“I don’t belong to anyone,” I snarled, but he laughed in my face instead.

Hatred like I’d never known before pounded through my body, reminding me how much anger I could muster for the right occasion. I could’ve killed Kain in cold blood for the devastation and death surrounding me.

But he was so young. So handsome. Surely he couldn’t have been the one to orchestrate all this? Surely someone else’s work was involved. No one this young could be this evil.

He quickly convinced me my naivety was wrong to assume him not to be the mastermind behind this senseless killing. He stepped closer to the pile of bodies and pulled out a long, sleek blade from behind him. He grinned at his own reflection in the steel, and then expertly separated Papa’s head from his shoulders.

I thought I would never stop screaming. My fear was immense, but my anger was stronger. One of the guards had knocked Ryker unconscious when he’d tried to reach for me, and Max watched horror-stricken as Kain returned, holding my father’s head by the blood-slicked hair.

I howled in pain, but he merely smiled at me in response.

“You want to say goodbye to Papa?” he asked innocently, and I cried louder.

The man tossed my father’s head to the side and came to kneel in front of me yet again. The guard had forced me to my knees, and we were now eye-to-eye.

“You’re very pretty,” Kain told me roughly, almost like it was painful for him to give me a compliment. “But I’m going to make you very, very fucking ugly instead.”

My chest tightened in fear.

“Are you scared?” he asked sweetly. “You should be. I’m going to break you in so many ways your appearance won’t matter at all. I’m going to make sure you look a million bucks, but your soul will be crushed into a thousand pieces.”

“Let them go!” I screamed when one of the guards kicked Max’s stomach for no reason at all. “Please, take me, just let them go!”

“Let them go?” Kain repeated mockingly. “I don’t think so. Actually, we’re going to hurt them. But maybe just one, one can stand behind to spread my name. Make sure people know who did this.”

He regarded the twins with a bone-chilling gaze, and I shivered as he cocked his head to the side and looked back at me.

“What do you think, dolly?”

Dolly. What a wicked nickname. It made me feel like a toy he wanted to play with. And I didn’t want him to lay a single finger on me.

“Don’t hurt them,” I begged. “Please, just don’t hurt them.”

“Choose,” Kain taunted. “Choose which one of them you want us to let go.”

“No,” I cried out helplessly. “Please, don’t make me.”

“Do it,” he snarled. “Or they both die.”

With my bottom lip trembling, I looked at the two men on the ground. Ryker having come to, both of them stared at me with broken expressions, neither of them saying a word.

“Ryker,” I whispered. “Save Ryker.”

Max had hung his head a second prior to when I spoke, as if he’d accepted his fate. I screamed when one of the men knocked Max out, and he was dragged off to the side, where a van was waiting. I screamed my head off, but it didn’t seem to matter, because it became obvious Kain wasn’t a man of his word.

He stepped to Ryker’s crumpled figure on the grass, took out his blade and slashed the man’s stomach.

Ryker grunted, and I screamed again, a chilling sound that would haunt me in my nightmares until the end of days.

“You promised!” I begged. “You promised you wouldn’t hurt him!”

“I did no such thing.” Kain grinned wickedly. “I just said I’d let one go.”

He kicked Ryker and leaned down to tell him, “Run away, little man. Try and get help. Hurry before I decide I want to put more holes inside you.”

Ryker could barely move, but Kain just laughed in his face.

“Now, the girl,” he said darkly. “Put her in the limo with me. I want to watch her.”

I was crying as they dragged me off and fully witnessed the carnage they’d caused. Dead or barely alive bodies littered the ground. Everyone’s party clothes were soaked with blood, while food lay grotesquely in the blood this man had spilled. The small fire had spread to the house, and I saw a man dumping buckets of gasoline over my home. I stared in horror as the house caught on fire, the flames slowly swallowing up everything I knew.

My life as I knew it was now over.

* * *

I was shoved into the limousine by two burly men, and a moment later, Kain climbed in after me. The door shut and blocked out the sound of people screaming in our family home. Slowly, the car drove away from the carnage, and I shivered, my eyes blankly staring ahead as my heart pounded with erratic force deep in my chest.

“I’m sorry for what you had to see, Princess Ophelia,” Kain said with a sigh. “I’m afraid it was necessary. You see, your father wasn’t a very nice man.”

I kept staring ahead. The less I said, the less he could hurt me.

Right?

The image of Ryker being cut and Max being dragged off felt more painful than anything else. I couldn’t even bear to think about what had happened to my family. I couldn’t imagine a world where they didn’t exist, and where I existed by myself… lonelier than I’d ever imagined being.

“What happened today,” Kain went on, “was revenge. What you witnessed today has been a decade in the making. You are eighteen now, aren’t you, Ophelia?”

I looked into his dark brown eyes and nodded slowly, numbly.

“I’m only a year older than you,” he admitted. “Perhaps one day, the tables will turn, and you’ll kill me for what I’ve done to your family. I deserve to die for what I’ve done. But so did your father.”

His words sparked a morbid curiosity inside me, and I muttered, “What did my papa do?”

“He killed everyone I’d ever loved,” Kain confessed darkly, and I twisted my head to look out of the window, unable to bear it. “He killed my whole family and the girl I loved, and not even God can forgive him.”

I kept staring out of the window, feeling his eyes on me. He made me restless and nervous as I realized all the things in the world he could possibly do to me. It was as if my body had been on autopilot a second before, but now my heart pounded in fear of all the possibilities of Kain’s intentions.

“Are you going to kill me?” I asked faintly, and he stared hard at me as my gaze slowly floated to his.

“No.” He shook his head firmly. “But your life is going to change.”

“Why?” I demanded helplessly. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

He leaned closer, his voice secretive as he whispered, “Neither did I.”

We spent the rest of the drive in silence, and I rocked myself into a semi-catatonic state. Slowly, reality started to flood me, but I blocked it out like a bad dream.

Surely this wasn’t truly happening. It was a horrible nightmare that had no place in my life. I would wake up in tears, but Mamochka would make everything better. She’d hug me and kiss me, and maybe I’d get to wear one of her pretty jewels.

Subconsciously, my hand flew up around my neck, and I touched my fingers to the cool ruby around my throat.

I remembered Mamochka giving it to me that morning, and my heart shattered. It was true. It was true. It wasn’t just a dream.

Less than an hour ago, I’d been kissed for the very first time. Now, I was a prisoner to a cold-blooded killer, who was taking me God knew where to finish his dirty work.

I started to sob quietly, trying to hide my misery from the man sitting next to me. I knew he was dangerous; he’d proved it too many times to count in such a short span of time. I was terrified of him, almost as much as I hated him. I would kill him the first chance I got. I would never forgive this man who had cruelly taken the lives of many. I didn’t give a shit whether he’d been the one to kill my family with his own hands or not. I would still kill him for it. He deserved it.

I felt him looking, seemingly uncomfortable, as if overwhelmed. I glanced at him with hatred in my eyes. So he could handle the ruthless killing, but some tears were too much for him?

“You’re weak,” I told him contemptuously. “You killed those people, and for what?”

“You would never understand,” he said in a low grunt. “You’re a pampered, spoiled little princess. You don’t understand a thing.”

I pursed my lips and refused to answer. He would never get a thing out of me again, not a word and not a rise. I decided on the spot to stop speaking to him.

I plunged into darkness, closing my eyes and trying to block out everything that had happened. The ride continued, and as my tears rolled down my cheeks, I sensed Kain’s gaze on me. He was watching closely as if fascinated by my display of emotion. But he didn’t say a word, just continued staring at me without making a move.

I half-expected him to force himself on me, but he did no such thing. He just kept staring, and I felt the warmth of his gaze, despite my eyes being closed.

We drove for what felt like hours until my body was sore from all the lumps in the road we’d taken. I watched my hands folded in my lap mindlessly, not caring where we went. It didn’t matter anyway. My life had ended in that garden, in front of my dead family and the two boys I cared for, one left for dead, and the other taken away.

We stopped in front of a sprawling estate. All around, I could see nothing but fields. It looked nothing like the destinations Papa took us on. It was luxurious but quiet, old school and understated, but dripping with money. That much was obvious. Only when we got closer did I start to notice the chipping paint, the damaged roof. It was the house of a king that was slowly falling apart without its ruler. My curiosity piqued, but the feeling was wiped by anger and sadness.

“Welcome to my humble abode,” Kain said with a wicked smile, leading me inside the estate.

It was truly beautiful, like something out of a time machine. The interior was swathed in rich fabrics, old expensive furniture, and portraits that surely belonged in museums. There was a large hole in the ceiling of the main hall, which reached up two-stories high. But the roof was open, and a ray of sunshine shone into the room, giving it a surreal feel.

Once again, I felt like I was in a dream, but I realized this was real life, and there was no way of getting out… at least not yet.

I was surrounded by three guards as I entered the house, the ancient floorboards creaking under my footsteps.

I still didn’t say a word, keeping my thoughts to myself as Kain opened his arms and showed off the room. I merely stared at him, waiting for his stupid fucking show to be over.

“This is your new home,” Kain told me plainly. “You better get used to it, and fucking fast too. You know, little orphan, you remind me of a bird….”