AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I felt Jack’s hands on me and I fought to kick him away, but when the knife moved across my throat, I stopped struggling as I looked up into my mother’s eyes for help. I could only see cold, heartless eyes looking back at me.
“Off you go,” she said through gritted teeth.
I felt my body shake with fear as Jack hauled me out of the house and down the path to the car waiting. I screamed out for my father and for anyone to save me but no one came. I looked back just as Jack opened the back door to my father being pulled back inside the house before my mother closed the door. Jack shoved me in the back of the car and got in the front to drive. I turned to see the man I knew as Zane in the back seat with me.
“Hello princess,” he said, patting the seat next to him. “Why don’t you slide on over here?”
I didn’t, and he chuckled softly. “That’s okay, we’ll have plenty of time to get acquainted.”
I looked out the window, my tears running down my cheeks freely as I sat on the seat, watching my world go past.
The car pulled up at the docks and fear set in all over again. They were sending me away? Zane got out of the car with Jack and he moved around to my side.
“Don’t get out,” Zane said, his voice darker than I could comprehend. Jack stood on the other side of the car, his back to me. I looked back up at Zane and saw him undoing his pants.
“This won’t take long,” he said as he pulled me out of the car and shoved me back in so my stomach was on the seat. I couldn’t move. I was frozen as he pulled my skirt up.
“No,” I screamed, wiping away the tears in my eyes as I blocked the memory of what happened to me. “No, it wasn’t Zane. It was Jack who did that to me.”
Percy realized what I must have remembered and he looked at me with sadness. “I’m sorry you had to relive that.”
“How could I not remember that?”
“When I rescued you, I called your dad and told him to meet me at the dock. He did, and he took you home but he did something ingenious. He told the papers about it. You were all over the front pages as being rescued from pirates at sea. They knew they couldn’t send you back there, the operation would be at risk, so they kept you hidden, saying you were at a fancy school.”
“But I was?”
“No, darlin’, you weren’t. They kept you locked up in my father’s house, and brainwashed you to remember what they wanted you to remember. They implanted ideas of who did what to you to make you their puppet.”
“Oh my god,” I said, realization finally dawning on me. “I became the lover of my rapist. I willingly gave my body to him.”
Percy nodded. “I didn’t work that out until later but yes. I didn’t know Zane was behind it all until a year or so ago. I thought it was Jack but he was too foolish to command that part of the operation. I should have seen it earlier. Zane always gets what he wants and he wanted you from the time you started to mature. He made that damn clear to your mother.”
“What?”
“Your mother would have done anything for him. She loved Zane but she knew that when she got older and frumpy, he wouldn’t want to be with her anymore. The only way she could stay in his inner circle and have his devotion was by giving him the one thing she had. You.”
No, I was a strong woman, I knew I had made my own decisions.
“The one thing Zane couldn’t control about you was your spirit,” he continued. “He could never truly break you into what he wanted. A slave. So he pretended to be your boyfriend, keep you on the hook but you never fell for his bullshit. You never loved him and that killed him inside.”
I’d sworn after my ordeal that no man would ever lay a hand on my heart. But Halen had it. I loved that man more than my own life, and I’d never felt that way about anybody before.
“Does Halen know any of this?” I asked him.
Percy shook his head. “No, he’s been trying to figure out the operation along with me. If he’d known, he would have murdered Zane and my father by now.”
“Why didn’t you tell him what you knew?”
“Because I didn’t want him to be killed in the process.”
I nodded, realizing that would have been the case and I’d never had met the man. The very thought sent chills down my spine. I heard footsteps above me, and looked up and then at Percy.
“I guess they’re finally heading off.”
It was at that moment I heard a motor boat hum to life outside but the room we were in had no window.
“They can’t just leave us here to rot,” I proclaimed.
