Page 7 of Be My Sinner

“Do we have any new leads, or are we still calling them a ghost?” I throw my shirt over my head and mask my grin within its confines before my head pops back out of the opening, and my face becomes the practiced mask that I wear around my bat-shit, power-hungry father. I immensely enjoy knowing that some guy out there has decided that killing the Founding Fathers and their heirs is his lot in life.Shit, I would applaud him if I could.The only problem I see with it is, that Zeke and I, are Founding Fathers’ heirs, and I have zero fucking desire to die.

“Nothing. Whoever this is, he’s smooth, careful, and trained. He knows how to avoid detection until it’s too late, and ensures that the founder’s bodies are found in distasteful and abhorrent ways, while also guaranteeing none from the founders’ line can take his place. This is a trained killer, a psychopath. One that is actively pursuing founding families and determined to wipe us from the goddamn earth,” Noah replies angrily, his body tense and that ugly vein in his forehead throbbing.

“Obviously, he’s punishing the founders for some wrong he or his family has suffered,” I smirk at my father and watch as his lip curls in disgust he can’t seem to hide. It’s too fucking bad for my good old dad that my mom was only able to birth one legitimate heir for him. I’m sure I’d find myself at the bottom of an ocean if he had any other male child. Unfortunately for him, the Brotherhood requires heirs to be leaders of the male species only, and while I am sure I have some illegitimate sisters out there somewhere, I have no brothers.

“No one is above the righteousness of the Order, Abraham. We cannot have demented assholes out there stirring an uprising, and taking it upon themselves to call our good founders home to God’s gates.” He sighs, and I watch as the toe of his pristine, shiny black shoe presses against the girl’s cheek, her mouth still open in a garish scream. From this angle, it almost looks like he wants her to lick his shoe or shove the whole thing in her mouth. I wouldn’t put it past him to be into some fucked kinky shit.I’m the kettle calling the pot black, though.

“Yeah, yeah. The righteousness of the Order. God is on our side, always. We do his good work, don’t we, Dad?” I button up my pants and meet Zeke’s eyes with their warning glare. I can tell just from his tight expression he wants me to tone it down, and not give my father a reason to punish me. Something he happens to enjoy doing immensely.

“You two will work together with Emmanuel to try to find thisghostand eliminate them, Abraham. It is your duty as my son and as God’s child. You will be the avenging arm of the Lord. Bring this heathen to penance before the Order.“ He turns on his heels with one last look at the whore’s pussy and stalks out of the room, with Noah on his heels and the security team making a hasty exit behind them.

Zeke blows a kiss to the gawking fucker, who bangs into the guy in front of him in his hurry to get out of the room and as far away from us as possible.

“Fuck this shit. I have no desire to hunt this fucker down.” I grab the bottle of whiskey off the coffee table and down a huge gulp. The burn making its way to my stomach is a welcome relief after having to deal with my cunt of a father.

“You’d rather they make an attempt on our lives?” Zeke questions, grabbing the bottle from my hand and taking his own large swallow.

“Let them try.”

Chapter 5

The Sinner

Dinah

Afewdayslater.

My mother’s every movement was watched, dissected, controlled, and suppressed. Until she was nothing but a fly in a cunning and ruthless spider’s web, waiting to die. Like so many women forced and later born into this fucked-up world.

Handed over ruthlessly to the Order as a vivid lesson to the other families of the Brotherhood. An example to the other wives and children, so they could see what would happen if the patriarch of your family betrayed the Brotherhood. Death would have been a mercy, so of course, they denied it.

My family’s name and misdeeds became the boogeyman story in your waking and sleeping nightmares. Whispers to your mind of terrors unseen. Ones that they don’t want you to wake up from because they enjoy the dread they inflict. It keeps you pliable, broken, and shaken to your core, no longer knowing which way is up and allowing them to control the very air you breathe.

My father’s body was never found, at least not in one piece. The videos they made me watch forced me to bear witness to our heavy fall from grace. The same ones they made my mother and brother watch assured us there was no way he could have survived the sadistic and painful retribution the Order demanded for his sins—the repentance they demanded with a heavy fist around his throat and a sharp blade in his side.

“The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.”

The sins of doubt. The sins of free thought and betrayal. Of all the sins to commit, my father chose the ones that would not only damn his soul but those of his whole family. The Brotherhood is not made of understanding or forgiveness. No, they are demons and vipers wrapped in flesh.

I was forced, chained to a chair, to watch for hours and then days on repeat, as they cut pieces off of him through a video feed. As he repented his sins, calling out in agony for a God who would not answer and left him to their demonic hands.

With every excruciating, painful cut, they made another strike against my own tarnished, weary, and young soul. His blood-curdling screams, which I still hear anytime I close my eyes, haunt me. Their pitiful sound, never dampening, has become the lullaby I hear at night. One that I now crave the sound of, just in another context.

One sin after another, extracted from his skin until finally the screams stopped, and there was nothing but a broken, bleeding mess left behind.Red. All that was left of the father I once loved was red.

My family’s legacy is weakness, betrayal, destruction, and sins. A great founding name and house brought low by the sins of the father, that must be taken out of the lives of the wife and children. That is how the Order maintains control and suppresses revolution and free thinking. None of that is allowed in this world anymore.

It’s also how they created the monster that I have become. The one who has become addicted to the taste of blood and retribution. The one determined to take everything that they hold dear and burn it from the inside out.

They named my family terrors in the night, a cautionary tale. Made us boogeymen, and so I have become one. Now, I stalk their waking and sleeping thoughts. Terrorize them with fears of where I will strike next. Who is the deadly ghost? Where did I come from? Who will be my next victim, and why?

No one is safe now from my blade or my unrelenting vengeance. The need to spill their blood is all demanding.Red. I will paint this world red, and when I’m done, there will be no absolution. No angels to welcome them home, and no forgiveness from a divine God.

Like Moses once saw plagues ravage the Egyptians, I shall be the plague of the Order. They should have let my family go, or murdered us all simultaneously. Now, they will suffer the consequences of not doing so, one painful inch at a time, until there is nothing left standing, and like a plague, I have ravaged them to their very core. Destroyed all they have held dear and given this world a cleansing.

By fire. By blood. By hate.

Mercy is a word I no longer know and is a plea that falls on a murderer’s ears, just like mine did so long ago. I have given my soul to the devil, and in his appreciation, he has welcomed my deeds with open arms.

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