It’s a gloomy, cooler summer day, an appropriate setting for the darkness that I expect Xavier is about to bring down upon us. I continue to follow behind Jake with our hands connected and Xavier’s armed guard behind me all the way down the stone path between the house and the garage. When we reach the edge of the driveway, Xavier gestures for us to stop.
I’m ripped from my temporary place of refuge behind Jake the moment that Xavier grabs my arm and pulls me to him. When I’m positioned away from Jake on the other side of Xavier, he lets go of my arm, and we all stand and wait expectantly for something to happen.
It takes a few minutes before I hear the sound of a vehicle approaching the house from down the road. At first I’m puzzled by the sound and wonder how the vehicle managed to get past the wall of dirt and debris blocking the road to our house, but I soon recognize the familiar rumble of Silas’ black pickup truck. They must have taken the truck out of the garage to drive it to the bottom of the road.
When the truck is right outside of the fenced-in property, the tall wooden driveway gate begins to roll to the side, but the truck never pulls into the driveway. The driver cuts the engine, leaving a blank canvas of silence in the air that is soon filled with the foreboding sound of clanking chains.
My heart clenches when I finally see Silas and Joseph being walked through the open driveway gate in chains with three armed men behind them. The thick links of chain between the wide metal cuffs connecting each of their own wrists and ankles gives just enough range of movement to allow them to shuffle, yet hinder full use of their appendages. Their skin and clothes are covered with dirt and grime. Their mouths are taped shut with large pieces of duct tape across them.
Silas has some bruising and a visible gash across his cheek, but otherwise appears okay. Joseph’s short brown hair fails to hide the redness and swelling where the side of his head was smashed into the doorframe when Xavier threatened his life yesterday.
Silas and Joseph both look in our direction, performing similar quick evaluations of me and Jake. I detect the subtle shock in their expressions when they look at me, no doubt caused by the fact that I’m wearing the same yellow sundress that I wore while Joseph released himself inside of me.
“Ah, reunited again,” Xavier beams as he indicates for Silas and Joseph to stop when they have only made it a few feet onto the driveway. “It feels like fucking forever since you’ve seen each other, doesn’t it?”
None of us respond in any way to Xavier’s question about something that we all know to be the truth. It feels like ages since I was safely in Silas’ arms in a house free of threats and abuse.
Xavier’s tone suddenly turns cold. “Well, get used to it. This will become a rare treat: the four of you together. I never would have allowed this so soon, but there’s something I want you all to see.” He turns to the guard who followed behind us from the house. “Bring out what you found.”
The man moves across the front of the garage to the door on the other side. He steps in and returns a few moments later with the object that Xavier wanted.
The object that Silas created for me, cut and carved by his own hands.
The object that was supposed to hold the tiny baby who is unlikely to ever grow inside me.
When the man places the handcrafted wooden cradle on the gravel within feet of where I’m standing next to Xavier, I become overwhelmed with a different set of feelings inside me. The guilt, shame, and disappointment that I’ve more suppressed than dealt with since finding out the truth behind my infertility suddenly all come rushing back to me at once.
Xavier steps forward and nudges the wooden cradle with his foot. “Did Silas make this for you?” His eyes dart up from the cradle to meet mine. “Were you really going to allow a monster like him to father an innocent little baby?”
“He’s not a monster,” I respond defensively. “He’s not like that anymore. He would make a great father.”
Xavier bellows a laugh as he slowly paces the gravel in front of me. “Silas might have gone soft in the last couple of years, but he can’t change his DNA. You know his violent tendencies and rage issues. I’m sure you got a taste of the real Silas when he first stole you and your brother from the woods.”
He pauses and watches me, eagerly waiting to see if I’ll defend Silas against these claims. It’s hard to do when I know they’re true.
“You’re just jealous,” I reply instead, seeming to catch Xavier off guard with my response.
He paces even closer to me now, intimidating me with his proximity. “Tell me how I could possibly be jealous of that broken man in chains over there.”
My eyes narrow at Xavier. “He has someone who wants to create a family with him, and you have no one.”
The expression on Xavier’s face suddenly turns irate. “Love and family and all that bullshit only make us weaker. All I need is a whore to play with and please me, which means I have everything I need in you.”
I expect Xavier to come for me, to grab me or touch me or fuck me right here in front of everyone to show just how much he owns me for this purpose, but he goes the complete opposite direction instead. He storms across the driveway and steps inside the garage momentarily, returning with a large axe in his hand.
I step back automatically in fear as he approaches me with the axe, but he never makes it that far. He stops and raises the axe above his head to bring it down directly on Silas’ heartfelt creation, the sharp blade splitting the cradle completely in half. He swings the axe down on the cradle repeatedly until he’s groaning and yelling with overexertion and rage and there’s nothing left of the object for him to destroy.
When Xavier finally stops, no one moves or makes a sound. There’s nothing left of the beautiful piece of hope and promise that Silas created. It lies in bits and pieces of broken wood strewn across the gravel, and despite its shattered form, it likely still serves as a sign of our future.
Xavier will destroy us. He’ll tear our family to pieces.
He will crush us all to dust.
The fragile silence around us shatters with Xavier’s adrenaline-pumped cry of victory up into the air. He drags the idle axe over the remains of the cradle then lifts the sharp edge of the tool up to point it at Silas while he approaches him with slow and deadly steps. As he gets closer, he adjusts the direction of the axe so that it’s pointing at Joseph now.
When he stops at an equal distance apart from Silas and Joseph and points the axe back and forth between them, I start to panic. My eyes dart to the chopped bits of wood scattered around the gravel, fueling thoughts of the people I love being similarly destroyed right in front of me. I don’t know what kind of game Xavier is playing, but I know that I need to make a move.
“Let’s go inside,” I call out urgently, but Xavier’s indecision over who to threaten with the axe only continues.
My breathing quickens with terror, not knowing what I’m expected to do while this horrific scene plays out in front of me.
Before I can say or do anything more, I see Jake start to bolt in Xavier’s direction, full-on, ready to jump the madman and tackle him to the ground despite the danger of the axe still in his hand. As Jake tries to pass within feet of me, though, I grab him by the elbow and pull with all of my might to stop him.
Jake tries to escape my grasp, but I manage to get my arms around his midsection to hold him back. I’m already to the point of tears in the desperation with which I’m trying to keep my brother back at the same time that I know we both want to do anything and everything we can to protect the men we love.
When Xavier takes a step closer to Silas and Joseph, the tears I’ve been holding back finally fall. Jake’s resistance against my hold ceases completely, and I finally let go of him.
“I want to go inside with you,” I call out to Xavier as I step forward over what’s left of the cradle, crushing it beneath my feet.
The back-and-forth movement of the axe finally stops, and the axe falls harmlessly to Xavier’s side as he turns toward me. “And what shall we do inside?”
I swallow hard and continue forward. “Whatever you want.”
When I’m close enough for Xavier to reach me, he doesn’t take me by force like I’m expecting. He opens his arm out to the side, inviting me to come to him.
The moment I step to where he wants me, his arm encircles my waist. He flips our positions so that I’m facing him and the house with Silas and Joseph somewhere behind me.
Xavier immediately finds my neck with his mouth, kissing me and sucking on my skin in the exact spot that Silas knows to be my favorite. The arm that Xavier still has snaked around my back dips lower until his hand pushes up the loose fabric of the sundress behind me to expose my bare ass underneath. He grabs me there while continuing to devour my bare neck and shoulder with his lips.
I can hear the escalation of Silas’ fury in the clash of his chains and the repeated angry groans from behind his taped mouth. The fiery rage that I know he holds within him sounds ready to ignite at any moment.
I close my eyes, knowing that each moment of this interaction with Xavier is tearing Silas apart even more. The emotional pain I’m causing him by allowing this happen is almost too much bear, but I know I have no choice but to let this happen. I will not stand by and let Xavier hurt the people I love any more than he already has.
If I have to be his whore to protect my family, then that’s exactly what I’ll be.
Xavier’s lips finally leave my skin as I’m forced to turn around within his grasp. He keeps me held against him with his arm across my upper chest.
“I’ll hand it to you, Silas,” Xavier says in low voice behind me, “you’ve always had great taste in women.” He turns his head to the side and places a slow, deliberate kiss on the side my cheek while dipping his hand beneath the top of the dress to grab my breast, each sickening action showing his complete ownership over me. “This one is obedient, just the way I like them.”
Silas’ bubbling rage finally boils over. He bursts forward toward me and Xavier, but the armed man behind him interferes by grabbing his shoulder just enough to throw him off balance. He can’t regain his footing with the short range of movement offered by the chains attached to his ankles, so he crashes down hard to the gravel.
My body jumps at the sudden burst of Xavier’s laugher right next to my ear. Consumed by the cackling erupting from his chest, Xavier lets go of me completely.
In the moment that he’s busy enjoying himself at Silas’ expense, I seize the opportunity to run forward and kneel down next to Silas where he’s struggling to get up off of the gravel. I manage to help him to a kneeling position before something swings through the air close to my face. Silas’ head flies to the side away from me, and his body topples over to the ground.
“Stand up,” Xavier demands angrily from where he’s towering over me with the head of the axe held tightly in both of his hands. The wooden handle of the axe lingers in the air between us, threatening to do to me what it just did to Silas.
I want nothing more than to throw my body over Silas to protect him from this monster, but it would do no good for either of us. As Silas struggles to recover from the blow to his head, I reluctantly stand up to face Xavier.
“You will stand there and look at me,” he orders. “You won’t turn away. You won’t make a fucking sound.”
When I’m sufficiently frozen in fear at Xavier’s instructions—keeping my eyes trained on him despite how desperately I want to look away—he calls out to the guards behind me, “Beat the shit out of them.”
They don’t hesitate to follow through with Xavier’s instruction. I can barely get a single inhalation past my lips before I hear the chaotic sounds of fist and rifle meeting flesh amidst the constant jingling sounds of chains behind me. The resulting cries of pain from Silas and Joseph are audible despite being muffled by the duct tape covering their mouths. Some of the delivered blows are so forceful that they cause my body to flinch.
I want so desperately to turn around and do anything I can to make this stop, but I keep my terrified eyes on Xavier instead. Through the tears clouding my vision, I see the blurred movement over his shoulder where Jake is fighting against the man holding him back, Jake clearly just as motivated to take action as I am.
When I can’t hear the jingling of the chains anymore, I know it’s all over. Silence envelopes the area around us once again, but the sound of it is almost more deafening and devastating than the cacophony of pain that preceded it.
My gaze remains on the man who ordered this punishment, the vicious fiend who brought this hell down upon us. He smiles with satisfaction as he glances behind me, then engages my eyes again.
“Good girl,” he compliments. “You will keep your eyes on me and follow me inside. If you look back at them, you can keep watching them while I have them killed on the spot.”
When Xavier turns to walk up the driveway, I can’t prevent the sob that escapes through the large crack he has just broken open inside me. I follow behind him, my chest tightening more with each step I take away from the place where Silas and Joseph are lying broken apart in the gravel just like the cradle. I can’t even look at Jake’s face when I pass him where he’s still being held back by the man holding him.
Xavier leads me down the stone path and into the house that he stole from us, where he plans to take even more of our family’s future away.