“Oh!” she interrupts him again. “So we’re just going to pretend that you’re not fucking my best friend? But I can’t fuck yours?” she yells from behind me.
I whirl around on her, and I want to strangle her. He won’t love her. My sister isn’t like other chosens. She was a fucking virgin. Saving herself for marriage. She hasn’t had the life that Elli had. My parents have sheltered her. “He’s just using you for pussy.”
“Sin—”
“Maybe I’m just using him for dick.” She crosses her arms over her chest, interrupting Corbin once more.
“Enough!” my father roars. “Kira, leave us.”
“But, Dad—”
“Now,” he snaps at her.
She turns, her hair whipping her in the face, and I’m surprised that Corbin follows her too even though my father didn’t dismiss him. She slams the door shut behind them.
I turn on him. “A fucking chosen?”
He runs his hands through his hair, taking in a deep breath. “Corbin came to me requesting to be her Lord. He wanted her.”
I snort. “I’m going to fucking kill him,” I growl under my breath.
“We asked your sister. She wanted to be his chosen.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“As Corbin’s chosen, he can protect her.”
“Tell that to Tyson Crawford,” I bark, remembering what he went through his senior year.
He sighs. “What happened to Whitney Minson was unfortunate, but I trust Corbin with your sister. I believe him when he says he’ll do what needs to be done to protect her.”
My ass falls into the chair across from his desk. Jayce has been going on and on about what I missed during the vow ceremony. But Corbin? Not one word. Now I know why he didn’t care to push me to go. He knew all along he’d be fucking my sister in front of the Lords. And that makes sense now as to why I watched Elli get into my sister’s car outside the house of Lords. I thought she had called her to come pick her up, but I kept wondering how my sister got there so fast. Well, Kira was already there with Corbin.
I lift my head to glare at my father. “Do what you have to do to make Elli my chosen.” There has to be something even though the ceremony has happened. I’ve made her mine, but I want everyone to fucking know it. I want the Lords to acknowledge it.
His eyes soften. “Easton. Nicholas was adamant that he never wanted her to be a chosen. He did not want her connected to the Lords in any way.”
“He’s dead,” I growl, making him stiffen. “Has been since she was twelve. I think things have changed.”
He rubs his temples.
I stand to my feet. “Did you know that she’s been raped? For years?” His jaw clenches. “James was grooming her. She was a child, for fuck’s sake,” I snap.
He walks over to his safe and punches in the code before opening it up and grabbing a box. Then he comes over and places it in my lap. “Dad,” I growl. “Are you fucking listening to me?”
“Open it.”
I rip off the lid and look down, my breath catching at the box full of pictures. I pick one up. It’s of Elli lying facedown on a wooden table. She’s got to be around eighteen. Maybe seventeen. Her arms tied behind her back, her ankles also tied, and her legs brought up and secured to her arms—hog-tied. She’s crying, tape over her mouth. I throw it to the floor and pick up another. She’s naked in a room kneeling. The picture taken from behind showing marks across her back and neck. I toss it and grab another. She wears a collar with a leash, nothing more. Strapped to a black X with a blindfold over her eyes. “Where did you get these?” I ask barely over a whisper.
“Who do you think put the hit on James?”
My head snaps up to look at him wide-eyed. “I … I don’t understand. You knew what he was doing to her? All those years?” I’m not sure at what age he started raping her. But I do know that he lived in the same house as her for over five years. A lot can happen during that time.
He shakes his head. “No. I had my suspicions. But could never prove it. And the Lords, well, they don’t care about how women are treated.” He sighs. It’s why he and my mom have tried so hard to shelter my sister. “But I got these in the mail one day. Anonymously. I made copies and sent those to a founding family member with the request to have him terminated.” He fists his hands. “Nicholas would have burned the world down if he had been alive. He wouldn’t allow anyone to hurt her. And I promised I’d take care of her. I failed him.” He hangs his head.
I look at another. She can’t be more than sixteen. She’s facedown, ass up in the air and there’s blood running down her bruised legs. The picture of her innocence taken tells me everything I need to know about how long it had been going on.
I look at my father. “Did you request me to have the assignment?”
“No. It was either someone wanting you to fail and get killed in the process. Or a joke that you were to kill him since I requested it.”
“And his phone?” I ask.
He cocks his head.
“The assignment had me remove a finger and deliver his cell. There was something on it that the Lords wanted.”
“No.” He sits down.
I run a hand down my face. “I went through it. He had pictures of her. They started from when she was as young as thirteen.” When he married her mother. They weren’t all sexual. There were some of her in bed sleeping. In others, she was wearing a bathing suit and swimming in their pool. The older she got, the more X-rated they became. In some, she was looking at the camera, and in others, she had no clue.
“Maybe they knew he had evidence on his phone,” my father offers as an explanation.
“I deleted them,” I announce.
“You what?” he barks. “Easton, you can’t tamper with what they want.”
“I wasn’t going to hand a phone over with inappropriate pictures of her on it. She was underage in some of them.” I shake my head. No way in hell would I allow the world to have those. Who knows what the Lords would have done with them.
He stays silent but I can tell he’s angry with me now. I grab another picture out of the box, unable to stop myself, and my chest tightens. She’s crying, blood running from her busted lip and a handprint on her cheek.
How did he do this to her, and I not see it? I mean, it wasn’t like I saw her on a day-to-day basis. Once I started at Barrington, my life revolved around the Lords. I lived at the house of Lords. Was always serving them. You don’t get much freedom and downtime until you’re a senior and are officially initiated in. But still, how did people not notice marks on her? Her mother? My sister? Did he keep her caged in a private location somewhere that no one could see what he was doing to her? I close the box and stand.
“Have you tampered with her birth control?”
I come to a stop and turn to face him but don’t answer.
His jaw clenches. “Whatever you’ve done, reverse it. If you’ve replaced her pills, put the correct ones back. If you’ve given her something to counteract the shot, stop it.”
I look away, my hands running through my hair. When I look back at him, I see disappointment in his eyes. “So you don’t care if Corbin knocks up Kira, but you care if I get the woman I love pregnant. Got it.” I know my friend, and he’s not wearing a condom when he fucks my sister. And who knows if she’s being smart.