Yes, he had the men Riley, Josh, Scott, Jim, and Kevin when he got out of prison … practically brothers. But no one to share his bed. No one to be his. He knew now without a doubt that he should have listened to his father’s advice about women. If he’d ruled Beth with the same iron fist that his father had ruled his mother … but then there was the irony of it all. In the end it hadn’t turned out so well for his father.
But Jessica was going to be different. From the moment she’d come to them, he had ruled her firmly. Riley’s general directive of making her pay for her family’s sins making the perfect excuse for Angus to discipline her.
But then Riley had made an even better decision.
And it had brought Jessica to Angus’ bed. There he could work out his frustrations.
His frustrations with Beth, his mother, Jessica’s continued and increasingly forceful retaliation strikes. He knew Jessica’s existence was sure to be short lived. Once she was broken, Riley was going to kill her. That was fairly certain. But, deep down, he wanted Jessica.
He wanted her to be his the way that Beth had never been. Now he was beginning to have serious doubts about whether she could ever be broken. It had been nearly a year already and he hadn’t seen even so much as a hint that she was going to give in … that they were going to win.
Angus tightened his hold on Jessica as he felt her try to move again. Why couldn’t she just sleep through the damn night? Give him the chance to hold her the way he wanted, just for one fucking night.
He exhaled as he prepared to say the words that he knew would ruin the night even more. Personally, he’d rather just discipline her, fuck her, and go back to sleep. But Riley’d been quite clear about using Jessica’s emotional pain about her family’s death as a weapon against her.
“They’re dead Jessica. All dead, even that bag of shit uncle of yours.” Well that wasn’t entirely true. Her Godfather, whom Jessica referred to as an uncle had actually survived the attack but gone into hiding. That didn’t matter … if she thought he was dead, so much the better. “They’re gone. But you’re left, left to atone for their sins.”
The men had grown up together, in a close knit group of families who held one unshakable belief … and that was, that government had no place in their lives. Their ancestors had been confederate soldiers, plantation owners, rebels.
No one, and particularly not any northern, bleeding heart, Yankee government, could tell them what guns, land, and people they could own.
From the moment they were born, the men learned that the government was their enemy, and that anything and everything had to be done to stop them from infringing on their God given rights. And their ancestors, parents, and friends did what they had to, to strike back at their oppressors.
Collectively, this group of families called themselves ‘The Clan’. To reduce the possibility of detection, they broke up into cells, each cell worked in concert with the others. The men’s families had formed a cell together. The clan had always been persecuted.
One enemy that turned out to be incredibly effective, was an overly zealous District Attorney, and his equally zealous wife. She was the governor of the state. With all of the power of the state and federal government at their disposal they launched an all out war on the clan. Little by little they destroyed the group. Riley’s father, Angus’ brother, Josh’s parents, Jimmy’s cousin, Scott’s two uncles, all ended-up in prison.
His wife already dead, Riley’s father had taken his own life. Mysterious ‘accidents’ killed off the other imprisoned clan members.
The men had decided to fight back. They attacked the district attorney, his wife and the family. But somehow Jessica had survived the attack. So the men brought home a prize and a new plan. It was simple, make the child of their enemy suffer, break her spirit, make her yield to their every command, and through her humiliation have her repay the debt that her parents owed. They had expected to eventually kill her, let her parents spin around in their graves. But taking Jessica home had its consequences.
Other family groupings within the clan had taken issue with the fact that the men had taken a prisoner. They demanded that she be released, or killed, immediately. They argued that she was a liability. Neither option was acceptable to the men. So, they distanced themselves from the clan. They made it very clear that the members of the clan, were no longer welcome at their home, neither personally or professionally. All business was to be conducted at a neutral site.
So, not only did they lose their family, but even their remaining friends. Just remembering what her parents had done to the clan made his blood boil.
“And do you know what Jessica … when you atone for their sins, I get my rocks off!”
She bit down hard on his hand.
“Damn it!” Angus mumbled. He pushed himself up onto his knees, straddling her. “A fucking year later and you still haven’t learned a thing!” He muttered.
She tried to roll over and curl into a ball. The handcuff chafed her left wrist. She shivered.
“Don’t think so,” he said as he grabbed her arm and tried to turn her onto her back. She fought as much as she could, but he soon pinned her right arm above her head, forced himself between her legs and rammed his way into her as forcefully as he could.
The physical assault over, Angus slid off of her. She rolled onto her side again, drew her legs to her chest and waited for the verbal assault that always followed. She closed her eyes and waited to hear all of the cruel things he’d say about her family, about her, but it never came.
Something soft dropped onto her and she flinched before she realized that it was a blanket. She welcomed the warmth, but she couldn’t accept it. If she accepted this … they would win. He would win. Out of the five of them, she hated Angus the most. The feeling seemed to be mutual, and as she kicked the blanket off, she prepared herself for his wrath.
Why couldn’t she just be weak like the rest of them? Angus wondered. His mother had folded with far less than this. A mere threat to go to jail had made it alright for her to sell her friends and family down the river. And Beth.
He didn’t know who was worse, his chicken shit mother or his two timing whore of an ex-girlfriend. Angus flinched as a memory he thought he’d pushed from his mind for good, came back in vivid detail. Beth, with her ultimate betrayal … a betrayal that made cheating on him pale in comparison by so much that it was practically meaningless.
He now knew the answer. Between Beth and his mom, Beth was by far the worse.
He pushed it from memory. He would not think of it again! He felt like vomiting. He was just relieved that only a few people knew the details of what Beth had done. He wouldn’t have been able to handle the humiliation of others knowing.
But he could make himself feel better. He could drive the humiliation away by taking all his anger out on Jessica.
“Suit yourself,” he said. The contempt in his voice made every hair on her body stand on end. “But I think you know what you’ll have to do to get it back …” He ran his hand along the back of her leg.