Faithless (Mistress & Master of Restraint) (76 page)

“Very well,” Mitchell concedes, rolling his eyes as if we’re being ludicrous. “We’ve known where you were for some time now. We let you be until it was time to call in the play. You’ve been summoned,” he sinisterly purrs.

“Fine,” I snarl. “But I’m not doing it out here. I can play your game just as well as you can. The play is that Ezra and I try to conceive by his eighteenth birthday. That’s four months. I will give you once per month until that date.”

“Are we negotiating? Hmm? I believe you are. Tis a pity, but I will allow your request for no audience. I will also allow the once per month. You’ve been with him once already. Too bad my enforcer gave you pills to take care of any consequences. Now, you shall give me four days of your time, but I will have to witness it.”

“No others,” I demand, “and no pelvic examines. You’re not sticking your fingers anywhere near me,” I snarl.

“That has a price,” Mitchell contemplates. He stands from his imaginary throne and paces the room, circling me. “Seventy-two hours afterwards, you must remain on the premises to guarantee you don’t take any pharmaceuticals. I trust with your religious background that you won’t abort your own child?”

“I won’t,” I vow.

“Fair enough,” Mitchell happily says. “The rules are as follows: once per month until the date of Ezra’s eighteenth birthday, I will witness but not touch, you will remain here for seventy-two hours afterwards, and you vow not to abort any product of your coupling. Correct?”

“Yes, sir,” I grudgingly mumble.

“Splendid!” My grandfather claps his hands and brilliantly smiles. “Now for your punishment-”

“The fuck!” I shout, fists smashing into my thighs
as an outlet for my frustrations.

“NO!” Stanton bellows, charging out of his chair with the power of an enraged bull. Like two robots, Raymond and Wil come to life, peeling away from the w
all to stand in front of their elder. “I took the punishment so she wouldn’t have to. You gave your word.”

“The punishment isn’t for hiding,” Mitchell arrogantly says. “I have two people to punish: the heir to multiple families, F
aith Gwendolyn Simpson, and my enforcer, Leviticus Jonathon Wilson. Wil aided and abetted your efforts to hide my offspring. Your punishment cleared that breach of rules from the board. We have the issue of contraception in the form of the morning after pill Wil dosed Faith with after her time in the Study at Whittenhower Estates. If Ezra were of sound mind, I’m sure he would be equally offended. They possibly murdered the future Holden heir. They must be punished.”

“What are you going to do?” Stanton hisses. “Faith’s siblings are protected by the rules. You already punished her mother minutes ago for the same damned thing. Who is left? What about Wil? All of his family is safe under the terms of the game.”

“Easily accomplished,” Mitchell dryly says. “The same way I punished you and my daughter- Wil’s fear and Faith’s pain. History can repeat itself with the exact same outcome.”

“Don’t!” Stanton shouts. “I call a vote.”

Mitchell has the audacity to roll his eyes. “No vote necessary. This was an affront to my family. It is within my bounds to punish my family and my enforcer anyway I see fit- rules are hard to get around, but sometimes they benefit my agenda. There isn’t a damned thing you can do, my boy.”

“Let’s get this shit over with,” I snarl.

“Faith, you don’t understand,” Stanton cries in alarm.

“
Oh, I’ve got a pretty good idea,” I hiss. “If Mitchell can’t physically harm us, he will mentally and emotionally shred us. There is no sense delaying the inevitable. I’m sorry that you had to go through that for me. I won’t thank you for it- I refuse to. I love you. You’re the best father a girl could ever wish for, and I’m lucky enough that you allowed me to choose you.”

I kiss Stanton on the cheek. I look him in the eyes- there is no shame in what he just lived through. I’ve been there
, and I’m about to visit that particular hell again.

Stanton is afraid of one thing, and
I find myself standing before my mother. I blinked and there I was, as if I lost time or my mind took absolute control over my body. My fingertip hooks beneath her chin, tilting her head back, forcing her to look at me. A wounded animal stares back at me. Jesus, looking at Gwen is like looking into my sister’s face or maybe gazing into a mirror- the only difference is that nothing will ever put that dead look in my eyes. I was created to survive.

“Stop being a fucking victim,” I spit at her, because kindness is a weakness when dealing with someone as broken as Gwen. “Fucking live for your goddamned children!”

I could have imagined it, but I swear a spark of life lit in the depths of her eyes. Someone is in there. She is deep inside herself, but I’ll tear that bitch out and force her to live for the five fucked-up lives she created.

I look around for someone not traumatized- someone angry enough and strong enough to not let them grovel in their miseries. I need them to live. “Grant
and Roman, take Stanton home and don’t leave him alone for a second. Kris and Faith, get your asses back to Regina. Boyd, in four days, you and I have a chat that nothing’s gonna stop. Your wife and son are in the kitchen. If you smack her around or disrespect her again, you’ll be facing my wrath. You got it?”

“Yes, boss,” Boyd sounds amused, but the stress around his eyes relaxes. He’s pleased that someone is taking charge when everyone seems to have lost their minds.

“You,” I point at Olivia. “You look like a tough bitch that isn’t getting off on this like your sick family. I need you to make sure Gwen survives the night. Can you do that for me, please?”

Olivia doesn’t speak.
She just grips my mother’s arm and yanks her from her seat. As soon as they leave the room I demand, “I need a friendly face to escort Pearl home, and unless you live here, get the fuck out!”

“Oh, granddaughter, I like you,” Mitchell creepily purrs.

~
Chapter Sixty-Five~

I sit in front of Mitchell’s desk with Wil on my right and Ezra on my left. W
il is quietly seething, but I’ll take rage over fear. You can’t think when you are afraid, and sitting before Mitchell like specimens under a microscope, we need to be able to think. Thankfully, there is someone controlling Ez. I prayed that Ez would return whole, but knowing that Master Ez wants Ezra in the dark about this part of their lives, I knew it would be Master Ez to return. Quietly and confidently, Master Ez radiates emotional calm in my direction- he is the epitome of practical.

“Next meeting, I’m declaring
you my heir,” Mitchell proudly announces. Wil and Ez freeze at my sides.

“Why?” I gasp.

“Several reasons: first, you’re the daughter I didn’t bear and Gwen is incapable. Second, I know you don’t want my job. I saw my death in your eyes. I know you put the blood X on my forehead, marking me as your next victim. If you kill me, you have my job. It sounds enticing, but, girl, you cannot stop the game, it breathes for you. So if you take my position as The Meyers, you will have to do what the game tells you to do… and you really don’t want that. Sex and death, I know you can handle. You don’t have the stomach for the rest of the shit I deal with on a daily basis.”

“That’
s extortion. What makes you think I won’t kill you just because you think I don’t have the balls to take over?”

“I don’t- I hope to appeal to your sensibilities. Ask Wil the shit he wades through on a daily basis, and then tell me you can handle my job.”

“What do you do?” I turn to Wil, talking to him for the first time since I entered this house of horrors.

“No,” Wil
hauntingly breathes his denial, “never.” He shuts up, and refuses to look or speak to me. Ezra quietly sits, observing but not contributing to this fiasco. The boys put me in charge of dealing with my grandfather.

“Since we are being so friendly,” Mitchell says with a smirk, “I thought we could renegotiate some terms of our agreement.”

“No,” Wil, Ez, and I say as a unit.

“Ah- c’mon, you don’t even know what I’m offering.” Mitchell softly chuckles. “You three are perfect together. I need you to sit and listen to the history of the game. My compromise will be that you must be good children and do as you’re told without me supervising. I may be a sick bastard, but after watching my daughter, I can’t stand to watch my granddaughter. Promise to listen and
I’ll leave you three in peace.”

“
What do you get out of us hearing you out?” I ask, full of suspicion.

“I guess I want you to know how this started, how it snowballed out of control… or maybe I want you to hear my side of it.”

“Yeah, like that’s going to make me not want to kill you,” I scoff.

“Truthfully, I think there is another position you hunger for- the position
of Game Master. You want to be the judge, jury and executioner. You want to be the punisher. Don’t deny it, Faith. You think yourself above the game. You want to police us, keep us from abusing our positions. Correct?”

“Maybe,” I bashfully say, blushing like a sonofabitch.

“I can give you that,” my grandfather purrs- the devil seducing you by granting you your greatest wish. But all I think is
at what cost
. “If I’m dead, you’ll be sitting right here,” he knocks on his desk as a threat. “But if I am alive, I can ensure that a new position opens up in the game.”

“How can I trust you?”

“You can’t. You have to run on faith,” Mitchell says, thinking he’s won.

“I run on instinct and intuit
ion- I’m faithless.” I sneer at the man before me, showing him how little I think of him and his trust. “I’ll hear the history for another reason. I will need it and the rules to know how to successfully play the game- to police the game. Regale me, oh Grandfather of mine,” I disrespectfully say, but as usual, he doesn’t do as I expect. His laugh is pure pride- pride in me. The sharp trill resonates down my spine and turns my stomach.

“
I believe that you will find the history important, because it is
your
history- all three of you were created during the game. The game didn’t start as a game. There were no rules, because it was just my father and his friends sitting in the study. They always tried to outdo one another. Some background first, oldest to youngest. Andrew Meyers was psychotic, so it took a lot to excite him. Wilhelm Whittenhower was a soft soul and short lived- his son, Jackson, took over after the game solidified. Henry Spencer is an impotent brutalizer. Byron Holden was a buffoon. Pierre Fontaine is a sadistic child molester. Caleb Green, the original, not the one you call Gunner, was ruthless, and shared Pierre’s love of youthful flesh. And lastly, Thomas Simpson was a cunning opponent. They all met during business arrangements or extracurricular activities. In other words, crime and your father cleaned the money, and the thrill of terrorizing children- even better if it’s their own.”

“I knew nothing of the interworking of what they did in that study. I heard the screams, and cleaned up the blood that followed. My father had a lot of mistresses. I was a man in my forties, not wanting marriage, so I borrowed his mistresses
whenever the mood struck, and that is how Gwendolyn was born.”

“I ignored my father and his cronies
because they scared the shit out of me. My father loved to call me weak-willed and boring because rape and torture didn’t turn me on. I worked and raised my daughter. One night they were loud- drunk off their asses. Byron beat the shit out of me and dragged me into the study, where my hazing began- a hazing I endured for years. I was tied to a chair and pissed on. I will never forget how emasculating it felt to be burnt by steaming piss that was fueled by scotch. Yes, that fundamentally changed me, but not like what happened next. My daughter was led into the room by Pierre, where they proceeded to molest her in front of me- my father included. When Wilhelm and Thomas tried to protect Gwendolyn, they beat them nearly to death. Brutal animals filled with a mob mentality, can and will, do anything they can think up- and most of it was to me and my daughter.”

“The game changed the night Jackson murdered his father, Wilhelm,
during Mass. Again, tied up in the corner, forced to watch and listen. A game was formed. Rule one: they were the elders, the heads of their families. The only way to be eliminated was to step down or be buried by your heir. That night they all named heirs, with the exception of Henry because he had no children, and Thomas for that same reason and for another as well. Thomas wasn’t from our social circles, he had to prove his staying power- he was young, in his twenties, so they added a fifteen year waiting period for new members. Thomas could be tormented and participate, but he couldn’t vote. They all loved the voting process. I will never forget the arrogant laughter over the vote.”