Reign of a Billionaire : A Dark Mafia Enemies-to-Lovers Romance

Chapter 9Kingston, 11 Years Old

My defenses cracked like lightning across the sky.

With each passing day, I descended deeper into hell. Every passing night, I slipped into madness. There were hours when breathing alone was intolerable.

I was desperate to escape this hell. The escape seemed impossible. My reality became a fight. Became another struggle to survive.

“You,” the guard called out, and every fiber of me knotted. His eyes focused intently on me. Bile rose in my throat, my skin crawling with revulsion. But I hid it all behind a blank expression filled with nightmares.

I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to stay.

The choice wasn’t given.

Standing up, my legs unsteady, the snickers and pity drifted off the other boys, wrapping around my throat like a noose. If only it’d suffocate me. Relief shone in their eyes at not being the ones chosen, but that was how it went in this hell. Some days just weren’t your day.

Eyes on Ivan and Sofia, I let myself imagine the day the life left theirs. I learned quickly who it was that ruled over this hell. Who was responsible for the life I was forced to endure. A life I didn’t want, but was too much of a coward to try to end. So each day, I did what was demanded of me, taking the lives of other boys to continue “earning” my place in this hell.

Every muscle in my body tightened at the picture of me running into the knee-high snow. I wouldn’t make it a hundred yards before being dragged back. I should know; I’d tried it more than once.

I closed my eyes, attempting to drown out the grunts and moans. The sounds were perverse and wrong in my ears.

“Come here, boy.” A demon with a woman’s voice. I moved on autopilot, the perfume invading my nose.

I shut my mind down, seeking refuge in a warm paradise where teeth, stained with the blood of those who’d dared touch me or had tried to kill me, hung on the wall as décor.