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I shrug as sound crackles through the notch in the wall, pulling my attention back in time as Rowan scoffs, “Let me guess, Vlad is who you think is going to save you?”

The speakers must be embedded into it because I can feel the air move as I gently hold my fingers in front of the long slit.

I didn’t notice the figure in the corner of the room before, but Rowan brings attention to it as he presses the tip of his shiny loafer against the dead man’s chest. The guard I killed is in the room.

I slowly look from the body to Lennox beside me.

“It’s been four days,” I whisper, but he doesn’t react.

They left him to rot in that room with the couple for four fucking days. The stench must be unbearable. My head swings back at the sounds of the screams. High-pitched and full of fear. Screams I’ve been the cause of before.

Rowan stands between the couple and the chains keeping them attached to the wall don’t rattle from how taut they are as the crackle of electricity fizzes through the speakers.

The man spasms as a cattle prod is pressed to his throat, and the woman screams. She screams because one of the masked fucking guards zaps her inner thigh and her begging is too fucking similar to my own memories.

“Please, stop! Please!”

He doesn’t listen. They never do.

Sweat beads on my nape and the seat topples as I push back, watching that motherfucker push the handle of a cattle prod inside her. She screams louder, so fucking loud, and my heart batters against my ribs.

“Make it fucking stop!” Lennox doesn’t react. I grab the back of his chair to drag him back as I continue begging, “Get him to stop.”

He stretches forward and hits a button on the underside of the desk before he stands and holds my shoulders. My breathing is ragged. I need to rip my skin off, I need to get out of my fucking body, but the screams are still in the room. They mix with pained whimpers and bone cracking on concrete.

“Don’t cry here,” Lennox orders, holding my face in a tight grip between his palms. His features harden as he repeats, “Not here. Not in front of him, little shadow.”

Using the heel of his palm, he wipes my face and twists his shoulders, so I’m blocked from the door.

It’s locked anyway. It’s not like I can fucking escape.

He continues wiping my face in a panic and fucks with my head as he decides now is the best fucking time to be forthcoming with the shit he’s dragged me into.

“This is just the start, and he’s testing the guards. I need you to be strong for me.”

I’m going to throw up and my voice is too low, too fearful. “You said he trafficked people.”

Lennox nods, giving me a tight-lipped smile. “This is his world. He’s the creator, remember?”

I need to get the fuck out of this place. I’ll take the kid with me, and we’ll hide somewhere away from these sick cunts.

My uncle steps back to mute the monitors, silencing the sobbed whimpers when he sees that I’ve shut down. The door hisses, then clicks, and the sick fuck himself walks into the room, full of self-satisfaction and wearing a wide smile.

“Did you enjoy the preview, nephew?” Rowan asks.

I’m still until the door locks behind him. Rowan isn’t the creator of other people’s torment, but mine too. For some reason, I never thought killing him was possible because I’d never seen him. Now that I have, he’s human. He’s not an apparition, lore, or some scary story that has been made up.

That’s why I rush forward, my shoulder aching from the force of my arm swinging back.

My fists slam into the steel door as weight slams into my side, knocking me off course.

Rowan remains unaffected as I grab his fucking throat.

The smile widens as he looks down his nose at my hand, then flicks his eyes up to meet mine.

The weight around me tightens, a forearm pressed against my neck, pulling me back as I dig my fingers into the motherfucker’s neck.

“Do it,” he dares. My fingers don’t flex. They don’t fucking move while he laughs. “Pathetic, weak Kane. You can’t.” He calmly takes his phone out of his pocket and Lennox attempts to coax me back.

“Take your hand off him, Kane. We are the only family you have.”

I throw my head back and tighten my hand around Rowan’s fucking neck. He doesn’t tense or try to push me away. He just goes through his fucking phone. Once he’s found what he needs, I die inside all over again at the sound of my own voice crackling through the speaker.

“Please, no! Stop! Please! God, please!”

He turns the screen so I can see it. So I can see my own body, a body I don’t recognize, be torn apart. The solitary cell was never lit up, but the image is clear. I can see the blood on the back of my legs. My face. Everything.

Five.

Five of them wait, helping the other until it’s their turn while I beg.

I was a fucking kid, barely eighteen and too trusting of everyone around me.

The footage is of one of the first times they visited me when I was still fucking stupid enough to believe that my begging would do anything other than spur them on.

And too fucking deluded, thinking Delilah would do the right thing.

Hope, like everything, dies with blood and I was still too fucking hopeful of getting out.

Hopeful that my parents would see sense, that they’d realize I didn’t kill Asher.

Hopeful that Delilah would be remorseful and tell the truth so that I’d be vindicated.

Rowan pushes the screen closer to my face and I close my eyes.

He snaps and venom coats his voice. “Watch.” Holding my face in a bruising grip, he brings his knee up into my stomach and my eyes open without my intention.

“See that? That is what you are. Weak, pathetic, abused. Show your gratitude that I allow you to taint our bloodline.”

He peels my hand off his neck and Lennox doesn’t attempt to stop him. He doesn’t tell him to turn the fucking recording off and the bastard increases the volume as he says, “And now, it’s time for your punishment.”