Page 22 of True Bastard
“I’m sorry. I’m confused. Who is your brother?”
Groaning, the young girl rolled her eyes in the dramatic fashion of a seasoned teen. “Firestride is my brother. Mom says he’s a pain in the ass, but that’s because... well, you know.”
I smirked. “Yeah. I know.”
“So, what do you say? Wanna get out of here and go to lunch?”
A flicker of surprise, quickly masked by practiced indifference, washed over me.
Firestride. The man who held my life captive, the man whose touch still sent a shiver of fear and something else entirely down my spine, had a sister.
And a mother, apparently.
Lunch? A chance to get out of this opulent prison, even for a few hours. It was a sliver of hope, a crack in the otherwiseimpenetrable wall of my confinement. But then the other shoe dropped.
Morpheus, the puppet master himself, had sent this girl. What was his game now? Was this some twisted test? A way to further break me, to show me the extent of my powerlessness?
“Morpheus sent you,” I stated, my voice flat, devoid of the hope that had briefly flickered. My eyes, I knew, betrayed the raw fear that still simmered beneath the surface—a fear I desperately tried to keep hidden. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing me completely broken. Not yet. “And Firestride... where is he?”
Anna Joy’s innocent gaze met mine, and for a fleeting moment, I saw not a pawn in their brutal game, but a girl, caught in the same web, albeit on a different thread.
“Out on club business,” she said, her voice softer now, a hint of apprehension creeping in. “Morpheus said to tell you that if you behave, and if you don’t cause trouble, he’ll allow you downstairs so you won’t be cooped up in here all the time.”
Her words were a double-edged sword, a conditional reprieve that offered a sliver of freedom, but at the cost of my own dwindling defiance. The choice, it seemed, was mine to make. And in this gilded cage, every choice felt like a surrender.
Fuck it.
I wanted to get out of this place.
“Fine,” I relented, my voice a rough rasp against the suffocating silence. “I’ll go to lunch.”
It was a surrender, a concession to the inevitable. The offer of a few hours outside these gilded walls, even under their watchful eyes, was a temptation I couldn’t resist. The thought of seeing the outside world, of breathing air that wasn’t laced with sandalwood and mint, was a lifeline I desperately needed to grasp. Anna Joy’s innocent eyes widened slightly, a flicker of surprise in their depths, and I knew, yet again, that I’d just madeanother choice that would further bind me to this dangerous world.
As we walked out, the hallway seemed to stretch endlessly, each step a testament to my continued captivity. The common room was a hive of activity. Club brothers—as Firestride so jarringly called them—a motley crew of hardened men—gave me more than a passing glance. Their leers were palpable, their curiosity a tangible force that pressed in on me, making my skin crawl. I kept my gaze fixed on Anna Joy, her small hand a surprisingly steady anchor in the storm of my fear. She was a child, oblivious to the darkness that swirled around her, a stark contrast to the predatory energy that emanated from the men of the Brotherhood. The thought of her innocence, of her being caught in this web, gnawed at me.
Standing by the door was Morpheus, arms crossed over his massive chest as he glared directly at me, unmoving. “Anna Joy, your mother is waiting in the car. Kyllian will be out in a minute after we have a brief talk.”
The young girl released my hand and quietly left.
“Here are the fucking rules,” Morpheus began as he leered at me. “You will not upset Helen or Anna Joy. They want to get to know you, and you will answer every fucking question they ask. You will not discuss why you are here or your debt to this club. Two brothers will watch you, with orders to shoot you on sight if you even think about running. For all intents and purposes, this is just a normal lunch date to gossip and gab. Am I understood?”
“Understood,” I managed, the word a dry rasp against my parched throat. The rules, laid out with such blunt finality, felt less like guidelines and more like the iron bars of my gilded cage being reinforced. Morpheus’ gaze, hard and unyielding, was a physical weight, pinning me in place. He saw my fear, my helplessness, and I knew, with a sickening certainty, that he reveled in it. The thought of Anna Joy and her mother,innocents, only intensified the knot of dread in my stomach. I was already a pawn, and now, I was expected to play the part of a willing participant in whatever twisted charade this was.
Stepping out into the pale South Dakota sun was a dizzying, disorienting experience. The air, clean and crisp, felt alien after days confined to the cloying scents of Firestride’s room. Two hulking men, their faces impassive masks of brute force, flanked me as I walked towards the waiting car. Their presence was a constant, unnerving reminder of my status—prisoner, collateral, a thing to be guarded. The thought of Firestride, of his chilling possessiveness and the unspoken threat that hung over me, was an ache that resonated through my very bones. Yet, a flicker of defiance, stubbornly refusing to be extinguished, sparked within me. If I was going to endure this, if I was going to survive, I would do it on my own terms, even if those terms were dictated by a stolen lunch.
As Morpheus slammed the car door shut, the sound echoing the finality of my situation, my eyes met those of the two guards. They were impassive, their gazes fixed straight ahead, like sentinels guarding a treasure they neither understood nor cared about. And in that moment, a terrifying realization dawned: I was already a part of their world, an unwanted fixture in the Brotherhood of Bastards.
The only question that remained was how long I would survive.
Walking into the small cafe, I followed Helen and Anna Joy as they quickly found a booth. Taking a seat across from them, Isat nervously, watching the two Bastards take a seat at the table next to us.
Neither looked happy to be here.
“Ignore them.” Anna Joy smiled. “They won’t pay any attention to us.”
I wasn’t so sure about that when I saw one of the bastards smirk.
“Good afternoon, Helen and Anna Joy,” a pretty woman greeted as she walked over to our table, placing menus before us, and then her eyes landed on me. “Oh! And who is this?”
