Page 55 of Conquered (Highgate Preparatory Academ:y Compendium)

I feel so numb, like I'm not really here. I'm fucking floored by the fact that they hurt someone. That they've done it more than once. That they’ll probably do it again.

Rivers of red ribbons…

The image sears my retinas, as if I’m in that room once more, and I force it down with a shake of my head before it can take root.

Ash sits down heavily, elbows dropping to his knees and hands dangling between them, like he's just too exhausted to stand up anymore.

“As Kai told you, our families are all in business together. Sometimes, someone oversteps the line and needs to be dealt with.”

“Dealt with?” I ask, wrapping my arms around myself, but finding no comfort. “What do you mean?”

I see Loki jerk towards me, and I can't deny how much I want his strong arms wrapped around me right now, holding me tight.

But, I just can't. I need a clear head. I need to understand. So I shake my head, and once again fracture into pieces as he looks heartbroken, rubbing his chest as if he’s in physical pain.

“I thought I made that pretty fucking clear earlier, Princess,” Ash says, his voice full of cold arrogance as he looks up at me, jaw hard.

“We interrogate them for intel, we hurt them if they don't give it to us, or we teach them a lesson if they cross us.” He says all this so casually, like he's talking about calculus and not the fact that they injure people.

“And you have to...deal with them? Like the way my mum was dealt with?” I ask, my voice cutting and only hitching slightly at the end. Ash flinches like I’ve struck him, and I hear curses behind me.

“We have to prove ourselves, Baby Girl,” Jax rumbles from his place behind me, and I spin round.

A part of me notices that none of them deny the inference that things may go further than just bodily harm. My stomach threatens to revolt at that thought.

I can see his arms are crossed over his chest defensively, and he's leaning against the mantelpiece. A fire burns in the fireplace sending out a warmth that I can't feel, whilst I stand here with what feels like despair wrapping its cold fingers round my heart.

“It's our legacy,” he tells me, and he’s completely closed off, withdrawn from me and giving me the bare facts. But there’s a pleading look in his blue eyes, begging me to understand. “We must show that we are worthy to take over our roles in the company one day.”

I just gape at him. This is all about business?

“I don't understand,” I reply, looking into his sharp blue eyes, silently asking him to explain it to me. To tell me this isn’t just about money and lining their pockets.

“A few years back, we were all taken to a cabin in the Rockies,” Loki begins out of the blue, his low voice making me ache to be surrounded by his warmth. I look over to him, still standing nearby, arms at his sides, like he can't bear to be too far away from me.

“Loki…” Ash growls out, standing up, his whole body bristling.

Loki spins towards him. “She deserves to know the whole fucked up story, Ash!” Loki shouts, getting up in Ash's face. They stay like that for a few moments, chests heaving and gazes locked.

“Fine,” Ash snaps out, turning his back on Loki, and grabbing his drink before sitting back down.

“We thought it was some team building shit that they, our fathers, kept putting us through. I guess it was in a way.” Loki lets out a cruel chuckle.

It's a sound I've never heard from him before, and I hate it. “We arrived, and they took us down to the basement.” He closes his eyes, tilting his head back, hands running over his hair. “There was a...mark, a target in the basement. Tied and gagged.” He looks at me then, and the pain and loathing in his eyes takes me aback, my pounding heart stuttering in my chest. “They told us that now that we were older, and if we ever wanted to take over the business, we needed to learn what had to be done when someone got in our way. When someone knows too much, or tries to cross us.” He stops, his eyes hard, yet asking me to understand why they’ve committed such atrocities. But I don't. Not yet.

“What happened?” I whisper, not wanting the story to continue, but needing to know the truth about these guys. “What did you have to do?” I ask, dreading the answer, but desperate for the truth.

“We each took turns beating the shit out of him,” Kai's soft melodic voice sounds out. Only, it's got a hard quality to it now.

“You could have refused,” I counter quietly. “You could have said no.”

“Pretty hard to say no with a gun to your head, Princess ,” Ash scoffs.

“Wh–what?” I ask, shocked, my gaze flitting to his sharp one. I seem to be asking this question a lot tonight, like a broken fucking record.

“Our fathers,” Ash spits the word out like it leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

“Or in Kai's case his uncle, held guns to our heads, saying that if we couldn't prove that we were men enough to do what was best for the company, then we didn't deserve a seat at the table. Jax and I protested loudly, calling their bluff.” Ash doesn't finish his sentence, but Kai steps in.

“But then my uncle clicked off the safety and shot me in the shoulder,” he says quietly, and I turn my gaze on him. He looks tired, and there is a guilt in his eyes as he briefly looks at the others. Does he blame himself for that night?

“ He shot you?!” I all but screech, my eyes travelling over him as if I can see the wound.

How could their own families do this to them?

“He said next time he wouldn't miss,” Ash adds, his face full of pain.

“Unbeknownst to us, they filmed the whole thing. They have proof and use it against us at every fucking opportunity,” Loki finishes, and he looks so hopeless, his arms loose at his sides, that my heart breaks anew for these guys.

“B–but, they're your family! What kind of fucked up shit is that?” I ask, no one answers, as we all know it's above and beyond fucked. I can't fathom having the people who are meant to love you, protect you at all costs, be willing to destroy you. To hurt you. To kill you.

I look at Loki who's still standing close to me, and the bleakness on his face breaks my heart and makes my very soul wail. Yet, how can I reconcile the fact that they badly hurt people, with the guys who I have feelings for? Who I’m falling for?

I feel so churned up, full of anger, sorrow, and betrayal.

It's like they've ripped my beating heart right out of my fucking chest, devouring it and leaving me an empty shell. It’s all so overwhelming, and I don’t know how to process any of it.

And it’s all tied up with fucking crimson ribbons that bind me so tightly, there’s no hope of escape.

Dizziness washes over me, my limbs cold and my breaths shallow as panic flares brightly inside me.

“I...I will go sleep in one of the spare rooms,” I say haltingly, starting to back away, as my flight mode screams at me to run.

“Lilly, please don't run away,” Loki asks desperately, a look of sorrow in his eyes that rips my soul apart even more until there is nothing left.

He takes a step towards me, and again I step back, flinching and putting distance between us. His face falls further, and he slumps against the side of the sofa in defeat.

“You know we'd never hurt you, don't you, Baby Girl?” Jax asks, his deep voice that usually soothes me, raspy as he takes a step away from the mantle in my direction.

My eyes flit from Jax, to Loki, to Kai, and finally to Ash, who has become cold and distant again.

“I...I know,” I say, still backing up, my movements jerky and body tense. “I just need some time. I–I need to think, to process everything you just told me.”

Run! Get out of there! My mind begs me.

And then I turn tail and flee up the stairs, my heart racing, my pulse drumming in my ears.

I hear Jax roar, the sound making me jerk in my flight, my steps coming faster.

Then the crash of furniture and smashed glass sounds behind me, as I finally throw open the door to a spare room, slamming it shut once I’m inside.

Sliding down to sit on the floor, I break into a million pieces that scatter out into the darkness.

KAI

I watch with a heavy heart full of agony as Lilly flees the living room, leaving hopelessness and destruction in her wake.

I look up as my brothers fall apart around me, feeling utterly hopeless. There's not a single thing I can do about it. Nothing I can do to help, or ease the pain that is tearing through all of us at her rejection.

Jax reacts with his usual violence, throwing his glass in the fireplace, making the flames roar up the chimney, before he upends a table, smashing it to pieces all the while bellowing like a wounded lion.

Loki looks after her, his whole body shaking, and I can see the glisten of unshed tears in his eyes.

On his face is a lost look that breaks my heart more, and a flash of worry dries my mouth at what path he will go down now.

Things weren’t great before Lilly came here.

He was taking too many drugs, drinking until he passed out and coming home with a different girl almost every night.

I don’t want to see him like that again. I can’t bear it.

And Ash. Well, Ash retreats into himself as he tends to do, his body stiff and his face hard as stone. It's only then that I realize with a jolt, that he'd begun to emerge at all.

I sit here, not knowing what to do to fix it. I am usually good at fixing things, but I'm all out of ideas. And hurting just as much as my brothers.

“Shouldn't we have told her the full story?” Loki asks the room, still staring up the stairs. His voice is rough, scratchy with sadness.

“Why?” Ash sneers, his upper lip curling. A classic defensive move for him and I ache to see it. “You saw her, she could barely fucking look at us as it was. It wouldn't have made any fucking difference, Loki.” He ends on a sigh, like he's given up already.

“We were fucking fourteen! Still kids! And we had no fucking choice!” Loki, the calm playful one of us, suddenly roars.

He's gotten up in Ash's face again, squaring off against him, and at least he’s shed some of the hopelessness, even if he’s replaced it with rage.

I can see Ash bristle, his fists clenching by his sides.

“Well, go on then,” Ash says in a deadly calm voice, that lets me know he's close to losing it. “Go upstairs, and tell her that we're murderers too. I fucking dare you.”

“We had no choice,” Loki bites back, and I can see that they're moments away from trading blows.

“Doesn't matter. We still killed a man, the rest is semantics,” Ash counters in that same unemotional tone.

Just as I think Loki is gonna go for him, and I’m wondering if I’m going to need to stop him, Jax gets between them.

“Enough,” he says in that gruff voice of his, placing a hand on each of their chests. “Us fighting doesn't help anything.”

“Well, what do you suggest, big guy ?” Ash asks Jax scathingly, his eyes narrowing to slits. He's lashing out because he's hurting. It's how he copes with pain. And he’s had more than his fair share of that over the years.

“We give her time,” I say simply, but loud enough that everyone hears and turns to look at me. “She'll come around.”

“How do you know?” Loki asks me, voice small and uncertain, yet there’s a shred of hope in there. A dim light in his eyes.

“Because she needs us as much as we need her,” I reply, hoping with my whole being that I’m right.