The Wife Breaker by Isabella Starling

Chapter 17

HEATH

Five years ago

“You. In the cage, now.”

I pick myself up from the lower bunk bed. My wounds from the last fight still haven’t healed completely and I’m still sore as fuck. But I know better than to argue with the guards by now.

“And you, too.”

I see the guard pointing at one of my friends, Manuel. He’s only nineteen. His body is already covered in scars from what these men have done to him.

“I’m not fighting him,” I snarl. “Give me another opponent.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

The guard threatens me with his taser before opening the prison cell. Manuel and I walk out filled with trepidation. We stare at one another. Until a minute ago, we were friends, friends who looked out for each other. Now, our worst nightmares are about to come true.

I test the strength of the cuffs that bind my wrists and my ankles. It’s no use. I won’t be able to get away, not now or ever.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Manuel says in his softly accented voice. “You’re my friend, Heath.”

I don’t reply. I’m already going somewhere else in my thoughts. Manuel hasn’t been here long, and he doesn’t know what it’s like if you want to survive.

We have to kill to live.

Whether that means gauging out the eyes of a stranger with our bare hands... or killing our friends so we can save our own life.

Syringes are plunged into our necks. I don’t even fight it this time, knowing I’ll need the superhuman strength the drugs pump me full of.

But Manuel isn’t as lucky.

He dodges the second needle, relieved when it doesn’t sink into his skin. I know he just signed his death sentence, though.

Because the moment these drugs kick in, I won’t be Manuel’s friend Heath anymore. I’ll be a vicious, cruel killing machine.

We’re forced into another room where there’s a large fighting cage. They shove a dull knife into my hand and a gun with a single bullet into Manuel’s. I don’t think he’s ever even held a weapon.

We’re pushed into the cage just as the effects of the drugs kick in. I’m used to it by now - the blinding pain that sends me crawling across the floor of the cage is nothing new. I know it’ll soon be replaced by the rush of adrenaline that will keep me going. That will make me the winner of this death match. Meanwhile, Manuel is stuck with just one shot of their drugs - certainly not enough to take me down.

The rows of benches outside fill with rowdy patrons and they laugh and cheer us on as we recover from whatever poison they injected us with tonight.

I feel the effects of the drug kicking in soon enough, and the agony of pain soon turns into raw power. I pick myself up, no longer the man I was when I first walked into this cage. Now, I’m nothing but a monster.

I watch Manuel before me with a newfound rage. That’s what the drugs to me. They turn me into a merciless killing machine. The boy before me is no longer my friend. He’s my victim.

I launch myself at him with the knife while he scrambles to control the gun in his hands. He screams as I slam the dull knife into his stomach. It barely grazes him, but I’m like a man possessed, slamming into him again and again until blood spurts from his body.

“Don’t!”

He screams for mercy, cries of pain interrupted by whispered mentions of my name that mean nothing to me. I’m not Heath right now. I’m a monster. It’s the only way I get out of this alive. I have to keep fighting.

For me.

For my parents.

For Rain.

The fight goes on and on to the sound of cheers from the patrons watching us, probably placing bets on me. I toy with Manuel like a cat does with a mouse. The drugs pump through my system, eradicating any thoughts I had of our friendship. There’s no salvation in sight. There’s just the bloodthirsty need to kill the man before me.

He finally gets the gun to work and aims it at me with shaking hands.

“You only got one bullet,” I hiss at him. “Didn’t you hear the guards?”

“I’ll kill you,” my former friend snarls.

“No, you won’t.”

I smirk and my heart hammers as I realize there’s still some humanity left in me. I recognize the man before me, my friend, merely a boy. I could save him.

“I’ll kill you,” I tell him. “I’ll turn you into minced meat.”

His hands shake as he holds the gun. With a trembling hand, he turns the gun around, pushing it into his mouth.

His scared, wide brown eyes will follow me the rest of my life, as well as the moment they go lifeless as he fires the gun into his own mouth.

The crowd boos as his dead body splatters to the floor. My veins are rushing with adrenaline. I register what happened and lock it up in a dark part of my brain I refuse to open, like a Pandora’s box. I want to keep fighting.

But I don’t get the chance.

I’m tased in the cage so they can control me. While I’m still twitching from the electricity rendering me useless, they cuff me again and throw me back into the cell I exited with Manuel.

There used to be three men in here, now we’re back to two.

I lie on the cold floor roaring with pain as their sick drugs make their way out of my system. My only friend, L, crawls to my side and helps me get through the horrific side effects of what they just put me through. I already know by now the only way to stop the pain when the drugs wear off is to take more. But the guards love to see us suffer. There won’t be more coming, perhaps for days or weeks, just so they can see me in pain and enjoy their feeling of power over me. It’s like going cold turkey every single time they pump me with the drugs. And I fear it’s making me addicted.

I can hear L’s voice from far away, telling me I’ll be okay, telling me I didn’t mean to do what I did.

But I did.

I had to kill Manuel. It was him or me, a fight I couldn’t lose, because it would mean betraying Rain, too.

Her blurry image reappears in my thoughts as I roar from the pain and L pours water into my mouth to calm me down.

“We’ll get out of here,” he tells me. “Some day, we’ll be free, and we’ll rain hell on the people who did this to us.”

“Swear,” I get out in a low growl. “Swear to me we’ll escape.”

He thinks for a second before taking my hand in his.

“I swear, Heath. You and me, we’ll get out of this alive. We’ll take control. We’ll become the most feared men. We will.”

He keeps repeating those words over and over that entire night. I slowly recover from the damage those drugs have done to me, but I’m willfully avoiding the thought of my murder.

Because I am a killer. The worst kind of murderer, because I killed somebody I cared for. God will not forgive me. L won’t forgive me. Hell, I won’t even forgive myself.

By the time the drugs wear off early the next morning, I’m a wreck.

The reality of what happened is finally hitting me fucking hard.

I took a life, a young life that held so much promise. And worse than that, I know I’ll have to take more. Despite my pact with L, perhaps I’ll have to go into the cage with him next.

And as I watch my caring friend making sure I’m okay, I wonder whether I could kill him, too.

I’m sure if it came down to it, I wouldn’t hesitate to take his life.

For me.

For my parents.

For Rain.

“I thought about it,” L whispers. “Our plan. We can get out of here.”

“How?” I manage weakly, picking myself up to lap more water from the bottle he’s offering me.

“First of, we’ll start stockpiling drugs,” L mutters. “Anything they give us, we’ll put away, so we can be stronger when we need to escape.”

“And then?”

“And then we’ll kill them all.”

L’s voice is dark, a world away from when I first met him. The cage has changed him, too.

“And then?” I repeat.

“Then we’ll take over their operation,” he goes on. “And whoever tries to go against us, we’ll kill them too. Or better yet, put them in the cage like they did to us.”

The thought of giving our enemies their own medicine fills me with righteous rage. I want this. I want to punish them, do to them what they did to us.

I want these men to suffer first, before I track down my uncle and make him pay for putting me here in the first place.

In the years I’ve spent here, my hatred for Xavier has grown more malicious and more murderous. I will struggle not to kill him on sight when I see him again. But I want him to suffer. My mind’s already made up about that. He will go through hell just like I did. And I’ll enjoy my front-row seat for every second of his suffering. I can’t fucking wait to humiliate him. I’ll drag it out before finally putting his out life like a match.

A face appears in my thoughts. Freckled, pale skin. Bright blue eyes. Long, golden blonde hair.

Rain.

It’s been so damn hard to hold on to memories of her with everything happening in this hellhole, but I’ve clung to them with a desperation I didn’t know I possessed.

Her pretty face is the last thing I have left of her, and it’s merely a memory.

I’m sure by now Xavier has killed Rain. He’s always hated her for her mother’s crime against him. I’m sure he showed her no mercy. And by the time I get out of here, Rain will be long dead.

I couldn’t save her, just like I wasn’t able to save Manuel.

Two more casualties of Xavier.

My nails dig into my palms as I think of the cruel bastard who pretended to give a shit about me for twenty long years of my life. He made sure I was safe. He protected me. But only until he had no use for me anymore.

When the moment I’d take over the cartel approached, he got rid of me.

Xavier always wanted control of the Serpent cartel. He must’ve felt inadequate, being the adopted one out of two brothers. He’d be provided for the rest of his life, sure, but he would only be the leader of the cartel until I married.

And with Rain’s eighteenth birthday fast approaching, Xavier knew he had to get rid of me, or risk losing his position in the cartel.

So he sacrificed me to get what he wanted. And why not? He never pretended to be a loving family member, always reminding me I wasn’t his blood, his family member. I was merely a pawn in his twisted games. A means to an end.

And now that he’s gotten what he always wanted, I’m sure he’s damn pleased with himself.

Too bad that it won’t last long.

A newfound determination sinks in and I sit up, despite the pain I feel. I want to plan this escape. I want to get out of here with L and take down the cartel I once belonged to.

I want to see Xavier bleeding, hurt and broken.

And I’ll do anything in my power to make that happen. Even if it means becoming the very thing I once feared most... A cruel, ruthless cartel leader who will stop at nothing to get what he wants.

Exactly like my uncle.