Free Web NovelChapter 15: Ugly Step Father
Sixteen years ago in Hong Kong.
It was raining heavily one night.
Corrine watched from the tinted glass as her father’s men quietly ushered seven individuals into a dark SUV. Their hands and feet were tied, and dark cloths covered their faces as they were forced forward barefoot, like criminals.
Corrine’s hold around her plushie tightened as she turned to stare at the man calmly smoking a cigar. His pale face looked ghostly in the warm backseat of the Rolls Royce. Every flash of lightning made him ten times more terrifying with the gentleman cap on his head. Corrine shuddered when his beautiful eyes turned to catch her staring at him.
Neal Ashworth took another slow puff of his cigar as he watched his daughter sit tensely beside him. ƒгeewёbnovel.com
’’What’s the name you’ve decided to give it?’’ he said, pointing at the stuffed Zebra with gold and white stripes. A very rare kind of animal only the rich could find and afford for their daughters. There were only a few of them in the world and being fortunate to own one shows you are special and a direct descendant of the thirteen shadow families.
The ones that decide how the world should spin in the direction it’s supposed to.
Corrine was still wearing her adorable polar bear pajamas with cute pointy ears on the cap.
’’Dr. Long Neck,’’ she replied, staring down sadly at Dr. Long Neck sitting on her lap.
Neal smiled, clearly amused. ’’It’s a beautiful name...Dr. Long Neck,’’ he praised.
Corrine managed to return the smile he gave her. Her tiny hands clenched hard on her knees as she wanted to know why her dad brought her along to this place.
’’Daddy,’’ Corrine said softly. The heat of the car failed to warm the chill that rose in her at the sight of the iron cuffs clasped around another human being. ’’Are they bad guys? Those people with cuffs on them...have you started working for the police now?’’
She asked, though not expecting a response but she was curious.
All her mother told her about her father was that he was rich and powerful and they were lucky to be under his protection!
’’But do not ever question what he does, Corrine, or your tiny heart will explode and you will die. You will only understand until you are as tall and beautiful as I am.’’ Catherine Ashworth smiled as her long fingers tightened around Corrine’s thin arms.
Corrine turned to her father who had been quiet for a long time. He no longer smoked the cigar and looked grim, almost displeased.
Corrine felt how her heart began to race. A strange tension filled the air. Its pale irregular form moved unpredictably as it clashed with the warmth around them. She had this overwhelming urge to apologise for ever questioning him and feared her heart would explode and she might die.
’’Traitors.’’
The little girl gasped as she stared wide eyed at her dad who now owned a pained look. He leaned on the door and stared longingly through the tinted glass.
She didn’t understand what that word meant but she knew it was a bad word.
’’Traitors, Corrine, traitors,’’ he repeated, in a hard tone, as the hand placed under his defined chin clenched hard enough to crush a stone.
’’You will soon see,’’ he promised.
☆☆☆
Oh, how she wished she never allowed him to make her see that night.
Corrine stood, shaking and trembling, her hands protectively around Dr. Long Neck. The faint smell of the ocean and its loud powerful waves on land frightened her.
Pow!
She heard it again and covered her ears, her eyes tight shut as her lips cried to God to take her back home.
Was this hell?
She cringed when the cries and screams of so many made it through the car that was supposed to be sound proof. She heard it and hated it so much.
Corrine backed away quickly as the door opened and one of the demons—no, her Father’s men in dark suits and glasses covering their eyes urged her gently to step out. Corrine hesitated but soon realized she had no choice but to be obedient. He was tall, so tall and scary. She feared he might turn into something monstrous if she resisted and he would drag her out.
The man walked protectively behind her as she took slow, nervous steps on a hilltop. The ocean breeze blowing fiercely around them as they moved.
’’Your Supreme,’’ the man behind her called and that was the moment Corrine wished she had been blind.
At the very edge of the hill top, a foot away from falling over and being eaten by sharks, the seven cuffed individuals she had noticed earlier were forced on their knees, their backs turned to the ocean.
Their hands now tied behind them. Five young girls had their mouths gagged and they were all blindfolded. A woman could be seen moving as if caught in some trauma loop.
A man...Corrine’s eyes widened when his left arm had been brutally disfigured by gun shots. His entire elbow now held together by shattered tendons and bone.
The girl moved back only to be stopped by the man behind her with a dark umbrella over her body.
The man severely wounded sat on his heels in defeat. His eyes fell close each time he tried to keep them open. Armed men in neat black suits were positioned all around them.
Corrine’s frightened green gaze went to the tall man, slowly approaching her with a golden walking stick that seemed to have been carved from the spine of a snake’s vertebrae.
The man then kneeled beside her. He looked stranger now with so much blood on him. His gloved fingers held one of her hands and she wondered why he gave her a toy gun.
’’They are the traitors I am yet to send to Hell.’’
There was a loud groan of thunder as their eyes met.
’’He...’’ he pointed at the one with a wounded arm. ’’He did not like how I made my millions. He hated how powerful I had become. He hated the god I worship. He accused me of being mankind’s greatest enemy. He cornered me to a wall and ran when I stared back for vengeance.’’
If she understood one word he was saying to her, then Corrine would have known that the toy gun wasn’t...
’’He ran and I hunted him down in Europe and in Africa. I made him feel safe here in Hong Kong until I decided today is the day I send him to where I came from.’’
Where he came from...?
Tears flowed down her cheeks as she couldn’t even recognize him anymore.
He didn’t say anything else for a while.
’’His biggest mistake was...’’
’’Involving his family in this chase of cat and mouse.’’
Corrine blinked.
’’And, I have decided to teach you the proper way...’’ he turned Corrine around and made her point the mouth of the toy gun at the man. ’’A cat should deal with a mouse.’’
Somewhere behind her, the sky seemed to groan in protest.
He guided her index finger to curve around the trigger.
Her heart dipped when she realized what he was making her do.
’’He’s just a mouse. You hate mice, don’t you?’’
Her target drifted in and out of consciousness as his children cried and begged to be spared.
They want to go home too.
She would never forget.
’’So, get rid of it.’’
He ordered and Corrine slowly but bravely shook her head.
Dr. Long Neck clinging to her side as she thought of running. Maybe taking the girls that cried with her and they will all hide together.
Neal Ashworth’s gaze flickered to one of his men. And without wasting a second, a bullet blasted one of the crying girl’s head into pieces.
Two of her sisters followed after her with their heads torn apart by silver bullets, their bodies dropping like stones into the raging waters beneath.
’’No!!!!’’
Corrine would never forget that scream.
It was enough to jolt the unconscious man awake.
One of the men stepped forward to place the tip of his gun on her head, stopping her from following after her headless children. The woman froze as the rain washed down her tears. Her anger and pain felt strong enough to shake the earth.
’’Should I keep going or you are ready to avenge your father?’’ The demon beside her threatened as Corrine was overtaken by fear.
The wounded man, now conscious and ready to protect whatever was left of his family, turned to her and pleaded desperately for her to have mercy on them.
Neal saw how she resisted from pulling the trigger.
’’No...’’ Her voice was merely a whisper as she watched the younger girls get their heads smashed repeatedly against a rock. Their cries and sobs only made their mother beg to be struck down by lightning. She no longer wished to live.
’’Kill me!’’ The father then turned to the nine year old with a gun pointed at him.
’’Kill me! Please, kill me!!!’’ freёweɓnovel.com
He would rather die than have his entire family wiped out for his sake.
Corrine then stared at the man.
How could he ask her to do such a thing?
She will never—!
Another gunshot made her jump.
One of the girls rolled down from the rock lifeless.
There was a long pause, even the raging sky above stilled at the sight of the girl she once thought of saving.
To take home with her and hide forever.
’’Kill me!!!!’’ the man screamed so loudly, it terrorized the poor girl. His gaze went fearfully at the only child left.
Corrine didn’t even know how badly she shook and cried as her grip on the gun tightened, but she still couldn’t do it.
’’Did you hear?’’
It was too much she wanted to pass out! She felt a pair of strong, cold hands wrap around hers and the gun. A finger rested hard against hers on the trigger as she just could do it.
’’Please...please...no...Ice cream...mickey mouse...cotton candy...bubbles...’’ She kept mumbling, as she refused to watch herself kill to save another life.
’’God...angels...’’
Hot tears washed down her pale face as she prayed for this nightmare to end.
His lips moved close to continue his torment behind her ear.
’’Anais,’’
’’Mommy...Ruby...’’
’’Kill him.’’
A tortured cry tore through her lips followed by two loud bangs.
And the rain continued to fall in the silence.
Back in the present, Corrine sat in her chair recalling that moment, believing she wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger.
