, yet palms clammy.

Her eyes were the color of autumn leaves and acorns, her face the epitome of innocence and purity. But as my lungs struggled to expand while I kept her gaze, she did something that shook me to my core.

She smiled.

---