Page 231 of Conquered

Unknown: Honesty is always the best policy, don’t you agree, daughter darling?

My heart pounds painfully in my chest. Does he know about my pregnancy? That we’re trying to hide it from him?

An audio message pops up next, my stomach sinking as my thumb hovers over the play button. Whatever this is, it’s not good, not good at all.

My pulse pounds as I hit the play button, my brow furrowing as the distinct sounds of rustling sheets and heavy breathing come over the speakers. I can sense the others still as the sound fills the room, followed by the sound of a young boy crying.

“If you didn’t like it so much, Kai, why are you hard?”

My wide gaze snaps up to Kai, who’s frozen next to me and deathly pale. Before I can say anything, the man’s voice, Kai’s uncle if I’m not mistaken, sounds again.

“That feels good, doesn’t it?”

“N-no.”

A young boy, Kai, sobs.

“Oh my God,” I gasp out, my hand covering my mouth as the hideous truth of what I’m hearing registers. Tears sting my eyes, and my hand shakes, but I don’t stop the recording, listening to Kai’s sobs and laboured breaths, his uncle saying foul things, as he...as he abuses him.

There’s a final cry, part pleasure, part pain, before the recording cuts off.

Tears stream down my cheeks as I look up, my whole body trembling.

“Kai?” Ash asks, voice cracking with pain. I turn my gaze to see that he, too, is pale, and looks ready to vomit.

“He stole my first orgasm,” I hear Kai say in a voice devoid of all emotion, my head snapping back to him. “I didn’t realise that he recorded it, sick bastard.”

Then he leaps up, and with a roar like a wounded animal, he launches his tablet at the fireplace. He does the same to the laptop sitting at his side, then the coffee table, lamps, and side tables, until the floor in front of us is littered with debris.

I’m full on shaking now, silent sobs wracking my body as I watch him break, jumping every time he throws something at the wall. The others sit ramrod straight, staring at him with anguish across their faces, their fists clenched, breathing laboured.

Kai stops, like all the life has left him, and chest heaving, he sinks to the floor, unheading of all the shards of glass and pieces of wood that must be cutting into him. I lurch forward, as if to go to him, but Loki stops me, holding me to him as I struggle.

“He’s hurting, Loki,” I beg, pleading with him to let me go. I still as Kai begins to talk.

“The first time, it was the day that we buried my parents,” he begins, looking at his trembling hands. “That night, he came into my room, climbing into bed with me, and–and what I thought was meant to be comfort, turned into something, sick and twisted. I was ten years old.” He gives a sharp laugh, and I’m not the only one who flinches at the sound as it cuts into our hearts, leaving us bleeding. “He visited me every night from that night, mostly touching himself, then moving on to touch me. That recording was, I think, the first time I came, his–his hand wrapped around my dick. I was thirteen.”

My breath stutters in my chest, horror leaving an acidic taste in my mouth at his words. The boys curse around me, but my eyes are fixed on Kai’s bowed head, his limp hands.

“By my fifteenth birthday I was obviously too old for his tastes, probably helped that I’d been training hard, so he could no longer force himself onto me.”

He looks up then, straight at me, his eyes those of a broken creature pleading for the pain to stop. My lip trembles, my heart racing as he speaks again.

“But he was right, you know. If I didn’t like it, why did I keep getting hard? Why did I come?”

And this time, Loki can’t stop me as I tear out of his grasp, uncaring of the pain in my feet as the sharp broken pieces of furniture pierce through my fluffy socks. I drop to my knees in front of him, useless tears coursing down my cheeks as I reach out to touch him, stopping short when I realise that he might not want to be touched.

“Can I touch you, please, my love?” I ask in a shaking voice, thick with sorrow.

“You want to touch me? After hearing that?” he questions, and this time my soul fractures into a thousand tiny pieces, scattering amongst the broken things that lay around us.

“I will always want you, Kai Matthews. Regardless of what some prick paedophile did to you when you were a child.” My voice is strong, full of anger at a world that would let this happen. At Julian for obviously knowing about it, but not stopping it. “And as for you wanting it, it was clear as day that you didn’t, Kai. That man took what was not freely given, and none of it was your fault, you hear me? None of it.”

His lip trembles, tears tracking down his flushed cheeks, his glasses gone. A deep mournful sob falls from his lips, and like a dam breaking, it’s followed by another, and another. Throwing my arms around him, I pull his body into mine, his own arms wrapping tightly around my waist as his body shakes with the force of his grief, his head buried in the crook of my neck.

My own vision is blurry as I look up to see Ash on his feet, tears falling down his own cheeks as he gazes at his friend, heartbroken. He comes towards us, wrapping his arms around Kai, who just cries harder. I feel Loki come up behind me, and I look as he kneels, his face wet as he, too, wraps his arms around Kai and me, adding his comfort. I look up as Jax approaches, dropping to his knees in front of us, his jaw working, his eyes brimming with tears. He wraps us all in his huge arms, and westay that way, holding tightly onto each other, as if we are the only thing stopping the others from floating away.

Eventually, Kai’s sobs subside, turning to quiet hiccups, then silence. Lifting his head up, he looks into our faces each in turn, his eyes red and his face tearstained. He looks at Jax last, who takes Kai's face in his huge hands, bringing their foreheads together.