The cage felt like the safest place in the whole house.

I wasn’t planning on locking myself inside it that first night, but ever since then, it had become a sort of ritual.

I had no idea what to do with myself in that damn house. I felt more alone than ever, alone and desperate. I needed to get things going, to set my plan into motion. But it seemed like such a long time ago that I came up with it. A lifetime since I’d decided I wanted to see Carter Knight’s empire go up in flames. I wanted to see him hurting.

That night wasn’t just balmy, it was hot as sin, and I lay on my back on those pillows and stared at the metal bars above me, thinking about the anger that had consumed me for all those years, since I was just a little girl.

Rage.

Anger.

Revenge.

Vengeance.

Wrath.

They were the only things on my mind as I lay there in the sweltering heat, my eyes on the metal above me.

I thought about him, Carter Knight. The tattoos that sneaked all over his skin, over his hands, over his neck and under his hairline. They were everywhere, his whole body covered in ink I couldn’t begin to understand, and hoped I never would.

I didn’t want to get close to him. I didn’t need to, to execute my plan.

I thought about my daddy. Mr. Savage, as I’d come to know him when my mother met him. The man who raised me, the man who I owed everything to. And in the end, the man who signed off my fate when a stranger put his signature on the dotted line and bought me like a piece of fuckmeat to enjoy for as long as he wanted… as long as I didn’t end up a dead body, like I’d heard the rest of his playmates had, once he got sick of them.

I would never let that happen.

If he wanted me dead, so be it.

But I was taking Carter Knight down with me.

I didn’t realize I wasn’t alone for the longest time. My eyelids were heavy with sleep and my limbs felt numb as I lay on my back.

I jumped when he approached the cage, when his lean, tattooed fingers wrapped around the bars of my prison.

“W-what are you doing back?” I stuttered, pulling my knees close to my chest to cover up my naked body.

It was a move I made on instinct, and I cursed myself for it. I wanted to be open for him, I wanted him to desire my body by putting as much of it on show as possible. I wasn’t supposed to be hiding like this, and he wasn’t supposed to know how scared he made me. I’d already slipped up before he’d left, snapping at him and possibly doing irreparable damage.

I bit into my tongue with all the force I could muster up to punish myself.

Anywhere else I hurt myself on my body, Knight would be able to see, and I couldn’t have that.

I tasted the metallic taste of blood and swallowed it, pleased of the reminder I’d just given myself.

“Am I not allowed to come back and see my pretty little toy?” Knight murmured, his voice deep and gravelly but quiet at the same time. It almost made me whimper out loud, but I stopped myself just in time, wondering whether he’d like it or not. “Come out of the fucking cage, Angel.”

I reached for the key under the biggest one of the pillows, my hands shaking badly as I put it in the lock. He stared at me, and I wondered what he thought about me locking myself in there. I didn’t think he’d care, or even notice, by the time he came back.

I opened the low door and crawled out of the cage on my knees since there was no other way to get out of it, and sat on my heels once I was out. Just like I’d been taught, just like the best little sex slave any man could ever want.

I looked at the floor and he knelt down next to me, sending shivers of panic down my spine.

He reached out for me, those inked fingers twirling my hair as I stared numbly at the floor.

“You felt safe in there,” he said matter-of-factly. “You felt safer locked inside a little cage, because you were the one to do it.”

My heart pounded as he toyed with strands of my hair. I wanted him gone, I wanted him dead. I wanted to dance on his grave and spit on the tombstone.

“Pretty little toy,” he muttered. “You’re going to be even prettier once you’re broken. I can’t wait to put you back together, Angel.”

I shrank back from his touch when he tugged on my hair, and he chuckled and got up.

“Come on, girl, we don’t have all day,” he said, his voice rougher this time around.

He didn’t help me up, and he didn’t offer me anything to wear either.

“Are you hungry?” he asked me once I got to my feet.

I stared at him, contemplating my answer. I’d been fed regularly, platters of food being delivered to my quarters after it became clear I wouldn’t come to eat downstairs. Always by the same woman, that Carolina who bore the nasty scar on her face. It scared me every time I looked at it, not because it looked gruesome on her stunning face, but because I wondered if my master had been the one to put it there.

“Yes,” I said in my smallest voice, and he motioned for me to follow him out of the room.

I decided it would be okay to do it, since it was an order from him, and followed behind at a safe distance.

I kept my eyes trained on the floor as we left the safety of the hallway, down the pretty marble staircase and into a state-of-the-art kitchen. It was beautiful, and I let my fingers trail along the cool rose-colored marble, cooling off from the heat of the day. It was pleasant in there, and I noticed the faint hum of the AC unit in the corner. It seemed as if every room but mine in the house had them, and I wondered why I’d been excluded.

“Was it too hot in your room?” he asked me, as if he could read my mind.

“A little,” I said softly, risking a look at him.

He was wearing a shirt cuffed to his forearms, revealing inch after inch of skin blackened with ink. He was in jeans and work boots, an outfit that felt so unusual on him it made me wonder. I felt so exposed next to him, and even though I knew I had nothing to be ashamed about, I felt embarrassed about my nakedness.

“I’ll make sure the AC unit is put back in your room,” he told me, taking something out of the fridge and giving me the quickest of glances. “Never got around to it.”

“Why did you take it out?” I asked, because I couldn’t help myself, and he stared at me so intently I wished I’d never asked the question.

“A girl,” he said simply. “A while before you. She always had the room ice cold and I hated it when I was fucking her.”

And there it was, out in the open just like that. A sharp reminder telling me just what I was to him, just what a man like him could want from a girl like me.

I looked away, unable to hold his gaze.

“Do you like steak?” he asked me, and I shrugged. “I want words, not fucking shrugs, Angel.”

“I guess,” I replied, still not looking at him.

He busied himself, getting the grill on the stove ready. I stood there awkwardly while he took the meat out. The sauce it was in made my mouth water, but I did my best to hide it.

I knew what men like him liked. I’d heard of the whispers, the ones that said he liked his girls to call him Daddy. He wanted a girl that barely looked her age, young and skinny in a body more fit for someone younger. It disgusted me, but I let myself be the way I thought he wanted me. I would be perfect for him, because I wanted my love to ruin this man.

“You’re too fucking thin anyway,” he told me, and my eyes shot up to stare at him.

He had his back to me, busy with the meat. A meat hammer was right next to him on the counter, and my eyes focused on the sharp ends.

“I don’t like skin over bones,” he kept talking as he put the meat on the grill. “I want something to hold onto when I fuck you, girl.”

His derogatory use of the word pissed me off, but I barely noticed. I kept looking at the meat hammer.

I could end this, all of it, right then and there.

I could kill him, and be rid of him forever.

No need for the plan.

I’d have his blood on my hands and it would be fucking worth it.

I waited for a distraction. Waited until he was so immersed in his cooking he barely noticed me moving closer and making a grab for the hammer. I weighed it in my hand, the combination of wood and metal so heavy in my palm it felt like I was holding up my guilt in one arm.

I swung it against his head without thinking twice about it. I wanted him gone.

But he turned around so fast I shrieked in surprise when he wrestled it out of my grip. He had me pinned against the wall in a second, the hammer falling to the floor and breaking the beautiful marble tile. My breath quickened and I struggled against him in panic as he grabbed my throat and pressed me tightly against the cold wall.

This is it, I thought. This is how I’m going to die. Stupid, foolish fucking girl, to let it end this way.

“You’re not the first one to try and hurt me,” he told me in a low hiss. “Not the last one either, Angel.”

He twisted my arm so hard I cried out in absolute pain and terror.

“Don’t break it!” I begged him. “Please, don’t hurt me, please don’t.”

“Are you scared?” His breath was hot against my neck and it felt like hell. Like fire. Like he was turning me into a pile of burning ash with his mouth. “You fucking should be.”

He let go of me and went back to cooking the steak as if nothing had happened.

I clutched my throbbing wrist and stared at the red marks he’d left across my flesh. I wanted to hurt him more than ever.

“You broke a tile,” he said simply. “I’m going to have to punish you for that, I hope you know. Pick up the hammer and put it on the counter.”

I did it almost robotically, and he ignored me for the next few minutes as he grilled the meat and steamed some vegetables on the stove.

“Get out two plates from that cupboard,” he told me next, and I ignored the pain in my wrist and did as he told me.

He ladled the vegetables onto the plates and added the meat, and made me carry both plates to the dining room, still completely naked and now with my hand streaked with marks of his violence.

The man was a monster.

He sat me down at the table, and lit a fucking candle on it, like this was some kind of romantic fucking dinner.

“I think I know just how to punish you,” he told me conversationally, and I hated him with every fiber of my body.

He took the seat next to me and I picked up the fork and knife.

“No,” he said, and I dropped the cutlery. It clattered to the table loudly. “You don’t eat until I tell you to.”

He cut into his steak and the scent of meat and buttered vegetables made me hungrier than ever.

“Now, Angel,” he said, tasting the meat off his fork and giving me a smile. “I want you to be my amusement while I fucking eat. How are you going to do that?”

I stared at him blankly.

“You do want to eat, don’t you?” he asked me, and I found myself nodding. “Well then you better think of a fucking way to entertain me while I eat.”

I stared at him, noticing how his eyes kept roaming down my body, stopping on my tits. My nipples hardened under his glare and I hated him for it, hated the way my body reacted to his presence, half-fear and half-drunken lust for the man I was supposed to fucking hate.

“Touch them,” he told me roughly, chewing his dinner.

My hand went up before I could stop myself. The one he’d hurt. He looked at the red marks around my wrist and it looked as if they made him angry for reasons I didn’t really understand.

I raised my fingers to my chest, gently sliding them down the middle of my torso. It made my lips part, and a soft moan escaped my mouth even though I hadn’t wanted it to.

“That’s a good girl,” he told me calmly, going on with his dinner as if nothing had happened. “Now your nipples, I want to see you playing with those.”

I eyed my plate of food as my fingers touched to my nipples. They were hard and it was embarrassing.

“You hate me,” he said, and my body tensed, because of course, he was right. “You want to hate me, and you do. Your body doesn’t though, does it, Angel?”

I tugged on my nipple as he stared at me, moaning so softly the sound was barely even there.

“Between your legs now,” he told me. “Have you touched yourself there before?”

I shook my head in a half-hearted attempt to hide the truth, and he sighed, setting down his knife. For a second I thought he was going to hurt me again.

“Words,” he reminded me instead. “I won’t keep fucking telling you. Use fucking words.”

“Sometimes,” I breathed as my hand slipped down my body, settling on my shaking thigh. “Not… inside…”

“Well touch yourself inside right the fuck now,” he ordered me, and I gasped when my fingers fought their way inside my pussy despite my best judgment.

I have to, I reminded myself. I have to do what he says, this is all part of a larger plan, I have to. It’s going to be worth it when he’s ruined, and I’ve had my vengeance.

“Are you wet?” he asked me.

“Y-yeah,” I whispered. My fingers felt alien inside my pussy. I’d never been able to put them that deep inside myself before, and it felt strange… I hated thinking about the fact he’d opened me up like that, made me able to do this. I hated the thought of him inside me a few days ago, and I hated him for making me get wetter.

“Fuck yourself.”

Just two words and my fingers were suddenly drenched.

I have to. I have to. I have to do as he says if I want to win.

I moved my fingers. Just two, because I couldn’t fit more than that in. It felt so full like that. My pussy clenched around them and I felt the tightness, the wetness covering them. I looked at him, feeling a little broken and a lot lost.

He stared at me as he ate.

“You gotta earn your dinner,” he told me sweetly. “It’s how I train all my girls.”

“And all your dogs?” I snapped, and he laughed in my face.

“I’m a cat person,” he said and held out a fork with a piece of meat on it for me.

I realized how hungry I was, and I leaned forward to take a bite. He grinned and moved it just out of my reach, and I wanted to fucking kill him.

“Come for me first,” he told me simply.

I bit back the insult on the tip of my tongue and worked my pussy because I knew I had to. I hated him, and I hoped my eyes told him as much as I pushed my fingers in and out of my pussy, working myself up to an angry orgasm.

A little whimper left my lips without me wanting it to, and he laughed as he waited. Because he knew it was going to happen sooner rather than later. Bastard.

“So close now,” he groaned at me. “Come on, just a little bit deeper. Curl your fingers inside your pussy for me.”

I did, and it felt too good to admit, but I think he knew from the way my eyes rolled back.

“Please,” I whispered. “I want to stop right now.”

“You don’t,” he laughed at me. “If I told you to stop right now you’d only hate me more.”

I opened my eyes and stared at him, realizing he was right. What was happening here? This wasn’t good.

“Come for me,” he said, and I let it happen.

I curled the two fingers in my pussy and stroked my thumb over my clit, my other hand gripped the table as I came with a little cry for help.

I hated how good it felt, but I didn’t hate it as much as the fact I wanted to whisper his name as I soaked my fingers. It was over in seconds, but it would leave me embarrassed for years.

My hands shook when I took my fingers out and opened my eyes to stare at him.

His eyes were hazy too.

“Clean your fingers.”

His voice was as rough as I felt.

I raised my hand to my lips and looked into his eyes as I licked them both clean, all the way down to the knuckle, even though it made me choke a little. He stared at me almost like I made him angry.

“Can I eat now?” I asked, pretending the tremble in my voice wasn’t there.

“Yes,” he replied, looking away from me. He took my plate from the table and I stared at him as he put it on the floor. “You can eat it off the floor since you acted like a damn animal earlier.”

I stared at him incredulously, my thighs still shaking from the orgasm. I pushed back from the table, my chair scraping the floor.

“I’d rather die,” I spat at him, making a move to leave.

His fingers wrapped around my wrist, and I yelped in fear. He seemed to realize it was the wrist he’d twisted earlier, and for a single second, he let his fingers caress my skin, which would surely be bruised by the morning.

“Eat,” he barked at me, and one look at his almost black eyes was enough for me to drop to my knees.

At least he hadn’t told me to use my mouth only. I tore at my food and seethed with anger so intense it felt like it would kill me.

And he watched me eat like that until I’d cleaned off my plate, licking it clean just to set him off. Once I was done, he pushed his chair back abruptly and just left me sitting there on the floor, feeling more used than I’d been when he fucked my virginity away in front of my stepfather.