I shook my head. “Nous sommes les uns des autres.” We are each other’s.
Epilogue
*Q Mercer*
*Twenty years ago*
Silence was my friend. Always had been. Probably always will be.
Somehow, the air carried me, killing any noise I made, turning me into a shadow. I moved with stealth—a ghost—a phantom. Never a peep—never a sound.
My parents lost me for two days once, and I never left the house. I disappeared inside the huge, rambling mansion we called home, drifting from room to room. Stealing food from the kitchen and camping inside giant, unused fireplaces.
Secrets were hard to keep hidden from a silent, inquisitive eight-year-old. I saw the truth of what went on, and it made me sick to my stomach.
My mother knew, but did nothing, preferring Peach Snapps and Baileys to my father. And my father preferred slaves to his wife.
I was five when I first heard the screams. Guttural calls for help, full of distress and heartache, followed by a horrible groan of pleasure and ecstasy.
That was the first day I slipped into the forbidden room, and watched my father beat and rape a girl. Her ass blazed red as he pumped into her from behind.
My little heart raced. I knew I shouldn’t see this. I didn’t understand it. Something bad was happening, but I was too naïve to know. But, on some level, I knew exactly what it was.
My father hurt a woman who didn’t want to be hurt. She hadn’t been naughty like I was sometimes. All she did was cry and curl into a ball. Yet my father beat her with fists and whips. Enjoying her cries, he turned into a purple faced baboon with pleasure.
The scene scarred my brain for life, irrevocably changing me. I went out of my way to be kind and gentle to every living thing. The cook caught me, time and time again, feeding birds, mice, and other woodland creatures.
My mother fell more and more in love with fruity smelling alcohol, leaving me motherless, with a rambling drunk.
All while my father amassed a stable.
He already had a stable full of cars: Bugatti, Audi, Ferrari, and Porsches. He owned a barn full of thoroughbreds and world cup racers. But it wasn’t enough. He wanted humans. Girls. Possessions.
On my eighth birthday, he brought home his twelfth filly. She kicked and screamed, until he punched her so hard she passed out. A full wing of the house was barricaded for his new acquisitions. No member of staff was permitted.
But I knew secrets he didn’t. Hidden passageways in the walls—no lock could keep me out.
I watched from air ducting and wall cavities. My stomach twisted as I saw sick, foul acts committed against fragile women.
Rather than suffer boyhood excitement, a thrill of shame coated my life. I wallowed in guilt. My own flesh and blood ruined lives of others. Stealing their freedom and turning them into broken belongings.
I never loved my father, but day by day, my hatred for him grew. I hated that he’d created me. I wanted nothing to do with him. I wanted him gone.
On my thirteenth birthday, I broke into the stable while my father wasn’t there.
The girls all looked up with red-rimmed eyes and fright. I didn’t know why I went. To offer sympathy? Comfort? It seemed so stupid, standing there. I offered to bring them anything they wanted—to steal food from the kitchen, anything to take that hopelessness from their eyes. But they wailed and hid; running from a scrawny thirteen-year-old boy.
Their fear stank, and I couldn’t stand to be there any longer. But I owed them something, anything—it was my father who ruined them—it was my place to make it right. “Please. I don’t mean to hurt you.” My balls hadn’t dropped; my voice sounded as high as their whimpers for help.
Not one of the girls came near me that day, but I saw their bruises, the shadows under their eyes, the haunting emptiness in their souls. I couldn’t stay away.
The next day I returned and uttered the one word I swore I never would. The word my father used a lot. “Esclave, obey me.”
Immediately, the girls stiffened, dropping to their knees. All twelve bowed, long hair, all different colours, kissing the ground.
That was the day I learned the word broken. They were broken. Completely. And I couldn’t stand it. With one command, they were mine, and I hated their weakness as much as I hated my father for creating such miserable creatures.
I ordered, “Crawl to me.”
Sounds of skin rubbing against carpet as the circle of nak*d slaves obeyed.
“Stop.” They did. Immediately. Total obedience.
Standing in a circle of women, I made a vow. I would help them. No one should be broken beyond repair. No other human had the right to steal their life.
I would become their saviour, and rehabilitate them back to sanity.
* * * * *
Three years passed before I got hold of an untraceable gun. Boarding school in London allowed me to mingle with rich, bored kids with mean connections. Criminals hung around the wealthy like flies to rotten meat, and I took advantage.
I earned a reputation for being closed off and angry. When really, I plotted constantly how to bring my father to justice. My family’s reputation preceded him and people feared me. Feared my power, my own legacy of a ruthless tycoon.
I did nothing to disillusion them. Fear was a powerful weapon—I knew. I saw how fear ruled my father’s women.
Two weeks later, school holidays came around. I travelled home on the train, with my leather bound suitcase and a heavy black gun in my waist band.
I hated going home. There was nothing there for me. Only the undying need for vengeance.
My mother had died a year before from alcohol poisoning, leaving me vacant. She was my mother, but never paid attention to her only son. I wasn’t bourbon or Shiraz, therefore I wasn’t important.
Mrs. Sucre welcomed me home, and I holed away in my room, cleaning my new possession. Staring at shiny brass bullets, I welcomed anger and rage.
At two in the morning, I went hunting. Night was my father’s playtime hours. I knew where to find him.
I sneaked with the silence, fingers tight around the new purchase.
The whimpers of girls punched me in the chest. Soon. Soon you’ll be free. I knew they’d thank me for what I was about to do. My own sanity would thank me. Soon, I wouldn’t have to live with guilt that I allowed my father to continue hurting so many innocent women.
My father never heard a thing.
I sneaked right beside him while he f**ked a girl, holding her pigtails like handholds; his old man ass wobbling with every trust. My lips curled in distaste and I snarled. The girl’s tears set fire to my stomach.
I raised the gun, testing the weight. My hand was dry—not sweaty or nervous. My heart even and sure.
“Enjoy your last fuck, father. It’s the last you’ll ever do.”
My father, Mr. Quincy Mercer the First, stopped mid thrust, face bright red, jowls trembling.
“What are you doing in here, you little shit? Get out. I told you this part of the house was forbidden.”
Girls all around the room, tied up in horrible positions, started to cry. Some with their necks bound to ankles. Others hanging from the ceiling upside down. Tears flowed, but light slowly glowed in their eyes. Hunger, revenge, freedom, infected each like wildfire. Smashing the shackles of brokenness.
I didn’t say another word. What was there to say? I squeezed the trigger.
The red spray was a gruesome firework. My father’s brains splattered over the girl he still impaled on his cock.
She screamed and scrambled away, wiping her face with shaking hands.
The entire room rippled with darkness. I flexed my arms, standing in the centre, breathing deep.
My father’s rein was over. I was the new owner of the Mercer Empire. At sixteen, I inherited all his belongings, including the stable of women.
For a brief moment, my c*ck stiffened at the thought of carrying on my father’s legacy. It would be so easy to violate a girl who was bound, unable to move or stop me. I could lose my virginity to a slave. I could do whatever I wanted. A ruthless tycoon, just like my old man.
But as I stood, with my mind overflowing with darkness, I knew I could never walk that path.
I wanted it too damn much. I craved the feel of submission. I drooled for a woman sucking my c*ck under duress. I hated myself with vengeance.
I was my father’s son, after all. Somehow, the moment I killed him, his evilness shot into me. I wanted to put a bullet in my own brain as I knew I’d never be free from the monstrous urges.
Needing to run, I quickly freed the women and brought them clothes from my mother’s old things.
The girls accepted what I gave. Keeping their eyes downcast, mouths closed.
That night signified a new beginning. For all of us.
A year later, my rehabilitation of the twelve women was complete. Some girls left immediately after I freed them. I gave them money, and sent them back to loved ones. A few remained, needing psychological help. I admitted them to the local hospital, footing all the bills.
I didn’t need to lie how the girls became that way. Everyone knew my father and his sick tastes. He supplied many a sick f**k in the village with toys. Renting them out for thousands, not caring some never came back alive.
I’d been painted with the same brush, even though I resisted the beast inside. I wanted more than anything to keep those girls locked and chained, and subservient to my desires, but I never caved. Always fighting. Forever struggling.
The last girl to leave was a Sheik’s daughter. She’d been a gift for a lucrative property deal in the east. Captive for six years, she felt some sort of sick loyalty to me for freeing her.
The night before she left, she trapped me in my bedroom. The girls were allowed free reign of the house, slowly acclimatizing to freedom once again.
She closed the door, signifying what she wanted with one click of a lock.
I tried to refuse her. I tried to push her away. She didn’t owe me anything, most of all her body, but she took control, and made me do things my father would’ve been proud of. I lost my virginity, not in sweetness and tenderness, but with spanking and degradation.
The moment it was over, I loathed myself. I kicked her out, put her on my private plane, and sent her home. I couldn’t stand to see her. She reminded me how far I’d fallen. How alike I was to the one man I hated the most.
The following years were torture. I needed a release, but normal sex didn’t cut it. I needed violence to get off. I needed the feel of complete submission of ownership. My blood was tainted, and I’d never be free.
Then the bribes started. As I grew my father’s empire to worldwide domination, people wanted property favours. A building here. Special grants there. I had friends in powerful places and men gave me presents. My father’s reputation preceded once again, and instead of gift baskets, I received slaves.
It started slowly, one a year. Then two. Until, finally, I became the king of accepting trafficked women for a business deal. It cost a fortune to accept, and I didn’t touch a single one.
They arrived, broken, trembling, sometimes drugged, sometimes completely damaged. I became a father, brother, friend to them.
Most recovered, but others… some I couldn’t save.
I enlisted the help of the local police. Together, we worked tirelessly. They made me an exemplary citizen for my ‘charity’.