“Unlike you, I follow the general’s orderswithoutquestion. He gets shit done, and I admire him for refusing to listen to low-life pieces of shit like you.” He ran his tongue over his teeth. “It doesn’t matter, though. You’ll be silenced once you find out the details since your invaluable to the general for some reason.”
“Capabilities. Competence. Things you wouldn’t understand. And while I would put a hand to my heart to offer a semblance of feigned offense,” jiggling my wrist, the restraint danced across the metal bar it was attached to, “kind of can’t.”
“Keep talking shit. It’s cheeky that you think you’re going to get out of this unscathed.” A short buzz filled the space, the guard reaching into his pocket to pull out his phone. A smile lit his face as he adjusted the strap holding his gun. “Wanna see yourpreciousrecruit soaked in his blood?” he said as he dangled the device in his hand.
My eyes remained locked on him as I blatantly refused. Swallowing, I pushed down the desire, theneedto know what Andrew had done. “What? Are you going tomakeme,soldier?”
He grinned, typing something into the phone as he ignored the question. “You just earned Oren another blow to the side. Wanna talk again?”
My jaw feathered, and I bit my cheek to keep the retort I wished to utter from escaping. If they wanted me to remain silent, fine.
His phone rang, and the guard answered, showing me the video footage. Oren looked like the first time I’d inflicted pain on him, but it wasn’t what frightened me. It was the dead, soulless eyes as he just…satthere, taking his father’s hits.
“Look at you,” Andrew’s voice said through the muffled speaker. “You’ve finally been molded into the ruthless soldier I’vebeggedyou to be all these years. You’ve never been able to withstand this many hits from me in the past without crumbling.”
While Oren’s face was perfectly fine, his body was battered, bruised, a patchwork of various shades, but it was surface-level hits meant to color, not to break. This was what Oren had endured for years. Enough to maim, but expertly hidden beneath clothes.
I wanted to speak, I wanted to fuckingscream, but I bit my tongue.
“You can blame Thorne for all this shit, but at its core, it’syou. Your defiance has spread around my base, and I’m fucking done with it.”
It wasn’t true. God, it wasn’t fucking true.
Two words I never expected to hear fromOren, and my heart shattered. “Yes, sir.”
He was gone, stripped of who he once was and carved into the type of man I’d become.
“Oren,” I breathed; the syllables of his name like ecstasy on my tongue. “I know you’re still in there somewhere. You can’t let him win.”
“Win?” the guard repeated. “You did this by your defiance, Thorne.” He turned the phone off, the feed gone as Oren’s last words reverberated in my head. “You’re lucky Oren’s still the general’s son. Appearances still matter to him; otherwise, he’d be equally as fucked as Matthew was weeks ago when he dragged him into the room while you watched, or did you forget that happened?”
“Shut the fuck up,” I snarled, unable to stop myself from spitting in his direction. “You’re merely a puppet, a pawn, nothing you say holds any fucking weight.”
“A puppet? I have more freedom than you do,Commander. I’m not the one restrained to a bed while his fucked up whore gets the shit beat out of him.”
“You’re right.” The two words came breathlessly, a lure.
“Damn, I should tell the general to keep Oren on lockdown if it keeps you this…agreeable.”
I whispered, my tone too low, too mumbled for him to hear unless he got close enough.
He walked over to the door but paused as his hand grabbed the knob. I thought he was going to react to my whisper, but hedidn’t. “I hope you heal up soon. General’s looking to start another operation shortly, andyourmen are just the disposable kind to offer.” He twisted his face to look at me. “Pleasure waiting with you.”
I watched him leave, not pulling my attention away from the door until I knew he was gone. “Shame,” I hummed, glancing down at my freed wrist, the scalpel I held glinting beneath the fluorescent lights.
I’d enjoy every second gutting each of them alive; he’d merely been graced by chance to see another day.
CHAPTER TEN
OREN
The couch was surprisingly comfortable on my aching joints, bruises still peppering my skin from the onslaught my father had subjected me to as a test—a test to see if I’d bite back, but there was nothing I’d offer him. If he wanted me to play as a soldier, I’d be one while ripping apart the seams that held his establishment together.
I’d found myself talking to Matthew frequently over the past week, his presence more than comforting. Relaxing? No, that wasn’t quite the word either. It strangely felt like home, and it scared me to have someone to lean on for the first time inyears.
“You look like shit,” Matthew crooned, sliding a plate of eggs and toast across the center table toward me.
“When don’t I?” I countered, collecting it in my hands. I didn’t start eating until he settled next to me with his own. Mother wasveryclear to wait for everyone to sit down, and I wasn’t about to break that custom in his own space.
