Richer Than God - Amelia Wilde Page 0,1

nanny’s cottage with a cloth over his eyes and boot prints on his back. I look from the whip to the brunette. Obviously he has the power. Who else would?

“Bend over,” my father says, indicating the foot of the bed.

They do, hands up on the covers, palms flat. Both of them inch their feet apart to the same distance. They know my father, I realize.

“I don’t want to whip them.” The words come too fast to stop. “I just want to fuck her.”

My father inhales, and then in one smooth move sends the whip cracking across both their backsides. It’s a devastating crack and the brunette screams, the sound abruptly cutting off as she gets control of herself. A droplet of blood gathers from the line he’s left and runs down the back of her thigh.

“That’s for talking back, boy.” He comes across to me and takes my shirt in his fist, hauling me up to the tips of my toes. “You shut up, and you listen. You have a lot to learn about women and what they need.”

His grip is so strong in my shirt that it scares me, that animal part of me that’s like a deer in the woods. I’m afraid. And I’m disgusted.

Because I’m still hard.

He lets go of my shirt and steps back into place. He meets my eyes for a long moment. And then the whip cracks a second time. The brunette cries now, her face turned to the covers, and it’s wrong. It’s fucking wrong. Terrible.

So why am I still turned on?

Horror crashes into me. I’m like him. I must be sick like him. I’m his second choice, standing in my brother’s place, but maybe he knew. Maybe my father knew that I’m just like him on the inside.

He moves to put the whip up on the pillows, stretching it out so everyone can see it, and then he comes to stand beside me. We look down at the women, still bent over, still obeying, even as they bleed.

“We’re going to talk about how to hurt a woman without leaving a mark,” my father says. He undoes the cuffs of his sleeves and rolls them up to his elbows. “But if you talk back again, we’ll spend the rest of our time here scarring them up for good. Understand, son?”

The pause is heavy. It seems like everything hangs in the balance. My morality. My soul.

I can’t take my eyes off the thin lines of blood. They’re proof of his promise.

He’ll make good on his threat.

He’ll tear them apart if I step out of line.

He’ll tear them apart—or he’ll make me do it.

So I open my mouth, and I give him the answer he wants. “Yes, sir.”

1

Brigit

They’re following me.

They have to be. My father isn’t going to shrug and move on with his life. Not after the world’s worst family dinner. Family. Bitterness coats my tongue when I remember it, so I’m trying not to. Of course, it’s impossible to escape something if you erase it from your memory. It could always catch you unaware. In a dark alley, for example.

God.

Everything about this situation is impossible. And I am forever stuck with the memory of my own father trying to sell me off to my uncle.

I tug my cardigan tighter around my shoulders and try to look relaxed. Is that the way a person should look when they’re waiting for a midnight interview at a brothel?

Because that’s what this is, no matter how much it’s dressed up to look like a fancy hotel. A mansion expanding over an entire city block. A castle on the hill. A white, gleaming castle on the hill. I want to get inside so badly I can taste it. If I can get inside, then I’ll be safe. I’d rather sell myself of my own volition. At least this way I’ll be in control. My stomach tightens, and I glance back over my shoulder. Nothing behind me gives any indication that they’re close. A car trundles by in the midsummer heat, headlights cutting a path through the dark.

“What are you looking for?” the girl next to me hisses. “Stop doing that. It’s creeping me out.”

“Nothing.” I turn my face resolutely toward the door in the side of the wall. I’m not the first girl to show up here with somebody after her. My stomach drops anyway. What if I am? What if there’s a box on some paper form—Is your father currently hunting you to marry you off to