1. I Felt Nothing
I FELT NOTHING
Dorset, England
Hell is home.
Mum walks out of the formal living room, where she orders me to stay. I’ve only been back a week at the countryside manor after graduating from Cambridge, and already she can’t stand the sight of me.
I refrain from shouting, “I’m not here for you, old bag. I’m here for Tessa.” If they’d stop forcing her home during the summer, I’d never return. Katessa has to wait until she turns twenty-one, like I did, to gain full control over her trust, which means our parents can hold it over her head.
If only Tessa had told me she accepted an internship for the summer. I’m shocked Mum allowed it. They like to hold her hostage during breaks. I hate it when she’s here. Here is bad. Here, I can’t look after her. Here, I never know if she’s safe from the twisted games our parents play.
The last fatal event happened when I was twelve. Tessa was ten.
We were dressed up like Rococo dolls, Mummy’s preferred costumes for us. Our parents were hosting one of their infamous swinger parties.
I shouldn’t have known what that meant at only twelve years old. Tessa was confused. I told her adult stuff happened at these parties, and it was better for her not to know what went on behind closed doors—or in the dining hall after we went to bed.
We never witnessed the debauchery. We only served the guests drinks and hors d'oeuvres before the sit-down dinner and evening festivities.
My parents were sick people with sick high-society friends. The staff they hired, who turned a blind eye for the money, were just as bad.
I hated walking around with a tray as both women and men eye-fucked me, but mostly I hated that Tessa had been forced to join me for the first time. She was sweet and innocent and deserved better. We both did.
That night changed everything for my family, mostly for Tessa and me. I don’t regret what I did. I’d do it again to protect my little sister.
I wouldn’t say I was a calm child by nature. I acted calm, but on the inside, black rage had been building like molten pressure in a volcano.
Ten minutes before we were allowed to go to bed—at which time we were locked in our rooms in the west wing of the manor—Tessa went missing.
The party guests always stayed in the east wing. This night had been a particularly handsy bunch. I’d had my backside brushed more times than ever. I assumed the same was happening to Tessa and kept a close eye on her. I disappeared for a minute to refill my tray, and she vanished.
My pulse surged as I set down the tray and searched for her, checking every corner, hallway, bathroom, and alcove until I found her.
An old man—in his fifties, I’d guess—had her trapped on a writing desk in a small study that no one ever went in.
His body was wedged between her little legs.
Her face was turned away as she cried and beat her tiny fists against the fat bastard kissing her neck.
The entire room turned red as that black rage took over.
Adrenaline and hate mixed inside me, a potent brew.
I grabbed the nearest lamp and smashed him over the head with the heavy gold base.
The man fell sideways, landing on the floor with a grunt.
Before he could look back at me, I smashed his head again and again and again.
My muscles strained as I hit him with all my might.
Blood splattered the desk, my body, and my sister.
She screamed, or maybe she’d been screaming.
The man curled into a ball, but I didn’t stop.
I continued to bash his head until the shape was unrecognizable, and his gray hair was stained with blood.
“Stop!” Tessa wailed. “Stop, Wes. Stop.” Her words turned into sobs.
I let the lamp fall to the floor. It landed with a heavy thud.
The lampshade was gone, the bulb too. Breathing heavily, I lifted my blood-stained hands and turned them over.
Shards of glass jutted from my palms. I couldn’t feel any pain.
I felt nothing, and when my gaze strayed to the rotter on the floor, I had zero remorse for what I did.
The man wasn’t found until the next morning.
My parents didn’t even know what happened to Tessa.
I carried her to her bedroom. A maid saw us and helped.
She bathed Tessa and told me to go clean myself.
She didn’t ask for details, only if Tessa had been sexually assaulted—more words I shouldn’t have known at twelve.
Her knickers were still on when I helped her down from the desk.
That led me to believe she hadn’t been assaulted sexually, only her shirt had been ripped. I’d gotten there in time.
I slept in Tessa’s bedroom that night on the couch near the fireplace.
The maid explained what happened to my Mum the next morning, and was fired.
Tessa was sent to an all-girls boarding school, and I was sent to Eton.
I never came home unless Tessa was here for the summer.
I preferred she stayed away, but if my parents summoned Tessa to the manor, then you bet your arse I was there to watch over her.
My father’s deep voice rumbles from out in the hallway, drawing me from my thoughts.
My hands curl into fists. I’ve been dying to punch that man in the face.
Whenever I fight, I imagine my opponent is my dad and brutally win every match.
Underground fighting became my solace the first year I was sent away.
Fighting is how I appease the inferno of rage that came alive in me, like a demon, the night when I beat that fat fuck to death.
“You can leave now, Eleanor,” Dad instructs. “You did what I needed you to do. Off with you.”
“Make him stop, Nicholas, or I’ll have him arrested for what he did to poor Lord Hamilton,” Mom whines the way she has for years about this. “No mother should have to suffer as I have. He’s a monster.”
That’s it. I stand and stalk to the open doorway. “I’m the monster? What about you? I saved your daughter. You fed her up like a fucking dessert to your sick friends to feed your twisted desires.” I glare at her, then at my father. “Both of you should be in jail.”
Instead of tears filling Mum’s eyes, hatred darkens the gray color. “You’ve disgusted me since the day you were born. Soon, I won’t have to worry about you anymore.” She dusts her hands and turns on her heels, walking away with her nose in the air.
I clap. “There you have it. Lady Hale at her finest. Mother of the year.”
Dad smacks my hands down and gets in my face. His round cheeks are ruddy with anger. “I’ve had enough of you,” he spits when he talks. “If it weren’t for me, you’d be in jail.”
“And you with me.” If I go, they go too. I told them as much when Lord Hamilton was found dead in the study the next day. I bargained boarding school for me and Tessa. It was the only way I’d keep quiet. I had no problem going to jail. They, however, would have died.
Dad mostly hates me because he can’t take away the trust fund I inherited on my twenty-first birthday. It was set up through the ancestral peerage for the firstborn son and has been passed down this way for centuries. It’s indestructible.
Dad stares down his nose at me. “For years, we’ve been cleaning up the mess you made that night. There were witnesses.”
“Guests!” I state. “Your disgusting guests. That’s who saw. What can they do? I’ll take them down with me, and they know it.” In truth, I don’t know who those people were. My parents didn’t keep a record of the guests at their parties, and I never had to attend another one after that night.
I pray he hits me. The moment he does, I will beat him to a pulp. Age, drinking, and a poor lifestyle have made him plump and sloppy. There was a time when I feared him, but those days are long gone.
“It’s only because of the people I know that you’re not rotting in jail.”
“This conversation is getting old, Father.” I step around him.
“I didn’t summon you here to let you walk out with your trust fund.”
I swing around. “Don’t worry, Father. I have no plans to take your beloved estate. This place holds nothing but bad memories for me.”
“For me, as well.”
Something is off. He’s too calm. Mum wanted me here for a reason. She made me think Tessa was coming home for the summer. She might be the reason Tessa didn’t tell me she wasn’t. My sister didn’t forget like Mum said. She wouldn’t.
I stop and tilt my head to the side, studying the twisted man who never knew how to be a father. “What are you playing at?”
My dad loves games.
His blue eyes tighten in a scheming way. “I understand you still participate in illegal fighting.”
And here it is. “I do.”
“How about a bet?”
I fold my arms and raise my brows.
He walks slowly toward me. “If you’re as good as you believe, this should be easy.
One match with a man I’ve hand-selected for you.
If you win, I drop the murder topic, never bring it up again, and promise to keep all knowledge of it sealed, even what happened to your sister.
You know how desperately she wants to keep that from the public. ”
The fucker.
“And if I lose?” It won’t happen. I haven’t lost a fight in two years.
Only one person is good enough to match my strength and speed, but he could never match my rage.
My best friend, Lachlan. Neither of us are dumb enough to fight each other, nor do we feel the need to unless it’s to spar.
Fighting other people together in and out of the ring, however, is something we’re not against.
“If you lose,” my father says, drawing closer, his face smug. “You give control of your inheritance to me. I can’t keep you from getting your title when I die, but I can assure you’re left with nothing.”
I don’t know what the man he wants me to fight looks like physically.
He might be older, but I have agility and youth on my side.
I have years of practice and training. I’ll also protect my sister in any way possible.
I’m the only person in this family who ever has.
She’s come a long way since the assault.
She’s smart and has friends. If a story about her past made the news and social media, it would kill her.
I don’t trust my parents not to use her to hurt me.
“I’ll need you to sign an NDA about what happened to Tessa. You and Mum.” Lachlan’s family has a lot of connections and a family barrister they trust. I’ll have him make sure the NDA is ironclad.
“No problem,” Dad says as if he has nothing to worry about.
The man can bluff along with the best of them.
He’s never seen me fight, unless he’s had spies follow me.
He could have. The best he could do with that information is find me a worthy opponent.
I’ve fought older men, military men, karate masters, and the scariest motherfuckers you’ve ever seen.
I’ve had my ass handed to me many times, but I always win because I’m unpredictable, changing my tactics with each fight.
I have a rage-demon that lives inside, and lastly, because I’m not afraid to die.
I’ve gone as far as setting up protection for Tessa through Lachlan, should I ever lose a battle and my life.
So unless the man my father chose to fight me wants to die, I’ll walk away the victor.