Chapter 35
THIRTY-FIVE
Mack
It’s early afternoon when Rory walks through the door, he looks tired but happy to be home. Before I can say anything to him, my phone rings and it’s Tye.
“Hey,” I answer as Rory gives a wave and then strolls into his room with his overnight bag.
“Have you heard from Sophie? I’ve been waiting at her building but she hasn’t shown up. I’ve phoned her but she hasn’t answered. I phoned the Clarendon but they said she left the same time as usual.”
“I haven’t bro, are you sure she hasn’t gone to lunch with Casey?” I ask, unconcerned.
“We made plans this morning, just like we made plans yesterday.”
“Yeah, but she went to lunch with Casey yesterday.”
“Yeah but she said she wasn’t going to today.” I can hear the panic begin to bubble under the surface of Tye’s voice. I look at my watch.
“It’s not been long since her shift finished, maybe she got stuck in traffic?” I say softly, trying to calm my younger brother down.
“Chester said her car is still in the parking lot, Mack. Why is her car still in the parking lot but she left the building almost an hour ago?” My stomach plunges into the same rising panic I can hear in my brother’s voice.
“Do you think it’s him? Do you think he took her to teach us a lesson?” Tye adds in a small, fearful voice.
My phone vibrates in my hand so I switch the call to speaker phone and click on the message.
It’s from our father. I open the text to see a photo of our Sophie from the side, naked, bent over with her hands and head locked in a wooden frame.
All it says is, “One hour. All of you come. You can dole out her punishment or we’ll do it for you. ”
I know Tye has received the same message as he’s shouting “Fuckkkkkkk!” down the phone.
“Flynn and Rory are here, we’re leaving this second. Meet you there?” I say urgently as I start moving in the direction of Rory’s room.
“Meet you there,” comes Tye’s rushed reply as I hear him running.
“Rory, Flynn, let’s go. My father has Sophie,” I yell at the top of my lungs. Both Rory and Flynn come out of their rooms in different states of undress, looking confused. “Shoes, let’s go!” I shout as I grab my keys, tear open the door and fly down the corridor calling up the lift.
My hands are sweating and my heart is pounding so hard I barely hear Rory ask, “What the fuck is going on?” I glance back to see he’s pulling a t-shirt over his head even as he hurries after me, shoes in his other hand.
Flynn’s awkwardly hopping behind as he tries to put his shoes on without stopping.
We bundle into the lift and I press the button five times before the doors start closing.
I hold up my phone and show them the photo of Sophie.
“You are about to meet our father. I’m sorry about this, guys, I didn’t want things to turn out like this.
I thought we were being smart, flying under the radar.
But of course we can’t keep anything from him.
” We get to the basement, run over to my BMW and it opens automatically.
We climb in, the tires screeching as I drive away before anyone has done their seatbelt up.
“Where are we going?” asks Flynn, a steel resolve in his voice.
“Home,” I reply as I speed over to Toorak as fast as possible. The thought of leaving Sophie with him any longer than necessary sends ice down my spine. My father cannot lay a finger on her, over my dead body will I allow that.
Twenty minutes later, we pull down my father’s drive to his estate and I’m relieved to see Tye has made it already.
He stands at the door, hands in tight fists as he rushes down the stairs to meet us.
We fly out of the car. “We made it in time,” he says as he gets to us but it’s not relief on his face, it’s just a statement.
We tear towards the door and bang our fists.
The large painted wooden door swings open and our father stands tall, the image of perfection, unfazed, with a hint of amusement in his eyes.
“What the fuck have you done to Sophie!?” spits Tye angrily as Flynn stands tall next to him. Flynn looks like a human wall and any normal person would be intimidated. But not my father, only he does the intimidating.
“You mean the whore who is paid to open her legs, the one who doesnt mind fucking two brothers and two members at the same time? The one downstairs awaiting her punishment?”
“Sophie is not a whore,” Tye grits out.
“Oh really, isn’t her job description the very definition of a whore? Why do you think I told you never to date one? Did I not make myself clear enough?”
“Father, why so much hatred towards sex workers when you run a club that sells them?”
“I don’t have hatred towards them. I have standards for my sons. You can use their services, you can fuck as many as you like in whichever capacity you desire. But that is it, that is where I draw the line. Rules are in place for a reason.”
“Mr Bently,” Rory begins. “We are all adults here. We can sit down and discuss the clauses in the members’ contracts and Sophie’s. Surely we don’t need to resort to any form of physical punishment?”
“Mr Glasson, respectfully, no. I drew up the contract, I made the rules and I decide the punishment. Sophie wants to keep her job, so has accepted her fate. You must now decide yours. You can keep your memberships, Rory, Flynn and Tyronne. And your job, Mackenzie, by turning around and walking away. You will stop seeing Sophie and leave her punishment today in my hands.”
“Father, we love Sophie,” says Tye defeatedly.
“You cannot.”
“We do,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Bad luck. That women will not have any part in our business or our family.”
“Disown us then,” I say flatly.
“And you, Tyrone? Do you feel the same way?”
“I choose her,” he spits out. “So take us to her.”
“First things first. Mr Glasson, Mr Finchley, would you like to walk away and keep your memberships at the Clarendon?”
“Never,” Flynn grunts out.
“I will never set a foot in there again,” agrees Rory.
“And Sophie?” asks Tye.
“She can keep her job if she goes through with her punishment. And she can keep you all too, seeing as none of you will be members or staff. Shall we proceed?” he says matter of factly.
No emotion, no regret, no sign in his expression or posture that his sons just asked for him to disown them over a woman.
“You said we could deliver her punishment. What is it that we need to do?” asks Rory tensely.
“We can discuss it inside.”
“Take us to her,” I rasp out low and cold.
I want nothing to do with this man ever again.
My father levels his cold hard eyes on me and nods, then turns and leads us down the corridor to a door to the right.
He opens the door and I know where our Sophie is.
It takes everything inside of me to walk down after my father and not push him down the stairs to get to her.
We get to the bottom and Tye rushes over to see our girl sobbing, her hands and her head trapped in a wooden frame, her whole body trembling in fear.
“What did you do to her?” Tye turns on our father.
“Nothing that she didn’t do herself. And no, I have not laid a finger on her. But you will. All of you will. This is the last time I ask you this. Would you like to dish out Sophie’s punishment, or would you like me and the owners to do it?
“You’re not going near her,” says Flynn, stepping in front of Sophie as Rory bends down, whispering in her ear and moving her hair away from her face and trying to dry her tears.
“Strip,” our father says simply. “Put your clothes over there,” he points to where Sophie’s clothes lay folded on top of a wooden chair.
“Why?” spits out Tye.
“Because this is now your punishment too, boy. You won’t leave her, so strip. Do as I say.”
“Or what? There are four of us, old guy,” bolsters Tye.
The lights in the room suddenly go out and Sophie begins to scream. “Turn the lights back on Father, this is not funny.” The lights go back on and Father glares at me.
“Did I say this was fun? I said this was punishment. Sophie has agreed to take hers and if you wish to continue seeing her, I suggest you take yours and deliver everything I say. Strip.”
I know what he’s doing, he’s stripping our dignity away from us.
This is nothing new. Our punishments growing up were on each other.
If Tye stepped out of line, I was punished.
If I stepped out of line, Tye was punished.
It was the most effective way he could keep us in line and Sophie is now in the firing line because she’s the person we care about the most. He wouldn’t care so much if Sophie was fucking the members, it’s us who have really disobeyed him.
Rory and Flynn look to me to see if we need to follow my father’s request. I close my eyes and nod.
Fighting my father is bigger than fighting the police, the bikies and god himself.
We need to do as he says and get Sophie as far away from him as possible.
He’s a man of his word, so I know he’ll disown us but as long as she has taken her punishment and we inflict it, he will leave all of us alone.
I just hope that we can all take what my father has in store for her.
Tye lifts his polo shirt up and, remorsefully, Flynn and Rory follow suit, we all take our clothes off and pile them on the chair.
My father walks to the end of the room and comes back towards us with a trolley.
On top of the trolley are a number of objects that come into view the closer he gets to us.
There is a paddle, a crop, a cane, a flogger, plugs of different sizes and lube.