Page 31 of Broken

Right on cue, Sandy starts throwing her hands all over the place, trying to get free from my father’s tight grip on her. It's a waste of time and energy because he just pulls up harder with one hand and slaps her hard across the face with the next. I see her momentarily stunned by the impact and as she raises her hand to her lip and blots away the tiny droplets of crimson blood that have started to form from the split in her lip, she begins to cry. It’s a soft, internal cry and I know it well. She has given up, just what my father wants and the smile on his face tells me that he can see it too.

“Grant, there will come a time in your life when you will have a girlfriend and eventually a wife. You can take this as your first lesson in how to make sure that they behave and respect you as their superior. Sandy has been using her mouth as a weapon, so I am going to teach her to use it for something good. Do you think that is fair?” he asks me and of course, I say yes. I have no idea where he is going with this, but all I can do is sit on the sofa and hope that he doesn’t decide to take any of his anger out on me.

“Well, Sandy, looks like I can teach my son a lesson in how to treat women at the same time that I teach you a lesson about how you should really use your mouth.” Her eyes go wide as flying saucers and they flick over to me in a panic. It looks like Sandy has worked out what my father’s punishment is going to be before I have and for some reason, she is concerned for me. Even as she stares down, I can see in her eyes that she is genuinely worried about me and my heart starts to ache. I think I might be staring at the only person, other than my now dead mother, who has ever cared about me. She doesn’t even know me and yet she is fighting for my right to be a normal kid. What she doesn’t know is that I lost that battle a long time ago. I also learnt that caring about someone else can only lead to pain, which is why I turn to look away from Sandy’s pleading eyes.

“Please, Alan, you can punish me, but don’t make Grant watch. He’s just a boy,” she pleads and my father just laughs. He doesn’t even bother to respond to her, instead, using the hand that is not still gripping tightly onto Sandy’s hair, he begins to unfasten the button of his trousers.

“Let this be a lesson to you, Grant. Women should show you respect at all times. If they start mouthing off at you or arguing with you, then it is your job to show them who is in control. Remind them that this is all their mouth is good for. Sucking cock like good little whores. Now get the fuck out of here and close the door.” I’m making a run for it before he even finishes his sentence. Before I manage to get the door closed, I hear the sound of Sandy choking and my father saying something about her taking his cock and putting her mouth to use. My brain is spinning as I make my way up to my bedroom and all I keep thinking is that a willy, or a cock as I now know it’s called, can be used for so much more than just to wee and that’s such a baffling thought for my eight year old brain to take in. Then again, I never really had a childhood anyway.

As I am recountingmy horrific childhood memory back to my father, all he does is sneer. Normal children would have been taken away by children’s social services. They would have recognised the highly damaging physical, emotional, and sexual abuse that I was put through. Don’t get me wrong, I was never touched or molested by anyone as a child, but being taught to use a blow job as a weapon against women at the age of eight probably does come under the realm of sexual abuse. But Alan Blakeman isn’t just above the law, he owns the law. He has judges, lawyers, and police chiefs in his pocket, but I have yet to find out who. It’s one of the things Eli is trying to find out for me. I wasn’t particularly interested, but Ryder says knowing who the bent cops are will give us good leverage when we need it, so we have set Eli on it.

A growl from my father brings me back to the present, he’s standing directly in front of me now in an act of power, but he forgets I’m taller than him now and when I stand up straighter, it’s very noticeable.

“This is a completely different scenario and you know it,” he screeches and genuinely sounds like he can’t explain why Ava is different, but I know he can and that is what I am pushing him for.

“How is Ava any different? You taught me that it was all women who needed to be punished and reminded of their place,” I reply calmly in an attempt to wind him up further.

“Bullshit! You know that women who really matter, who are better than that or you love, like you say you love Ava; of course they aren’t included in that.” He starts to get more frustrated with his hands tightly clenched into fists and the vein on his forehead pulsing an angry purple colour. That just makes me laugh even more.

“How the fuck would I know that? I saw you beat up every woman who stepped foot into our house, including my mum. How would I know Ava is any different to Mum?” I ask, goading him and leading him down the track where I want him.

“Your mother was a whore, just like all the others. Ava is special and you will not touch her like that.” Hearing him talk about my mother in that way, the only woman who has ever truly loved me, cracks my calmness as I close the gap between us and we are nose to nose. I growl straight into his face.

“My mother was not a whore!” I shout in his face, spittle flying everywhere because of my rage. My father places both hands on my chest and pushes as he starts to laugh. I stumble back a couple of steps, but make sure I don’t fall over and give him the advantage.

“Boy, of course your mother was a whore. The only reason I kept her around was because of you. Well, that and the men needed a pussy on hand to bang after a rough assignment. Your mother knew that if she wanted to be part of your life, then she had to play her part and I’m sure if you ask any of the men who were around at that time, she played her part real well.” I’m about to lunge for my father when I think better of it, he thinks that he can win by talking shit, but two can play at that game.

“Was Marianne a whore too?” I say softly and the expression on his face shifts to one of confusion. He looks like he has been slapped and I can’t help but smile.

“What… how?” He is incapable of forming full sentences, but I know what he is trying to say.

“Marianne was the whore you were with while my mother lay dying, wasn’t she? She was probably riding your pathetic shriveled cock while my mother was by herself in a hospital bed. I know the hospital rang you. They told you about Mum’s accident and of her critical condition. She didn’t die until nearly six hours later, yet you told nobody. I could have been with her and said goodbye, even at the age of four, I deserved that. But instead, you told nobody and went back to banging your whore, didn’t you?” For the first time in my life, he actually looks stunned, like he doesn’t know what to say and so I take advantage of the situation and throw him completely off balance.

“I read the letter you wrote her. You were begging for her not to finish things with you. You said that you couldn’t abandon me, no matter how much you wanted to because you needed an heir, but if she produced one, then I wouldn’t be a problem anymore. You promised to make sure my mother would not get in the way of your relationship. All she had to do was agree to stay with you. But she didn’t, did she? Instead, she went off and lived her own life. She was dirt poor and lived on the wrong side of the tracks, but she had a nice house because of the money you kept sending her. Even after she met and married Manny Delgado, you continued to send her money. Then little Ava was born, just a year later. At first, I thought you had carried on banging the slut and that she had given birth to your bastard, but obviously that’s not the case. She didn’t want to see you again, did she? Well, not until she found out she was dying from advanced stage cervical cancer. That was when she called you, isn’t it? Manny hadn’t coped with her diagnosis well, he lost his job and went off the rails slightly. Marianne was worried about what would happen when she kicked the bucket. So, you agreed to look after the drunk husband and random child of your old whore. When I got involved in the business, I always wondered what made Manny so special. Why is he exempt from the same forms of punishments that you teach us to give out to everyone else? What made him so special? That's when I looked into it and the whole story unfolded. It was all because you fell in love with a whore who didn’t want you. I didn’t believe it at first, mainly because I didn’t think you were capable of love, but I can see that you did. I’ve seen pictures and I know that Ava looks a lot like Marianne did when she was younger. Do you see her when you look at Ava?” I ask and his eyes glaze over with fire. He looks menacing and cold, but this is a side I am very used to. Before I even know what is happening, I feel a punch land on the crease of my nose and onto my cheek. It whacks my head back and I can’t help the groan of pain that releases as my cheek begins to throb. I move my hand to my nose to check for blood, but I come up dry.

“Are you fucking telling me this whole farce with Ava is because I knew Marianne?” he shouts like he can’t quite believe it and I can’t help but laugh.

“No, you stupid fuck. I am going to marry Ava, but that’s just the start. I’m going to use her, abuse her, ruin her for every other man, and then I’m going to break her; mind, body, and soul. You made a promise to someone you love and I’m going to make sure that you can’t keep that promise. But I’m not doing all of this just so that you can break a promise to a dead whore you once loved, I’m doing it for revenge. You chose that whore over my dying mother. You robbed me of the chance to say goodbye and you forced her to die scared and alone. I loved her and you ruined her, so that is why I am returning the favour. The anniversary of her death is coming up soon and I decided that your downfall would be the perfect way to honour it,” I spit at him and for the first time since we got in the room, I hear a noise other than ours. As I talk about my plans for revenge, I hear Ryder begin to growl. I don’t know what has caused him to get worked up all of a sudden, most likely it's the fact I have made a plan without him. He likes to go through all my plans and risk assessing them so he can be prepared for every possible eventuality, but I don’t need him to with this one. I don’t care what my father does to me, I don’t care what he says, I will not stop until he is broken. My plan was to just make him into a shell of the man he is now, but Eli made me see I can have so much more. I thought that by following this path to revenge, I would have to give up the desire I have to bring down my father’s company. The plan with Ryder has always been to work my way to the top, but only Eli knows the real reason I need that is because that is where all the knowledge is hidden.

Bringing the entire Blakeman enterprise crashing down has always been my focus, particularly since I met Katyia and saw the depraved side of human trafficking that is being performed in my name. This had been my driving force until Eli unearthed the information about Ava, then revenge for my mother became key. Thinking of her dying all alone because he wanted to spend more time cheating on her just makes me sick. I didn’t think I could hate my father more, until I learned this. So I planned to break him, but Eli made me see that if I make him vulnerable enough, then I can get him to give me what I really need, the key to his kingdom. But I know it’s not going to be as easy as throwing a few words at him, but now he knows that I will walk out of here with Ava and she is mine until he stops it.

“I will stop, you know. If you want me to walk away from Ava at any point, then I will, but you will have to be prepared to give me exactly what I want. And trust me, it will be something that I get before Ava is set free, just in case you try to shaft me. So, it's all on you now, old man,” I sneer out the nickname that I know his workers use for him in an affectionate way, but mine is full of malice. I’m reminding him he is old and that it's time for a regime change.

“That will never happen, you little shit. You need a lesson in respect and then you will let Ava go. If you do, we can put this whole fucking mess behind us. There are no other options here and you do not want to test me on that.” I start to laugh at his audacity, he actually thinks, despite me having all the information and power, that he has the upper hand. But before I can finish contemplating that, I feel a blinding pain and a crunch slice through my nose. I scream as blood begins to spurt out of what I’m sure is now a broken nose. I look up and see my father's hand travelling towards me to deliver another explosively painful shot and that explains why his punches hurt more than they should. Sick fucker is wearing a pair of brass knuckles. He must have had them in his pocket and slipped them on. After a third blow to the head my vision is blurry and I begin to sway as I see dark spots in my vision. Falling to the floor, I hear Ryder call out my name, but that's the last thing I recall before the world goes black.

I wake up sometime later and I know instantly I am fucked. I can feel that I am strapped to a smooth wooden surface and as I open my eyes, it all becomes too real. I have been here before many times, but I never anticipated that this was going to happen. Fuck, I thought I was stronger than this now.

I am lying face down across my father's mahogany desk in his office. I have been stripped of my t-shirt as my chest feels cold against the smooth surface. My legs also have a similar sensation, but thankfully, my balls are not freezing, so he had the decency to leave my boxers on this time. My arms are tied down on either side of the desk at one end and my legs are the same at the other end. I wriggle at the restraints, but know it is no use. These are properly installed bondage equipment. The wrist and ankle restraints are custom made to go with the desk and they bite tightly against my skin. Thankfully, my father did not have this desk custom made with the soul purpose of torturing his child, although I wouldn’t have put it past him. Instead, this was more of a happy coincidence, particularly when I got older and started getting stronger. At the tender age of eight, I would stand there and accept my punishment, fully believing the shit that he spouted about me needing to be punished, or that he was teaching me a valuable life lesson. But, by the age of fifteen, I knew the truth. My father is just an abusive arsehole who likes to throw his power and authority around, and it was around that time I started fighting back. At first, it was things like not letting him beat me or constantly challenging him, particularly in public, but I soon learnt that all that got me was more rage from him and a bad reputation. The more I kicked off, the more people thought I was unruly and that he should be able to discipline me. In fact, not just should he be allowed, he should do more because I was a danger. My father is great at painting the narrative that he needs people to believe. So, when I started fighting back, he needed to restrain me and this became his preferred place of punishment. I think he knew how much I hated the idea that I was in the exact same position all of his whores have been. That thought alone is just as humiliating as this whole fucking experience.

I look around the room to try and see where he is standing, it helps just a little to know where the blow will come from. But I am strapped so tightly, I cannot lift my head. All I know is that he is not in my line of sight, but just out of the corner of my eye, I see Ryder sitting in a chair in the corner of the room. He has a face like thunder and I can tell he is not at all happy with this situation.

“Oh good, you are finally awake. I can see you looking at Ryder over there. No point asking him to help you, we have already had a little discussion about it. He knows you need to accept your punishment and he will not interfere. Don’t you, Ryder?” His voice is back to that sadistic almost sing song quality, the one he uses when he thinks he has all the power, and right now, he most definitely does.

“You told me, if I interfered in any way, you would put a bullet between my eyes. That’s what I know!” Ryder states. It almost makes me smile that he is still willing to stand up to him, even just a little. I stare at Ryder, giving him a look that I hope lets him know it’s fine. I have been in this position before and survived, so I will do it again.

“Grant, do you know why you are being punished?” he asks condescendingly and it grates on me so much, I know I’m going to get myself into even worse trouble.

“Erm… was it because I finger fucked Ava in front of a room full of my men and made her beg to cum, or was it because I found out all about your sordid little affair and called her a whore?” Silence fills the room and I lay as relaxed as I possibly can. I know all of his techniques by now and I can hear the sharp increase in his breathing. He is fuming at my words, but he is waiting for the right time to retaliate and catch me off guard.

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