Page 79 of Degradation (The Brethren Lords #3)

Devin

I can hear Paitlyn’s ragged breaths echoing off the cold walls, the sound of her suffering a symphony to my hatred.

I don’t look back. I don’t need to see her pitiful state to know she’s broken.

But not broken enough. Not yet.

The hallway is dimly lit, the air thick with the stench of bleach, as I make my way back from the toilet block to the main room. A few of the men got a little too handsy with the girls we dragged down here. A few of the girls didn’t make it.

The ones that are left are drugged to their eyeballs. They’re so high right now they have no idea where the fuck they are or what is going on.

One is spinning around on a scaffold pole Mace procured from God only knows where.

Her hands are sliding all up the metal from where they’re covered in her blood, but she doesn’t seem to notice.

Her head is thrown back, her legs are wide, and she’s going around and around in circles while humming some tune that sounds eerily like a nursery rhyme.

No one is even looking at her. If she fell and smacked her head, I don’t think anyone would care.

I shake my head, noticing how the room quietens down as I enter. All their eyes following me like I’m the fucking Pied Piper.

I sit at the table, pick up my rifle, and start breaking it apart to clean it again. The ritual is soothing, the cold metal against my calloused hands a comfort.

As I unclick the barrel, my mind drifts to Magnus.

I wonder what the bastard is doing right now.

Is he plotting against me, trying to find a way to take me down?

The thought makes me smirk. My brother is no fool.

He may be occupied right now with becoming Chapter Lord, but that doesn’t mean he’s forgotten me.

Besides, we still have Titus, don’t we? The clock is ticking faster and faster for when Magnus is going to need him.

I shake my head, ramming the pipe cleaner down into the barrel.

“You think she’ll talk soon?” Jackson, a burly man now with a beard down to his chest, asks, bringing me out of my head.

His eyes are bloodshot, too many nights of little sleep and too much drink to try and quieten down the nightmares he suffers when he finally does get some shut eye.

I shrug. “She’ll talk when she realizes there’s no other way out.”

“Maybe we should just end her.” Jackson suggests, his voice gruff. “She’s clearly off her head. And she’s causing more trouble than she’s worth.”

I look up, my eyes meeting his. “She’s worth it.

” I state. “Think of all the hours, all the years of suffering you’ve endured because of that bitch.

We end her now, what does that give us? It doesn’t give us justice, it doesn’t give us recompense.

She deserves to suffer just as much as we have.

She deserves to lay in that cell, to rot away as we carve out every single moment of our sentence into her flesh. ”

He grunts but doesn’t argue further. He knows better. They all do.

The room falls into a tense silence. The only sound is the soft click of my rifle parts as I reassemble it. I can feel their eyes on me, waiting for my next move, my next order.

These men used to be something, used to be the best of the best. Paitlyn did this, Paitlyn created this. They’re like sheep now, lost without their shepherd. But I’m no shepherd. I’m the fucking wolf.

“She needs to eat.” Lyndon says suddenly.

I glance over at him.

“Let the bitch starve.” Mace snaps.

“She hasn’t eaten since we got her.” Cooper says.

He’s right. She hasn’t. Not that that’s a bad thing, better we keep her weak, better we keep her frail.

“Bitch has had enough water to keep her alive for weeks.” Jackson spits and a few of the others laugh.

I let out a sigh, before jerking my head for Cooper to follow me. Perhaps he’s right, the bitch does need sustenance. But that doesn’t mean we have to give her a feast, do we?

I stalk into the storeroom, grabbing a few supplies, then head for her cell. Cooper is on my tail like a second shadow.

Before we enter, we pick up the masks, covering our faces and distorting our voices. I don’t know why it really matters. I don’t know why I don’t want her to know that it’s me doing all this.

Maybe she would talk if she realised. Maybe she’d understand how truly fucked she was and just give in.

And yet, I still don’t want to do it. It feels like a trump card, a final piece in my arsenal. I want her at breaking point, I want her on her knees, utterly destroyed, when I reveal the truth.

When we walk inside, the girl is curled up, whimpering, though I can’t tell if she’s awake or not.

My mind flickers back, back to a moment so long ago, in a room with silk sheets and pretty painted walls.

She’d whimpered then, hadn’t she? When she was asleep, when she’d all but collapsed with exhaustion after I’d spent hours ruining her.

Yeah, she’d whimpered alright.

She’d cried and she’d begged too.

I shake my head, ridding myself of that memory and I give the girl a good kick in the ribs to get her attention. Her body tenses as she comes to.

We keep her drugged enough that she doesn’t have the mental capacity to think logically. All of us have fucked her in some way or other, it’d be easy enough for her to guess who we are. The drugs eliminate that possibility.

“Grab her head.” I order Cooper.

He twists his hand around her dirty hair, using it like an anchor to pull her head back.

“Open wide.” I spit, forcing the tube in over her tongue, forcing it down her throat.

She tries to scream, tries to fight as I ensure it’s far enough down that’s it’s past her sphincter and truly into her oesophagus.

I don’t want this to accidentally go into her lungs, I don’t want the bitch to aspirate and die on me.

In my other hand I have a protein shake.

I snap the lid off, pouring the contents in, watching as it streams down the semi-transparent tube.

She screams more, she begins to choke, and I do nothing as I squeeze and squeeze.

“Imagine it’s one of our cocks.” Cooper sneers. “You always enjoyed choking on one of those.” He laughs at his joke, giving her a hard slap on the back for good measure.

I don’t react, I just continue squeezing until the bottle is empty and then I yank the tube out, doing nothing to stop it from catching on the way up.

Paitlyn splutters, she doubles up onto all fours and half sobs. Cooper laughs more, telling her she’s clearly out of practice while I stare at her, stare at the woman, the creature that once, I was going to risk everything for.

I would’ve burnt the world down, I would have sacrificed everything I was, everything my brothers were. And for what? For this? For her?

She lifts her hand, pleading with her body because her words have done nothing so far.

I sneer down at her, not that she can see the expression, and with all my strength I kick at her fingers. I kick so hard so collapses, her body slams into the concrete and that’s where I leave her.