by Sam Crescent
Axel got up.
“Is that it?” she asked. “You’re not going to impart more wisdom?”
“No. I just think you should realize that he wanted to kill you. Thought about it, talked about how he was going to deal with you, and yet he couldn’t go through with it. You’re still alive.”
“I was chained to a whipping post where he had his little friend hurt me and then did it himself.”
“Tillie’s not his friend. You were just a plaything. A bad girl needing to be taught a lesson. It’s the first one he’s ever given on the post, I admit. Usually, they’re made an example of somewhere else.”
“Forgive me for not giving a shit.”
Axel laughed. “It’s good it hasn’t broken you. I was worried that it would. I’ll be seeing you soon, Harper.”
She watched him go. For the past couple of days, she’d been watching a lot of people come and go out of her life.
Getting to her feet, she ignored the guard that followed her around, constantly watching her. She hated his eyes on her. She couldn’t help but be curious about what he’d do if she made a run for it. He held a gun.
If she couldn’t kill herself then maybe using the guards would be her best option.
It was a thought.
One she hated having and yet, it was there.
Moving from her spot near the house, she made her way out toward the whipping post. She would never forget where it was, set back from the house but close enough for one bedroom to see it.
This was Axel’s old home, and she had a feeling his old man liked to look out at the women who were chained up to it.
Touching the wood, she couldn’t help but flinch away, disgusted by what it represented. Moving away from the post, she figured a garden this size had to have some tools. It had to have something that could make her stop this. Even if she was the only woman to have been whipped on it since Hannah, that was still two women too many as far as she was concerned.
No other woman would ever know the bite of a whip while she drew breath, not when she could stop it. There’s no way she could ever let another woman down. So long as she could fight for them, she would, for all the men and women that had come before. She would never lead another to pain and misery.
She kept on walking the grounds, and when she finally found the toolshed, she cried out in victory.
An axe, a saw, and some cutting shears. They were all sharp and kept in pristine condition.
The guard didn’t stop her until she got to the post. As she held the axe in her hand, he stepped up.
“You need to go back home, Harper,” he said.
“No!”
She drew the blade down, cutting into the wood.
Over and over she kept on cutting, and when he tried to get near her, she lifted it up. “The only way you’re stopping me is if you shoot me. If you come any closer, I swear I will hurt you. I have nothing to lose right now. Think about what happened to the last guard who touched me.”
The man paled and took a step back.
He didn’t leave her alone, but he did grab his cell phone and start talking to someone. She went back to work, attacking the post, wanting it down.
She created a little gap in the wood with the axe, and she started to kick it.
Releasing a scream, she kept on screaming, and finally, after another few kicks and attacks with the axe, the post was down.
She heard clapping, and as she turned toward the sound, she was surprised to see Draven standing there, watching her.
She didn’t appreciate his clapping or his round of applause. He was the last person she wanted to see. Dropping the tools to the ground, she stepped up to him.
“I’m the last woman that will ever be whipped on that post. I will fight you. I’m not going to give up easily. One day, you will apologize to me, and when you do, you better hope I’m in a forgiving mood.”
She made her way back into the house and saw her father there, staring at her.
“What are you doing here?”
“Hannah told me what you were doing. I came to pick her up.”
“Will you stop her from visiting, please? I can’t handle all of that,” Harper said.
“She likes you.”
“Ian, I don’t want to get into this.”
“You stopped calling me Dad back then as well.”
Harper grabbed a bottle of water and rested her head against the door. “Will you help me get away?”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“Any dad would help their daughter in a situation like this. I don’t want to die. Not yet.”
“Not yet?”
“I’m not ready to die yet. I have stuff I want to do.”
“You sound a little like your mother.”
“Cool.”
There was a time it would hurt her to hear him say that. Ten years was a long time to get over it.
“When did you get so cold?”
“What do you want from me?” she asked.
“I’m trying here, Harper.”
“Trying? I know who you work for. I know what they’re capable of. I knew all those years ago, and yet you’re still here. You’re still working.”
“I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“Really! Did you not see the evidence of what they did to me on my back?”
“Harper…”
“Why did you work for them all those years ago?” she asked, changing the subject. “You didn’t always have a fancy house, or a huge income. I know you and Mom argued at times about money. I heard you. What changed?”
“You really want to know?”
“My life turned. I’m standing in front of you right here right now, and I think I have a right to know.”
“I got a job offer. Alan Barries needed me to get one of his guys off the hook. He offered me ten grand. It was what your mother needed for a new kitchen. Easy money. Something I could do as there was no evidence of murder. It was an open and shut case. I did the job, and I got the money and it started. Once I did one job, it was another. I couldn’t walk away. When you become part of this, there’s no walking away.”
“And Mom?”
“She begged me not to do it. She hated what it was doing to me. What it was turning me into.”
“She signed her own death sentence, and you went to Hannah,” Harper said.
“I was so sick and tired of hearing her moan, hearing her complain. I was earning good money, and she still wasn’t happy. Hannah, she never complained. She never made me feel like a piece of shit. I should have known Alan had set it all up for Hannah to be with me.” Ian laughed. “I should have known really. Your mother was incredibly beautiful. Like you are. You’ve got her hair and eyes. I should have known then that Draven would fall for you.”
“He hasn’t fallen for me.”
“Don’t be blind to his feelings.”
She laughed. “Are you crazy? He had me chained up and whipped not too long ago. He doesn’t have feelings for me, so stop trying to make yourself feel better by thinking it’s going to be okay. It’s not going to be okay, far from it. It’s going to be very fucking hard!” She stamped her foot.
“I know you don’t think he cares, but he does.”
“Is this what the deal is with you guys? You think hurting us is going to make us fall in love with you? Is that what you did to Mom?”
“I loved your mother so very much.”
“Not enough to stick around.”
She turned her back on him, looking into the sink, wishing for oblivion.
“Do you ever go and visit her grave?” she asked.
Harper didn’t know how he did it, considering she killed herself, but her mother had a resting place. Suicide was frowned upon, and yet there was still a place for her mother to lie. Knowing what she did now, she imagined a lot of money and threats helped.
“Sometimes.”
“Do you care for it?”
“I have someone who does it.”
<
br /> “Why don’t you?”
“Because as always, Harper, it’s too painful for me to go and see that. To go and see what I did. That’s why I don’t do it.”
She turned to look at her father and watched him. He looked genuinely remorseful. A face could say one thing and be thinking another. She’d been living her life for far too long with Ethan.
“I’ve got to go.”
Brushing past him, she didn’t stop to his calls, to anything. She kept on walking, needing to get away.
She went to Draven’s study and to his table of alcohol. The whiskey she picked up looked expensive, but from the house and his lifestyle, she guessed he could handle the expense of losing a costly bottle of alcohol. She went to leave, but a picture of Alan caught her attention.
Moving to the desk, she lifted it up, and sure enough, his smile was on display for all to see. Draven was there, and Axel, and Alan looked so fucking smug.
“I will win this. You may have ruined all evidence of that day, but I will win.”
She put his picture down, slamming his face to the desk, and wishing she’d done that ten years ago.
There was no satisfaction in destroying a picture.
With her bottle and glass, she went to her room, ignoring the guards that lurked everywhere once again.
Chapter Nine
Draven piled the wood high and set fire to the papers he’d placed in between, watching as the chemicals he sprayed all over to help with the flame lit up. Blowing out the match, he tossed it into the fire and stepped back, admiring his handiwork.
The whipping post should have been removed years ago, when he’d taken over. After he killed his father, five years ago, he’d taken control of all elements of the business. The whipping post simply didn’t register to him as a problem. He had more important things to deal with. He’d never gotten around to it. Each time he saw it, he thought about taking it down, and something would drag his attention away until it didn’t get done.
He spent a great deal of time wanting to get things done and never actually achieving it.
“This is a little too late,” Axel said.
Draven looked to his only surviving friend. Axel looked tired and worn out.
“Harper did this.”
“Are you going to punish her for it?”
“No, she saved me a job.”
Axel laughed. “That’s like Harper. Saving jobs for people. I take it she’s not a fan of the whipping post.”
“I doubt any woman is a fan of this post.” He stared at the flames watching them burn. Harper was proving to be a problem to him. She had spirit, no doubt about that.
“Did you conclude your business?” Axel asked.
“Yes. One of the girls in Tillie’s club was finally purchased. Her new Master is taking her for a brand-new life.”
“Is she going to end at the bottom of the river for it?”
Draven shook his head. “No. He wants to make a life with her and in turn, get her out of her servitude.”
Axel started chuckling, and it quickly turned into a full-on laugh. He listened to his best friend as he got more and more hysterical.
“I didn’t consider this much of a laughing matter.”
“You’re kidding, right? I don’t know if it’s Harper being here or if I’m finally waking up to what it is we’re fucking doing.”
“I’ve told you not to go there.”
“Go where? Go to the reality that we’re holding men and women’s lives in the palm of our hand. What if that chick didn’t want to go with her master? What if she wanted to stay in Tillie’s brothel, or better yet, what if she wanted to do neither and just go fucking home?”
“We don’t have the luxury of walking away or creating that kind of life.”
“Why not? I for one didn’t sign up for stealing girls and having them earn us money.” Axel stepped right up to him. “We were going to be better than this. You remember that, Draven? Remember when we promised each other a better life?”
“Times change. People change, and we can’t keep looking at the past, for fuck’s sake.”
“We’re too busy repeating our fathers’ mistakes, and one day we’re going to look in the mirror and be exactly like them.”
“We inherited their legacy, and we can’t turn our backs on it, not yet.”
“We helped them build this, Draven. Make no mistake about that. We’re the reason this is still standing while they’ve all been dead. You shouldn’t have put Harper on that damn post. We shouldn’t be doing anything like this.”
Draven said nothing.
This was not the first time, nor did he anticipate it would be the last that Axel had struggled with their reality, or at least, this part of their reality. Killing people, drugs, guns, controlling people in positions of power, Axel relished. Human trafficking, the sale of human flesh, Axel always had a problem with, but then, Axel’s father had been a cruel bastard and Draven knew when they were growing up, Axel saw a lot of bad shit that turned him against it.
“I’ve got to go away for a couple of days.”
“Why?”
“I’ve got business to attend of my own. You think you can keep Harper alive until I get back?” Axel asked.
“You know I can.”
“I don’t know if you’d decided to kill her for fun or something like that.”
“Axel, I’m not a monster.”
This time Axel did snort. “Keep telling yourself that. Maybe one day you’ll either believe it, or not. I’ve got to go.”
Axel walked away, and Draven watched the post burn until it was nothing more than embers. In his mind, he heard Harper’s screams, the sounds of her pleas as she begged them all to stop.
He’d ignored her, and they’d used her back for sport.
Stepping away from the embers, he made his way toward one of the guards, giving him the instruction to keep an eye on the fire.
Entering the kitchen, he saw Ian still in his home, nursing a cup.
“It’s coffee. You want one?”
“I thought you’d be back home by now.”
“It’s my turn to stay with Harper. I don’t want Hannah to know I’ve failed again.”
“Why would you fail?”
“Hannah stays with her during the whole of her time, regardless of if Harper even wants her here, and I end up leaving.”
“You and Harper still not getting along?”
“I doubt we ever will,” Ian said.
“She blames you for her mother.”
“She blames me for a lot of things I can’t control.” He sighed and ran a hand over his face. “Are you going to kill my little girl?”
“Are you going to stop me?” Draven asked.
“Don’t make me do this. Don’t make me choose.”
“I’m not going to make you choose, but I guess I already have my answer, and that is why Harper will never trust you. You’re too weak. She doesn’t deal with weak men. Only the strong.”
“I should have kept you away from her all those years ago.”
“You were too busy in Hannah’s pussy to even give a shit about Harper. You didn’t know what she was going through. How she was dealing or should I say, how she wasn’t dealing.”
“You just like to keep rubbing it in my face how bad of a father I am.”
“No, what I like to do is make sure the men near me take responsibility for their actions. You never do that. When it came to Harper, all you wanted her to be was a good girl. To not make waves. You wanted her to leave you alone.”
“That’s not true.”
“It’s why it was so easy to draw her in. To nurture that anger that’s always simmering beneath the surface. Harper at times looks weak and vulnerable, but that is because she is a tiger in waiting, ready to strike when she needs to.”
“And you’re the one that draws it out?” Ian asked.
“I’m the one that doesn’t try to keep the tiger at bay.”
“I’ve heard the men talk
ing, Draven. You intend to break her. How is that not keeping the tiger at bay if you intend to break her?”
Draven chuckled. “You should leave. Harper doesn’t want you here, and I certainly don’t. Get the fuck out of my house.”
“One day you’re going to have to deal with her. When that time comes, I hope you’re ready for the consequences.”
Draven was already leaving the room in search of Harper.
One of the guards let him know she’d headed upstairs. He went straight to his room and found her on the floor, leaning up against the bed, drinking from his expensive bottle of whiskey.
“Hello, Draven,” she said, holding up her glass.
He closed the door. She didn’t sound drunk yet, but it wouldn’t take much, not with this brand.
“Did you like my handiwork?” she asked.
“Yes.” He moved to sit beside her.
She put a hand close to her side and tutted. “This is for very special people. The kind that don’t order whips and stuff like that.” She laughed. “Whips. They hurt, you know.”
“I know.”
“Oh, that’s right. You were an abused little boy, and now you’re an abuser.” She forced out a laugh. “I guess you are like your father after all.”
He clenched his teeth together. One of the biggest insults he always faced was being compared to that man. He fucking hated Alan Barries, and he never, ever wanted to be referred to as his son.
She took a drink. “You know this stuff is nasty.”
“Why do you keep on drinking it?”
She found that incredibly funny. “It was only the good stuff that I knew would give me the total buzz I needed. I have to say, using an axe really does a number on the arms. I should totally work out using an axe. I’ll look like a badass bitch with cool arms.” She snorted.
He watched as she poured out another glass of whiskey, put the bottle down, and started to drink.
“It really is disgusting. It tastes like mold.”
“I’ve got better drinks.”
“This one is fine.” She shrugged. “I can’t be choosy in my choice of oblivion. It just has to get the job done.”
“And why do you want oblivion?” he asked.
“Why not? I mean, seriously, look around you. I was taken from my old life and forced out of it by your dad. It didn’t end there. Your father controlled me. He made me do things to satisfy his own ends. I had to take innocent people away from their lives and force them into servitude. To pose and to act all because of him. Yeah, yeah, I know, you totally don’t believe me. That’s fine. I don’t care. Then I went to my new life, and I’ve been living it the way I have to. Axel being the knight he is, comes and completely takes me from my life and tries to ruin me. I mean, that whipping post was not fun and games, you know. I guess a lot of people love being on the end of a whip, but not me. My back is killing me.” She took another drink, and he watched her.