I should speak. Tell him how strong I am for surviving as long as I did, but my voice doesn’t even work. Nothing does.
I know he’s kicking my stomach because my body jars, but I don’t feel it. I’ve shut out the world—the darkness. Even though I’m not dead, I feel dead. I’m gone.
More kicks, punches, and whips. I feel blood oozing, my body moving, but I don’t fight back. I have nothing left.
“You’re a fucking piece of worthless shit. I didn’t raise a coward, a fucking pussy. Get up! Fight back!”
I can’t.
You try to fight when you’ve been starved for weeks.
And then I see it—my salvation.
I see the glimmer from his knife sticking from beneath his pant leg. But he’s stopped kicking me, instead preferring punches.
So I turn to him and spit my frustration.
His face turns to steely rage. And I brace as his foot makes contact. I ignore the force and grab his leg holding on for long enough to grab the knife, and then I stab hard into his foot.
I know the jab isn’t deep, given the tough leather of his boot, but it’s enough to make contact. Enough to end this.
My father doesn’t make a sound at the pain he’s in. His impervious armor is up all around him as always.
But he stops the torture.
“Pick yourself up,” he says.
I summon everything inside me to get myself to stand.
He smirks in approval.
“Maybe you’ll earn the right to call yourself Black after all.” And then he’s gone.
I smirk. I won. My first win against this monster. It feels good. And if I can win once, I can win again and again. Until I’m free.
1
Kai
What the hell did I just agree to?
I stare across at Enzo, who is more my enemy than I ever realized. How could I not know that I had a claim to an empire?
This house, the money Enzo’s acquired, the resources, the men—they could have all been mine as easily as they are his.
I didn’t have to grow up thinking I had no choices, no chances at ever becoming something more. I could have had everything—all the money I could ever spend. I still can.
But only if I beat Enzo—at a game I don’t even understand.
A game where only the strongest win. I don’t even know if I will survive the tests, I’m so weak.
But I want to play. It may be my only chance to truly be free.
Archard, Enzo’s lawyer, reenters as if he has been listening to our entire conversation and knows now is the time to arrange things.
Westcott appears too, carrying a chair for Archard, because apparently, this conversation is going to last longer than the previous time he was here and stood watching us.
Archard sits in the chair Westcott provides. Westcott looks to Enzo who simply nods, and Westcott leaves us.