Page 50 of Cruel Beginnings

The day everything fell apart. The day my new life began.

I was fourteen years old.

My father, digging a grave for Charlemagne before he was even dead. Burying him alive, as a warning for me. Throwing dirt on Charlemagne’s face. Charlemagne too weak to fight back. Rasping his final breaths, his dying eyes open and vacant. That was my own face staring up at the sky.

My mother, finally pushed to madness.Finally.Why did it take her so fucking long? What kind of vile, weak bitch stands by watching her children be murdered, one by one?

She shoved my father into the grave on top of Charlemagne’s twitching body. My father, climbed out, slowly, with a terrible look on his face.

It was when he was beating my mother to death that I made my move. I swung with the shovel and hit him in the head from behind. The world’s mightiest predator grunted in surprise and went down like a sack of potatoes.

Standing there, next to the pit holding Charlemagne’s dying body, I bound my father’s hands with my shirt, and his ankles with my pants, while he was still unconscious.

Good thing Daddy Dearest taught us all how to improvise.

I waited for him to wake up. There wouldn’t be any point in killing him while he was out.

When his eyes opened and he sucked in a panicked breath, I hacked at him with the shovel, knocking his teeth down his throat, crushing his face in. I broke his arms, I broke his legs, while he convulsed and screamed. He didn’t die bravely. He pissed and shit himself and begged for mercy while I mocked his weakness

I made it last.

I told him, again and again, why he wasn’t worthy to live.

He died gargling on his own blood.

My mother rasped out her final breaths a few minutes later. I stood there and stared at her, trying to feel something, because I thought I should feel some emotion at the death of my mother, even if she had been weak and cowardly. Nothing came.

I checked on Charlemagne. He wasn’t breathing any more. His eyes were wide open and unblinking.

And I trudged back to the house to free the only survivor of my father’s wrath.

She was weak then, nearly dead, but he hadn’t gotten around to finishing her off yet.

Elizabeth.

CHAPTERSEVENTEEN

JOSHUA

I snap back to reality, staring down at Tamara, who is crouching over the grate in the floor, glaring up at me with fear and hate.

“I’m not sorry,” she yells at me. “You’ll beat me and make me say I’m sorry, and I’ll say it because you’re hurting me, but it will never be true,Joshua Smith. I fucking hate you. I’ll hate you forever, and you’ll never be my master! Never!”

The feeling that surges through me… If I could feel love, I would love Tamara. She’s a fierce, magnificent animal. So worthy of me. So brave, even in the face of her terror, in the face of the awfulness that I’m about to inflict on her.

I stare down at her. My dick could cut diamonds now, it’s so hard.

“You forgot to say Master.” I grab her wrist. She tries to bite my hand as I pull her to her feet. “It wouldn’t have helped.” I drag her across the room and chain her to one of my racks. She’s squirming and swearing and fighting, and by the time I get her chained up, she’s already panting from exertion. I make sure to haul her up high, so she’s dangling on tiptoe.

“Be back in a little while, princess. By the way, did you know that the human body has a hundred billion neurons of nerve cells? And every square centimeter of your body has around two hundred pain receptors. I’m going to become intimate with every single one of them.”

I leave her and return to my office, where I sit down and start running a systems check on my perimeter alarms. I cannot find anything wrong with them. I’m going to order new alarm components and beef up the system immediately.

In the meantime, God help anyone who tries to enter my property.

And Tamara’s waiting.

I take my time heading back to the playroom. She flashes me a mingled look of fear, pain, and defiance when I walk through the door. I’m sure the muscles in her arms are screaming by now.

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