His Brutal Game by Audrey Rush

CHAPTER 10

Wilder

A few days later, a towel hung around my neck like a limp body. I had needed to get as far away from Maisie as possible, which was why I had gone to the pond, sitting at the bottom until my head pounded and my chest hurt. I jogged back through the pastures to my house. Sawyer was resting on the wooden railing outside of the Calving Barn, staring into my house’s windows. Maisie was on the other side, watching television.

“The fuck are you doing?” I asked.

Sawyer lifted a brow and I clenched my fists.

“Sensitive,” Sawyer said. “Dare I say, ‘protective.’”

I didn’t understand what was going on inside of me. But Sawyer staring into my house, seeing what was mine, when Maisie was there? It made my blood boil. But it didn’t matter what I felt. I had to be stronger than that. Had to keep my emotions in check. Had to be stronger than everything. Including him.

“You know how Uncle Taylor died?” Sawyer asked. I didn’t care how our uncle died, nor did I want to play this game where I was expected to ask the right questions. I wasn’t going to fall for Sawyer’s bait. “The Feldman Trial ate him alive,” he said. “He died trying to get ahold of this farm. To take leadership of it.”

Leadership didn’t mean anything to me. Sawyer was the one who cared.

“Our father killed him,” he said. “It was the farm or nothing. And Forrest did what he had to do. Just like I did.”

My stomach tightened. Why was he telling me this? We were both doing what we had to do. I was tired of hearing about how he had let his woman die for the Feldman Offering. Death came for everyone, not just his dead lover. And if I was expected to sacrifice, like Sawyer, then I would.

“Your point?” I asked.

“I’m down to the last few,” he said. “Once I kill these next two, it’ll be my last name. Then, I’m done.” He pinched his fingers together. “I’m this close.”

I glanced at the window. Maisie raised the remote, the television clicked off. She stretched, then walked through the hallway, down to her bedroom. Was she going to sleep, or would she follow me again?

That wasn’t a question worth answering.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

“You still haven’t found Eileen Hathaway, have you?” Sawyer asked.

I gritted my teeth. The video footage of the woods had shown a few hints, but every time I had a chance to investigate, I had been distracted. I had been taking care of other tasks. Like Maisie.

“I’m going to laugh if I finish before you do,” he said.

I wanted to hurl him across the field so hard that when he hit the ground, he wouldn’t be able to breathe. But that would mean I cared. That would mean that his words had penetrated me. And they hadn’t. Yet, the urge boiled over, the desire to throw my fingers around his groomed neck and squeeze the life out of him—out of anyone, even her—as long as I could witness their power dissolving before me.

But I stayed stoic, never letting it show.

“I’ll complete my list,” I said, my voice even. “We’ll go along with the Feldman Trial as planned. But you can take the farm.”

“Forrest would never let that happen,” Sawyer laughed, turning back toward the main house. “We’re Feldmans. We destroy everything in our path.”

He proclaimed at every chance that he was a Feldman, like it was something to be proud of, but there was no point. We lived. We died. And the Feldmans? We lived. We killed. And we died too. That was our purpose. It was another sequence in the pattern of life.

I took the side-by-side UTV across the pastures, heading to the Dairy Barn. One of the livestock orders was in a pen, naked, his Achilles tendons slashed, the wounds open, puffy, red, with greenish-gray pus. The cameras were rolling, the red light beaming, recording his every labored move. Some of our buyers were snuff-loving perverts who picked out their chosen jerk-off materials. And some of our buyers wanted revenge. But unless they ordered otherwise, every murder was recorded for their viewing pleasure.

I pulled on my black clothes, clutching the mask in my hand. ‘Livestock orders’ was an amusing term. In the end, we were animals. Meat to be butchered. Shipped off. Onto the next.

The livestock order pulled himself forward on his hands. Kyle had hunted him and started the ranching process, but it was mine to take over. And it was honestly a pity; I didn’t like it when they were so weak they could barely function. I wanted to engage their power, to endure their struggle, to experience the life leaving their bodies.

He tossed his head back, finally seeing me.

“You’ve got to help me, man. They—”

But when I pulled the mask over my face, he instantly fell silent, crawling forward, trying to get to the edge of the gate. Perhaps he thought he could climb over the pen and escape, but the poor bastard was getting nowhere. I grabbed the cleaver off of the table. The man was young, my age or younger. But he was here. And it honestly didn’t matter what he had done.

We didn’t ask questions. We fulfilled orders. It was how we worked. A business so competitive and controlled, we were sometimes called ‘The Death Farm.’

“Please. I’ve got money. I can—”

I slammed the cleaver into his leg, amputating him at the thigh, all of my force in one clean cut. The knock of bone. The metal scraping the concrete. The loose red flesh. Limp arteries. He screamed in agony. Blood rushed to my head but I still couldn’t think straight. Violence was supposed to be my cure. It replenished me. Wiped my slate clean. But I rammed the blade into his arm. His other leg. Blood splattered across me, drenching me in warm red liquid. Even so, the fury erupted inside of me. All I could see was Maisie sitting on the couch, Sawyer’s eyes on her. Maisie with her back against the wall, Green’s hands on her, threatening to take her life.

Suddenly, it wasn’t the livestock order that I saw. It was the pimp. His green tie. His gangly arms. His blond hair. I smacked the blade into his neck. Into his chest. In the top of his head. Splitting him open, bit by bit, until finally, the rush of peace flowed through me. I imagined hanging Green by his throat, dangling on his own personal scaffold for the world to see. The stupid bastard thought he could hurt Maisie. But she was a Feldman now.

A brush of cold air flickered over my shoulders, chilling me against the blood. The cleaver clattered to the floor. Then I sensed her—that sweet, pungent odor.

Maisie.

She was following me again, despite knowing what I was capable of.

She should have been running.

She might have been off with Green.

But I would never let that happen.

I turned off the video cameras. Then I slowly faced her, taking a deep breath. The two of us stared at each other. I cracked my neck from side to side. Even the mask on my face was clinging to my skin, soaked with sweat and blood.

There was a door. She could go now if she wanted.

But she didn’t move.

My boots pounded against the floor. Her faint scent filled my nose. My dick throbbed awake.

She had chosen to follow me.

She knew what would happen.

And still, I warned her again.

“If you know what’s best for you,” I said in a low voice, keeping my tone even, “you will leave and never look back.”

Each crash of my boot on the cement floor sent another gasp through her. She scooted back on the floor, hiding between two crates as if she could somehow evade me. But there was no escape. I grabbed her stringy yellow hair, twisting it in my fingers, dragging her across the floor, her bare arms scraping against the cement. Dust sprinkled the floor, collecting on her shirt. I shoved her into one of the empty pens.

“Wilder,” she whimpered. “I was just watching. I was just—”

I turned on the faucet, switched to the hose, then moved it so that it filled the trough. The water trickled in, pounding like rain at first, but as the liquid filled the trough, a soothing nirvana came over me. Maisie panted, knowing these were her last breaths. Each breath was quicker, shorter than the last. I fisted her hair and she sobbed.

I ripped her shirt, exposing those pert breasts. She rarely wore a bra or underwear. And for a second, I wondered if it was a habit left over from her job. It was better to have easy-access clothes. Easy to get on and off. Easy to offer yourself. It was her job. I understood that.

But now, she was mine. Maise Feldman. And the thought of anyone, besides me, touching her, even seeing her like that, made me see red.

As I tore the rest of her clothes off, I dug my fingernails across her skin, streaking her with red, her flesh swollen, goosebumps rising. Her breathing rapt. I dropped her, and she fell to her hands and knees on the cement, scurrying to get up. I pulled her to the stanchion, a coil of rope hanging off one of the posts. She started to climb over the pen, but I grabbed her by the waist. She pushed back, harder than I anticipated, throwing open the gate. I ripped her off, throwing her on the ground, knocking the wind out of her. As she found her breath, I shoved her head into the head gate, between the metal and wooden bars, keeping her trapped on her hands and knees. I locked the stanchion into place with the buckle at the top, then I used the extra rope to make sure she couldn’t move. Her body splattered with dirt and sweat, streaks of tender skin. Completely naked.

I moved the trough in front of the stanchion, then stood behind her.

“Why are you stealing from my family?” I shouted. But I didn’t care. None of it had any meaning.

I was playing my ownpart. Putting up an act. In case someone was watching.

“Is it your friends at the motel?” I asked. “Are they making you do it?”

“You owe me a million dollars,” Maisie yelled back.

Her payment wasn’t my business. Money didn’t mean anything to me.

But Maisie was my business.

I bent down, using my weight to shove her head into the water. She coughed and sputtered at first, but then she relaxed, trying to keep still, knowing that the less she struggled, the more of a chance she had. But the seconds ticked by and Maisie was like the rest of them. There was always a moment when they still had peace. When they still thought they could live. Just hold their breath a little longer. Wait for that sweet air.

But then she blew bubbles, the water gurgling, pushing her hips up, forcing herself to stand, grinding into my dick as I pressed into her from behind. My cock swelled, pushing against her. Wanting so much more than this, this struggle that I was used to. I wanted more. More. Everything from her.

I finally let go, letting her raise her head. Her hair was soaked, makeup running in black streams down her face, her eyes bloodshot.

I should have gotten it over with. Used her the way I wanted, and killed her like I had always planned. Because if my father wanted me to marry her, then there was something far worse coming, and the longer I dragged it out, the worse it would get. I would be doing her a favor.

Selfishness got to me. And I indulged.

Because I didn’t want to kill her right then. I wanted her.

With one hand on the top of her head, pressing her into the water, I kneaded her breasts, pinching and prying at her nipples while she thrashed. She threw my grip off. I fell to my knees, leaning on top of her, burying my mouth against her skin, biting her neck, pulling at it like a predator ripping flesh from its prey, scraping my hands down until my fingers stumbled over her pussy lips, the hair on her cunt, that musky, natural scent of fear and lust and ripeness floating through the air, swirling around me. Everything inside of me surged to my cock.

Every lung full of air she took greedily, twitching against me, and I shoved my hand down, penetrating her wet velvet walls, jabbing inside of her as she winced at the pain, both of us forgetting the trough. Because it wasn’t enough to drown Maisie, to kill her, and it never would be. I would always need more from her, more to take, more to own. More to conquer.

Because she destroyed me.

All I had was instinct. Desire. A fucking need to do what I wanted. To own her completely, in a way I had never owned a person before. I dropped to my hands and knees, licking her ass and pussy lips, her arousal covering my face.

“Please,” she begged. “Please.” I had promised I would make her beg for her life. But these words weren’t that. “Fuck me, Wilder,” she added, erasing those thoughts from my mind. It could have been fear, a way for her to save her own life, using lust to protect her. It could have been Maisie acting her part: a million-dollar wife. “Fuck me, please,” she said again. But I didn’t care. She pressed her hips into me, and my dick swelled with blood, wanting, no—needing her velvet flesh to constrict around me each time she fought for her life. To know that she was mine to own and use and that there would never be another man who looked at her, who threatened her, who touched her, so fucking help me.

I went to the side of her, giving myself access to fingerfuck her with one hand and drown her with the other, pushing down on her head until she was in the trough again. I repeated the motions again and again until every muscle in her body tensed around my fingers, coming for me. Coming and squeezing, her muscles involuntary, needing to come. Because despite the odds, she wanted to come as much as she wanted to survive. And I wanted to make her come. I wanted to do everything to her, to make her understand what she did to me, to show her how she was destroying me one touch at a time, and yet if I gave in—if I fucked her like she wanted—like I wanted—that it would be the end of me. But it was going to happen, just like death would arrive at my doorstep. Maisie would kill me in her own way.

One day, I was going to fuck Maisie, and it would be the biggest mistake of my life.