Page 51 of The Caged Girl

“Don’t fucking say his name and my wife’s name in the same sentence. I need her to compose herself. Ian was powerful because Daphne was by his side, and I need Demi to do the same. No other woman understands us the way she does. If she wanted to run, she wouldn’t have gotten on that boat with you.”

“If we don’t do the blood ceremony, then the marriage isn’t sealed. We didn’t…” I heard more footsteps and wondered if others were there to clean up.

“She knows about her.”

“Shut your mouth, Bradley! She doesn’t know anything. That isn’t the woman she thinks it is.”

“I need a female front to recruit more nightingales since we are killing them too quickly. Then the breeders…well, you already know we’ve faced countless miscarriages and issues. The only way to keep inventory up is having a face like Demi’s out there.”

“Uncle Alister, have you ever thought that there is an end to all this?” Bradley’s voice shattered me, and the pause had my heart stopping.

“Do you know what the greatest gift in the world is, Bradley?”

I wiped away the tears streaming down my cheeks.

“Power,” Alister filled in. “Without power, you are nothing. This legacy the Ivory men have created is nothing without power. Lucrative businesses, all interconnected, fuels men to want to be more than average. Average men do not make the world flourish, powerful men do. I have single-handedly given the gift of life and family to couples who should have that. The poverty-stricken classes reproduce rampantly. If wealthy couples don’t have legacies, then what will become of this world?”

“Where is she?” Bradley asked.

I assumed Alister pointed to the bathroom because the footsteps grew closer and louder.

“My wife is upset with me, isn’t she?” Alister said mockingly as he harmoniously knocked on the door.

Each thud had my stomach flip as I pressed my back against the door harder in hopes he wouldn’t open it.

“What do you want, my love?” he crooned.

I cleared my throat. “I want to talk to my sister.”

The door unlocked. Slamming my eyes shut and clutching my knees to my chest, I was terrified as he pushed it open.

“Your wish is my command, my queen.”

CHAPTERTWENTY-EIGHT

“If you obey me,you can know anything you’d like. You are now a proud co-owner of La Gabbia.” Alister and I were now sitting on the balcony overlooking the stunning ocean. The white sand glistened as the sun rose and gave it life.

He dragged me out by my arm, sliding me against the marble flooring into the bed that no longer had the dead woman lying in it. Bradley flinched as agony was clearly painted across my face.

He forced me to drink a cup of tea, and before I knew it, I was unconscious and woken up to breakfast in bed.

“You have the most beautiful eyelashes I’ve ever seen.” He reached over and brushed his fingers against them.

I moved his hand away from my face. “Is that why you collect them? Just because they are beautiful?”

He looked back at the ocean and sipped on his cappuccino. “Papa hated my eyelashes; he said they looked like the lashes of a girl. He and Ian would mock me about them. Papa and Ian were blonde, with light eyes and pale skin. My mother…she was beautiful like you, Demi. Skin that had this golden glow and big dark eyes.” He paused and leaned his head back before cracking his neck side-to-side.

“Then one day, he saw me playing with a doll—Mother had purchased it at a market in the islands on a vacation. He took the doll and tore her dress off and waved it in my face. He told me to look at her gorgeous naked body. He told me that women are here to pleasure men and nothing more. He called me some obscene names, and then he leaned forward, reeking of bourbon, and ripped my eyelashes out. When I cried and fought back, he summoned Ian, the brother who should have been protecting me, and had him pin me down as he plucked each eyelash out. Then he had Ian make a wish, and my brother did. He wished that I be exiled from the family.” Alister laughed and opened his arms to the ocean-front view. “Now look at me…alive on Earth’s most beautiful land, as the world’s most powerful man, and my brother… You killed him, my love. You are truly the love of my life.”

There it was, the making of a monster. I looked at the man sitting next to me. The one who created an all-inclusive resort, housing women who were being brutally raped and then murdered by powerful men. Women, so delusional with their wealth and prestige, that they thought adopting a baby was nothing more than an exciting shopping trip.

“Then why would you do all this?” I waved my hands around us. “You know how painful toxic masculinity is… Why the cages full of women? What would your mother have said?”

He paused and nodded slowly, as if he were processing it all. But then, like a light switch went off inside him, he looked at me and smiled. “You stupid little bitch, I’m saving the world by creating happier couples and flourishing families.” He tossed his head back and laughed hysterically.

Fear ran through my body as I watched the man who was now my husband have no emotion beyond inflicting pain.

“You’re not doing any of that. You are a monster. You are wrecking lives.” I didn’t have even a second to process anything else before his hand covered in the thick gold rings rang across my face, creating a crack echoing from my jawline.

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