Kage (Bonetti Brothers #3)

PROLOGUE

RAINA

The rules for women in our world are simple, but strict.

Rule #1 Your virginity is everything. Without it, you have no value.

Rule #2 Do as you’re told.

Rule #3 Women are to be seen and not heard. If your input is desired, it will be demanded of you.

I was only eight years old when I learned I had only one role, as a girl born into our organization. Once I reached legal age, I’d be married, granting my father money and power. Sold like livestock. One day, I’d be forced to hand over my virginity to a man I would have no choice in marrying, so that I could give him an heir. A man that would be like my Uncle Leo, and take what he wanted, without ever considering what it would do to me.

Leo would never take my virginity, I knew that, but he took everything else.

My innocence.

My heart.

My soul.

Leo is where all good things go to die. And every time he touched me, I wanted to die. I tried more than once, and that’s how I learned how to survive. The pain from the cut silences his voice. His touch. The harsh sting makes the demons lie dormant for a little while.

We are all born, and we all die. It’s the one guarantee in life. I’m not afraid of what waits for me after this life, because I was born into hell. It can’t be worse than this.

After building up the courage, I told my father what Leo had done to me. I was met with disbelief. Not his brother. I was branded as a liar in my own family. There’s something about not being believed that’s almost worse than the abuse. Worse than the feeling of his fingers on my skin. I had to prove it, and that’s what I was going to do.

I clutch the results of the lie detector test in my hands as my driver approaches my driveway. Now my father will believe me, and make him stop. A smile graces my lips as I walk inside my house, straight to my father’s office, joy filling me, knowing he’ll never touch me again.

I knock lightly on his closed door, waiting to open it until he yells for me to enter.

I swallow hard as Leo turns to leave, and stares at me with a smirk.

“Be a good girl, Principessa.”

I stand frozen as he walks around me, and I dig my nails into my wrist as hard as I can.

Relief.

It’s not until he closes the door that I’m able to breathe again. I blink fast, trying to stop the tears threatening to fall, as I step forward and place the, now wrinkled, paper on my father’s desk.

“What is this, Raina?” He asks, without looking away from his computer screen.

“Lie detector results.”

With an arched brow, his gaze snaps to mine.

“What?”

“This is proof that what I said about Uncle Leo is true.”

He sighs audibly, like I’m nothing more than an inconvenience, and nods to the chair in front of his desk.

“Sit.”

I do as I’m told, because I always do as he says. That is my role, after all, as a girl.

He doesn’t bother looking at the paper, instead he stares at me with disgust.

“Did he take your virginity?”

I shake my head no, because that’s the only thing he hasn’t taken from me.

“Good. Then we don’t have a problem. You’re a beautiful girl, Raina. Men will want you. I can’t blame him, really. As long as your virginity is intact for your future husband, there’s no issue.”

I lose the fight then, and the tears fall, but he doesn’t care. His words have proven the one thing I tried hard to forget. He doesn’t care about me. Like a cow bought to be sold for its meat, that’s my only worth. My vagina is the only part of me with any value. Of course, as long as it’s saved for my future husband that I don’t want.

“If I weren’t a virgin, I wouldn’t be forced to marry?”

My father narrows his gaze at me, clearly understanding my thought process.

“No, because dead girls don’t marry.”

The silence stretches between us, and he turns back to his computer.

“If there’s nothing else, I have work to do.”