I land on the page with another young girl, and pause. I stare at her without reading the passage, knowing what truth I’ll find in there.
Magdalena
I bought her for a high price. She came to me pure and untouched, having been taken away from a well-known family with generational wealth.
She was fifteen, slightly older than what I preferred, but her allure could not be questioned.
Far from perfect, she fought me every time and never came to me willingly, no matter how much I hurt or beat her up. The little bitch screamed and cried out that someday her father would save her.
It earned her only my laughter, for how could he if he thought she were dead?
She might have struggled and had an admirable spirit, but spirits could be killed—and that’s what happened when she got pregnant.
She’ll give me the perfect little son to bear my name, and he won’t have a single Wright blood cell in his system.
And just in time, too, as operating my business becomes harder and harder with Lachlan Scott and his fucking friends killing my business acquaintances left and right. Destroying my carefully laid plans.
I know once he finds me, he won’t show me mercy. He will kill me, so I have to go under.
When Magdalena delivers a healthy baby boy…I’ll burn this mansion to the ground with Orion and the staff who never showed me an ounce of respect, placing my dead, stupid wife on the pedestal. So they can all burn in hell.
The world might think I’m dead, but I won’t be.
No
I will create my own legacy, where my son will follow in my footsteps and not remind me of my shortcomings.
All the puzzle pieces click together at once.
“Actaeon,” I say, running my fingers over the washed-out picture where Magdalena cradles her baby bump while her torn clothes point out her less-than-stellar living conditions. “Sick bastard.”
So this is how the fire started, and something must have gone wrong because Conrad died instead.
Putting the journals away, I focus on the various tapes that must have been transferred to the computer as I see severalfiles on the screen, each with different file names matching the names on the tapes and journals.
Clicking onMagdalena, I freeze when I see Conrad’s face adjusting the camera and moving back as the girl rushes into the farthest corner of her cage, trembling.
Smiling, he raises his whiskey glass as if in a toast and takes a large sip before throwing it away, the glass shattering into tiny pieces. Then he starts to unbutton his shirt and clicks his tongue, addressing Magdalena. “Daddy won’t find you here, so learn to be willing. It would be less painful for you. I’ll be kind to you then.”
The girl lifts her chin, though fear still fills her eyes, defiance crossing her face, and she spits in his direction, “I hate you.”
Conrad laughs. “Hate me all you want, Magdalena. Part of me likes your fight. Your father raised his princess right. You’ll give me a strong son. Too bad he won’t ever learn who his grandfather is.” Another bout of laughter, followed by him removing his shirt completely and taking off his belt. “As the head of one of the most powerful cartels in our country, he will never accept my son and will kill our baby at the first opportunity to punish the child and me for the pain inflicted on you.” He points at her pregnant belly. “So he won’t ever know the truth.”
He proceeds to move toward her, and I stop the video, knowing what would happen next and hating that I have no way to teleport to the past and stop him from raping her again.
“That’s why Orion hides Actaeon’s real name.” If his grandfather is who I think he is…he would have never accepted Actaeon and would indeed kill him.
Which is tragically ironic, as Actaeon is his only heir. When Magdalena was kidnapped, her mother died due to the grief,and her father never remarried. Can’t blame the man for his feelings either. He adored his family, and Conrad stole it.
“What happened all these years ago?” And why is the evidence that could have saved so many locked inside this mansion? It clearly didn’t get burned during the fire.
I don’t understand the half of it.
I start clicking on random videos, and with each one, my soul grows colder and colder as my breathing speeds up, and my heart beats so wildly that I expect it to jump out of my chest and land on the floor.
Because in these videos, Orion methodically kills all these men in the pictures in vile ways. They thrash and cry for mercy he doesn’t show them.
Instead, he chooses to use knives, guns, electric chairs, and drills to commit crime after crime. Meanwhile, his face stays cold.
