Page 78 of Beautiful Soldier

I’ve never had a parent turn on me. I don’t know what that’s like. I’ve always said I would give anything to have my mom and dad back here, but I also like to think if they treated me this way, I’d know where to draw the fucking line. Big Daddy K has Johnny by the balls. I get that. He has shit on him. He uses the parental card. He has his manipulation down to a T.

“You’re forcing me to come up with another way to punish you. I can’t let everyone else know you defied me. What happens when people defy me?”

“We eliminate them,” Johnny says, voice dark. He inches his chin higher in the air.

K nods slowly. He picks at the fabric on the chair he’s sitting in like it’s a lazy Sunday. “I don’t want to do that to you. My only son.” He lifts his gaze. “But you also know I just can’t let you get away with disrespecting me, don’t you?”

“I know,” Johnny says. He forces his shoulders back as if he’s going to face whatever his dad has in store for him head on.

Inside my head, I’m screaming,The beating isn’t enough?! Fuck you, you fucking prick! You got your point across.

“And you know it has to involve Kyla, too,” K says, like it’s the last thing he wants to say. His voice is contrite. His face even looks as if Johnny is forcing him to do this. This is manipulation 101.

Johnny’s throat works. His pulse triples in time until it looks like the rapid flutter of a hummingbird’s wings. “I’ll take it all. I deserve it.”

K shakes his head. “Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s true.” His snide glare slides to me. “Kyla’s new, and she needs to understand what exactly she’s in for now that you’ve chosen her.”

I swear I can hear Johnny’s teeth grinding from here. He so wants to say something, but wisely keeps his mouth shut.

K shrugs. “So, I thought, what better way to treat a whore than to treat her like a whore?”

My stomach clenches, and Magnum’s fingers bite into my sides again. To K, it probably looks as if he’s holding me back from him, and he is, but for different reasons than he might believe. Magnum doesn’t give a fuck about K, but he does give a fuck about Johnny and me.

“What are you saying, father?”

“Jiko!” K calls out.

In the flurry of shit since we walked in the door, I’d forgotten he was supposed to be here. A door opens behind Johnny, and I glance over at the figure striding in. His gaze meets mine, holds it, and doesn’t look away as he moves opposite us. He’s dressed in his suit still, perfectly tailored, perfectly ironed. Shoulders back, chin out. He has the look down. That post, rich boy, I deserve everything look. Johnny usually has that down, too.

“Another thing you should remember, Jonathan,” K says with a smirk. “Sometimes your friends aren’t always your friends.”

The look I give Jiko should incinerate him on the spot. I don’t even have to hear K’s next words to know that Johnny confided in Jiko, telling him we had sex, and now Jiko’s used that against us. He’s told Big Daddy K our secret. The secret that got Johnny looking like this.

I’m going to murder him.

“Jiko came to me earlier to tell me what happened between you two. The fact that you’d had sex despite my implicit orders. He came at great risk, considering it wasn’t easy to convince me my own son would deceive me.”

I keep staring at the lowlife, willing him to look at me, but right now, he’s preening under K’s words. I’m going to chop his dick off. I’m going to beat him until he’s just as bloody as Johnny and then more, until he’s choking on his own life force. I only wish I’d kicked his ass earlier in the ring. Knocked his teeth out. Broken his trachea. That would teach him to talk. To betray his friend.

I glance down at Johnny who’s looking at Jiko with sad eyes. One of Johnny’s only friends. Everyone in his life hurts him.

“What’s the punishment?” Johnny asks, sounding bored. I worry for his mental state right now. Will this push him over the edge? Will it do what K wants it to do? Follow in his footsteps to the depths of hell no matter the circumstances?

K licks his lips, gleaming at me. “To teach Kyla that she’s the property of the Crew, not yours and definitely not her own...and to teach you that you can’t deceive me and get away with it, I’ve come to the perfect punishment. To prove Kyla isn’t yours, you’re going to watch Jiko fuck her.”

I gasp. I try not to, but the intake of breath happens before I can steady myself. When he said he was going to treat me like the whore I am, he wasn’t kidding.

My stomach rolls again, and my knees tremble. Magnum’s hands on me keep me steady on my feet, but they don’t make me feel safe anymore. Can I even feel safe here, this close to my sworn enemy? I was stupid to think I ever could.

“You want him to rape me?” I ask, incredulous determination pouring from me. Because fuck that. I will start chopping dicks if that’s what it comes to.

“Trust me,” Jiko says, a glint to his eye. He licks his lips. “It won’t be rape because you’ll be begging for it.”

“You make me sick.”

Jiko turns a twinkling eye to K. “I like them feisty. I think this is going to be fun.”

“Fuck you,” I seethe.

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