NALEDI’S POV
“Swallow the darned coke!” One of the men roared, sending a hard foot to my stomach.
I shook my head. “Please… I can’t..”
Another kick. And more, until I was writhing on the floor in pain.
“Don’t you get it? You don’t fucking have a choice! I don’t care if you have a weasel growing inside your darned belly, but you are going to do your fucking job.” He dragged me painfully by the hair. “Get up!”
My legs shook as I got on my feet. Only to notice the blood trickling down my legs. “No…” I lost my mind, “No, please! I need to save her! Please! Save my baby!”
“Shameless little whore! Opened your fucking legs and dared to take in a child?” Another kick, “That will teach you not to be a fucking whore. The Alpha chose you for the job so I don’t care if you are bleeding out your vagina or heart, but you will do your fucking job!”
“Please!” I fell on my knees, tears streaming down my eyes as I cradled my belly. “The Alpha said if I got the last job done I would have my baby! I killed the women that tried to get out! I outed them and he promised to let me have the baby! Please call a doctor! I need a doctor!”
My baby. I couldn’t.
“Stupid whore.” He swore, slapping me so hard I fell to the floor. “That was a fucking trap and you fell for it. You think he cares about a darned baby gotten from a traitor he killed months ago?”
I shook my head, refusing to believe. “No. He didn’t kill him. He sent him on a mission. Damien will be back for me. He promised. The Alpha promised.”
He laughed in my face. “Stupid little girl. Get up before I end what’s left of you. Get up while you still have some use!”
I didn’t. A raw feeling of despair mixed with emotional and physical pain choked me, paralysing me from the waist down.
My eyes turned as he sent another violent kick to my stomach. “How dare you defy me?!” He roared.
Before I could say another word, the other guards surrounded me, hitting me until I begged for death that wouldn’t come. I refused to believe my child was gone.
“D-doctor… p-please..”
“NALEDI!!”
I jerked from my bed, screaming and jittering.
“My baby. My baby…”
“Naledi, calm down… it’s just a dream.” Korah looked worried. “Are you okay, My lady?”
I couldn’t speak, as my body rocked with shock. Sweat dribbling down my skin. They finally got me. A paralysing feeling of fear and utter terror filled my senses.
They finally got to me-the dark shadows of my past. My breathing quickened as I saw every horror I locked up pour with a vengeance.
“Fire!” A younger version of me picked up the gun, arms and legs sore from the arduous training.
I couldn’t handle the weight of the gun. “Rest..” I said, unable to raise my arm. “Please..”
“Do you think I’m here to joke?!” A heavy punch sent me lying flat on the floor. “If you are going to be useful to the Yakuza Family, you have to earn your keep! Or you are going right back to the pits.” A dirty smile graced his lips. “Is that what you want, whore?”
I shook my head, remembering my prison with the other girls. My lost baby. Weak… I couldn’t be weak.
“Then get your ass up and do a good fucking job!” A kick in the head. “Fire and make sure you hit the target!”
“Call the Alpha! She is losing her mind, something is wrong!” I heard Marcus fire his orders, but I was far too gone to care, as I was swooped into another realistic vision from my past.
“Here you go!” The Alpha said, throwing me a gun I easily caught. “Kill her.”
My eyes widened. “Alpha..”
“I don’t want to repeat myself.” He said in a strict tone.
My eyes met the panicked ones of my former roommate in the pits. She looked beaten out of her mind. Weak, unable to defend herself. Me.
I shook my head with a pleading look, “I’ll do anything. Anyone. Just name it. Please. Don’t kill her.”
A morbid laugh escaped my Alpha. “Oh I don’t plan to kill her, Attai. You’ll be doing that all by yourself.”
He pulled out a pistol, holding me at gunpoint. “You will kill her or I will kill you.” He shrugged, “Not to worry, I’ll send her right after you. The choice is yours.”
I didn’t get to choose. I dropped to my knees as she dropped to the floor with a hole between her eyes. “Noooo!”
“Oops! Guess my hands slipped.” He tutted, “Oh yeah, I got impatient. Get her out of here and clean up the mess.” He fired his orders and the men made for us but he stopped them.
“No. Attai will do the honours. Gather up that piece of trash, cut up her pieces and sell them off to whoever would have them. She’s no good, anyway.” His wrinkled eyes bore a hole in my form. “Meet me in my chambers as soon as you finish.”
I sat on the floor, beside her dead body, left alone and writhing with anger and pain.
“The Alpha is on his way,” Korah said, covering me with a blanket that did nothing to ease the coldness and jittering of my hands.
Killer. I was a killer. I killed her back then, and I killed again today. I needed to die. All my existence brought was pain to unsuspecting tormented women. I was a murderer.
A cold-blooded murderess. There was no excuse.
I got up from the bed, knowing exactly what I needed to do. What I should have done years ago before I fled from the Yakuza pack.
“Kill yourself Attai.” The Alpha whispered, his grubby hands invading my privacy in the cruellest way. “That’s the only way you will be free from the blood of the many you have shed. The only way you’ll be free from me. Kill yourself.”