Chapter 16 Cain
Fuck …
My whole body is trembling, and my breathing is uneven.
I should have taken her. I should have fucked her. Stripped her of every possibility of refusing me.
She thought she was in control tonight, that she could tempt me, make me falter.
Pathetic. She has no idea how close she came to completely unraveling me.
I will break her, claim every last part of her.
But it has to be her choice—she has to give herself to me willingly.
She has to surrender herself to me completely and without hesitation.
Letting the darkness consume her must be her decision, because only then will she never want to leave. Only then will she understand that there was never another path. That she was always meant to be mine.
I march away, heading to my office on the other side of the house. I press my finger against the biometric lock, and the door instantly unlocks.
I bolt to the whiskey stash, open my strongest scotch, pour it into the glass, and down it in one gulp.
How innocent she is. Fragile. Na?ve.
She mistakes my restraint for hesitation. She doesn’t realize that I am making this choice.
She doesn’t realize where my obsession with her can lead me. But that’s the beauty of it, right?
I sit in my chair and lean back, sinking into it, letting it envelop me, and exhale forcefully.
I can’t stop but think about what that piece of shit Torres mentioned. He made him do it? Who? No, it can’t be true. It’s easier to believe I am going crazy than to believe that he survived the explosion.
My eyes land on the Rubik’s Cube my mother gave me when I was just a boy.
Its colors have faded. They are no longer as vivid as they once were.
As a child, I loved the bright colors and couldn’t stop looking at them.
I carried it everywhere, holding it as if it were the most precious thing in the world.
Back then, its vibrant hues fascinated me.
It’s natural, since children are drawn to bright things.
But now, with time, the colors have faded, and somehow, they feel more fitting.
They’re hollow and worn, as if they’ve lost something they’ll never get back. Just like me.
I still can’t solve that little bastard, no matter how many years it’s been or how many times I’ve obsessed over it, trying to solve it for hours.
I still don’t understand what she wanted me to achieve. What’s the big deal with it? Yet I can’t stop the urge to take it into my hands and twist it again and again and again.
I don’t pay attention to it—I never did. I’m just twisting the cubes, losing myself in my thoughts.
There’s something hypnotizing about their sound. It takes me back to a time when things were innocent in my soul. Innocent, yet already scarred.
“Mom, I can’t solve it,” I sighed with boredom and indignation as I threw it on her bed.
She giggled softly and sat on the edge of the bed right next to me. “You need to be patient, Cain. You will get there.”
“Why do I have to do it?” I grumbled.
“You don’t have to do it, but imagine the satisfaction it’ll give you when you solve it.”
“But it’s so hard.”
“It is, baby. You need to learn to see ten moves ahead.” She smiled brightly, tilting her head forward, daring me to try again, her natural caramel-blonde long hair framing her lean face. “You’ll be surprised at how much your mind can achieve.”
“But aren’t I too young for that?” I felt the side of my upper lip hooking high.
“You’re ten already.” She smiled and stroked my baby face. “You’re already a young man.”
“That’s right!” I flexed my arm, showing off. “I am a man, and I will protect you!”
She chuckled brightly, her gray eyes squinting. She had such beautiful eyes. I had never seen eyes like hers on anyone until today.
“Then nothing can scare me when you’re next to me,” she said, playfully brushing her finger across the bridge of my nose.
A knock on the door sounded. She gasped in surprise, diverting her gray eyes to it. She said she wasn’t afraid. She lied. She was always scared. Just like me.
“Yes?” she barely mumbled.
The door opened. “May I bring you something else, Mrs. Ford?”
“No, Eleanor, I’m fine,” Mom said, a sigh of relief escaping her lips.
“Alright.” Eleanor grabbed the knob to close the door.
“Eleanor?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“I asked you to call me by my last name, not my husband’s.”
My eyes flitted between Mom and Eleanor, trying to understand why she had made that demand. Now, I know.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Manson. It won’t happen again,” Eleanor responded, folding her hands softly over her lower abdomen.
“Is my husband home?”
“Not yet.”
“Is …” Mom swallowed hard, struggling to speak his name. “Is Atticus here?”
Eleanor swallowed hard as well, her eyes penetrating me.
“He will be here soon,” she said. My heart skipped in fear again.
“Okay. You’re excused.”
Eleanor nodded softly and closed the door behind her.
“Mom,” I whispered hurriedly, feeling my eyes welling up.
“Shhh.” She extended her arms, inviting me to fall into them. I did. I jumped into her embrace, and she hugged me tightly.
“I’m scared,” I mumbled.
“Don’t be, honey,” she whispered, cradling me in her arms. “You will stay here tonight, okay? I will lock the door, and we’ll both stay in.”
“Do you think it will stop him?”
She pulled back and held my face in her hands, making me look at her. “I will protect you with everything I have.”
I cried inconsolably in her arms. I was scared. Terrified. But that night, she made her promise come true.
Atticus had been gone for days, dealing with the company’s filthy dealings.
I didn’t know what he was doing, but I do now.
He was sinking ships after insuring them, all to fill his pockets with blood money.
Lives shattered for a few extra coins. Innocent people lost in his hunt for wealth.
It was a twisted trick he’d taught my father, which is why my father held him in such high regard, handing over the entire company to him, even though it all belonged to my mother.
But my father was a master manipulator, convincing everyone that my mother was crazy and incapable of running her empire.
That is one reason I enjoyed setting this motherfucker on fire. Family … family means nothing. He wasn’t my family. None of them were.
My mom was right. I had to learn to think ten moves ahead. To be ten steps ahead of the enemy and, if necessary, everyone else. Mercy was a weakness, and hesitation was a death sentence. So, I buried both.
I became a predator, ruthless and cold. I didn’t just rise to the top. I crushed anyone who stood in my way. I learned that power isn’t given; it’s taken. Ripped from the hands of the ones who betray their own. And I took it all.
And yet, after everything, I still can’t solve that damn Rubik’s Cube.
My fingers spin the lines more frantically now.
I can feel it—something rising, something clawing its way up from the pit of my stomach.
My breathing turns sharp and labored as the memory of my mother twists and blackens, rotting into something darker.
Something cruel. It evolves into pain. Fear. Fury.
“Please, let me go,” I wailed desperately, tears flooding my childish eyes.
He didn’t even flinch at my plea. His cold eyes never wavered, staring down at me as if I were nothing more than an object. He leaned in, his voice low and taunting.
“Begging already?” He sneered, his lips curling into a sickening grin. “You really think I’m going to let you go just because you cry? I own you, remember?”
I still can’t believe how an eighteen-year-old boy could be so sick and sinister without an apparent reason. How could a young man’s mind be so toxic and disgusting?
I remember the sound of the chains as they clattered on the dust-covered ground of the cell where he kept me chained. This sound was different in my ears. It didn’t resemble the one I hear when I chain my victims now.
“I just want to go to my room,” I pleaded, my voice shaking with fear.
I took a few steps back, trying to avoid him. I knew there wasn’t any escape.
He raised his leather belt and slashed through the air, landing it across my shoulder blades. The pain was immense. Unbearable. Piercing. Consuming. I was just a fucking kid.
“Shut up! You’re such a filthy bastard that sneaked into our house, and you dare to claim what’s mine!” he barked, turning all red. He was furious again.
“Please, Atticus,” I cried.
The door opened, causing us both to look at it.
“Mr. Ford, your father wants to see you,” Grayson, our butler, said, folding his hands in front of him.
“Don’t you see that I am fucking busy, you idiot?” Atticus spat, widening his brown eyes to him.
Grayson knew. He knew how to treat that spoilt brat that made my life a living hell.
“He said it was urgent,” Grayson replied, his tone jaded, almost bored.
Atticus groaned and lowered the belt sharply. He walked away without sparing me a single look. That was good.
“Your time here is limited, fossil,” he hissed closer to Grayson’s ear. “I will make sure of that.” Grayson didn’t move. He didn’t flinch; he didn’t blink. He wasn’t afraid.
Atticus walked away and slammed the door behind him. Instantly, Grayson’s eyes filled with tears as he ran to me.
“Hey,” he breathed, trying to hold me. My body reacted instinctively, curling back, pulling deeper into myself, trembling in fear. “Don’t be afraid of me.”
“Will you let me go?” My voice could barely sound.
He nodded, his brows furrowed in worry. “Your mother sent me,” he whispered.
My cries grew sharper at the mention of her. She was the only one who understood—the only one who loved me.
I instantly trusted him the way I trusted my mother and jumped into his arms, burying myself in them.
“Why are you soaked?” he asked.
My lips trembled, and my eyes burned from the tears that emerged again, flooding my youthful red cheeks. “H-He tried to drown me.”
I heard his heart jump. Gently, he stroked my head, trying to soothe me. He did it. I started feeling calmer in his arms. More relaxed than I ever felt in my father’s.
I remember every single day of my childhood.
Every torturous second spent beside them, trapped in their suffocating presence.
Enduring. Waiting. Hoping they’d grow tired of me, bored of breaking me, that they’d finally stop.
But they never did. The cage would open, but freedom was a lie.
I’d retreat to my room, curl into myself, and cry, because that was all I could do. Cry and wait for it to start again.
I was only a kid. Just a fucking innocent kid covered in wounds.
Βleeding, breaking, barely breathing. Wounds that never truly healed only morphed into scars, carved into me like a mark I couldn’t erase.
Scars that corroded my soul from the inside out.
That twisted and poisoned my mind until I could no longer tell where the pain ended and I began.
Suddenly, a sharp pain sears through my palms. I didn’t realize how tightly I’d been gripping the cube until the pain jolts me back to reality.
My hands tremble as I remember the night everything begins.
The night the darkness first touched my soul and changed my world forever.
It isn’t just a memory anymore; it’s a scar in my mind, gnawing its way back to the surface.
Scars. Some scars are impossible to ignore. They are there, reminding you of who you once were. They claw at your consciousness, refusing to be forgotten.
However, some scars are a pleasure to carry. They remind you of the one person you desperately want by your side forever—a person who brings light to your darkness just by being there, close enough to touch.
I trace my fingers over the wound my knife left on my arm. It doesn’t hurt as much as it should.
K …
Kate?ina.
My Kate?ina.
Mine.
All mine.
The memory of her tear-filled eyes as I forced her hands to carve her name consumes my thoughts. The scent of her is still lingering in my mind. I can almost taste it.
I will take her.
I will devour her.
But I will do it when I decide. When there is nothing left of her except what I allow her to be.
And when that moment comes, when she finally shatters beneath me, she will understand.