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His eyebrow rose in what looked to be surprise, but faded as rage took the prominent role. “Who do you think you’re talking to? You think you know me?”
The stranger was on me so fast, I didn’t have time to prepare myself. Panic and visions of the attack from my rapists surged to the forefront and my arms were already swinging.
“Get off!” I screamed, planting my palm against his cheek to push his face further from mine. My feet kicked as I was picked up and spun toward the bed. It only had me struggling even harder.
“Fight all you want. It’s not going to change your situation. You’re mine now, Lily, and you’re going to learn my rules real fast.” I was rotated and put across his lap, stomach down, like a child. The robe was lifted and I tried to twist in his grasp. Pressure from his forearm pushed into the middle of my back, leaving me rooted to his thighs. My toes searched for some sort of leverage, but I was too short to reach the floor.
“You’ll learn these rules and obey my commands or else you’re not going to like what happens when you fuck up. I can’t have you disobeying here. I may have a hell of a lot of pull, but I won’t be around at all times. If you don’t want something worse happening to you, you’ll do as I say.”
Whack! Heat scorched my ass and my head flew up, both from the pain and his words. “Rule one. Simplest rule of them all. Obey every single command I give you. I don’t care what it is. Your life depends on it. Understood?”
My life…was it really my life anymore?
Whack! Whack! Whack!
The last had me sobbing.
“I said, understood? You better hope this time you answer.”
I nodded, a cry breaking through as fatigue kicked in full force. “I’ll only obey your commands on how to act. Anything else…” It was almost impossible to swallow past the lump in my throat.
“You’ll obey everything,” he stressed. “No matter what that is.” Whack! “Rule two. I’ll provide a wrap. You are to cover your face outside of this room from here on out. Within these walls is a world you can’t even imagine. No one is to know what you look like. If they’ve already seen you, I want the memory to fade. Rape, Lily. Use that as your reason to conceal. You’re too beautiful, not pretty, but beautiful,” he emphasized, “and I don’t want you catching anyone’s attention. Do you hear me? This is for your safety. Agree.”
Whack!
Rape. I was nodding before he even finished.
“Last rule and just as important as the first.” I was spun over, the robe pooling in my lap as he settled me to sit on my throbbing ass. “Never lie to me. Ever. About anything. Fear of admission will fail in comparison to the punishment of a lie.” His fingers gripped my cheek, his thumb pushing in to angle my face toward him. “Now, answer my questions honestly. How old are you?”
I sniffled past the tears that involuntarily came. “Nineteen.”
“Young,” he breathed out. “But not as young as I thought. Did they rape you before you were brought over?”
My body stiffened and I couldn’t stop the caving of my shoulders as the tears grew heavier. He didn’t appear to need my answer to know the truth.
“Were you a virgin? Did they use protection?”
All I could do was fight to catch my breath. I wasn’t sure why he cared or where the sudden softness of his tone had come from, but I clung to it in hopes that I could change his mind on helping me escape. “Yes, to both.”
“How many men hurt you?”
The tick in his jaw tightening off and on had my brain kicking back to attention. The memory made me shudder. “Four. They…took turns.”
Slowly, his head nodded and he licked his lips as he kept his stare fixed on mine. “You may not want this, but it’s done. We are each other’s and the only way around that is death on one of our parts. To give you away is an insult to my father. As much as I hate him, you’re safer with me.” His hand hesitantly came forward, tucking my hair behind my ear. “I’ve never had anything belong to me before. Or anyone,” he said, moving in closer. “For you, my gift, I’ll find out who your rapists were and I will kill them. You’re mine now. Nobody hurts what’s mine. You’re going to learn that very fast. Unfortunately, you’re going to learn a lot of other things you’re not going to like.”
And I had. My master was both kind and cruel. A lethal combination for the girl looking for a hero and the woman I’d been forced to become.
Chapter 1
Zain
“Did you think I’d let you get away with what you’ve done? All those girls, dead, broken.”
The smell of sweat, sex, and expensive liquor assaulted my senses, making the hate I had for my uncle come to a boiling point in my veins. My fist tightened in his hair and I pushed the tip of the angled blade deeper into the top of his neck. He was silent, but I didn’t expect him to beg for his life. He had too much pride for that. Instead, a grunt followed as he turned his body to try to break my hold.
“Your father will know it was you. You won’t get away with this. He’ll kill you like he did your whore mother.”
Blood soaked into the collar of his robe and I pushed in deeper. He spoke Arabic. I refused to in the moment. English had always been my primary and although I could speak four different languages, I stuck to what spoke of home. Of America. A land that had been stolen from me at the tender age of eight. Stolen, kidnapped to live with my real father. Not the one my mother had married and tried to pass off as my dad. Maybe I’d always known Jeff wasn’t my blood, but I loved him as if he had been. Their deaths had broken my childhood. Turned me from an innocent little boy into an angry kid who longed for revenge. My rebirth landed me in years of beatings and training. I took everything, embraced the evil man I’d been made into, letting the horrors I saw become ammunition for the day I could put an end to it all.
