Free Sinclair (Acquisition Series) by Celia Aaron Page A

crimson.
    The foreman put a pistol in her hand, and she handed the sugar cane leaves to me.
    Mr. Rose began to quake and shake his head, the gash oozing blood down to his ear. “I-I’m sorry about the supply issues. I promise, it won’t happen again. Now that you’re Sovereign, I w-won’t … please”—his voice broke—“please, Sovereign, I beg you, please.”
    Mother pulled me forward so I stood next to her. She handled the gun with delicate, deadly fingers.
    “I think you know it’s too late for that.” She pulled the hammer back, the click somehow loud even with the noise outside.
    “It doesn’t have to be.” Mr. Rose finally looked up, his mouth turned down at the corners, his chin quivering. “I’ll give you whatever you want.”
    “I’m already taking what I want.” She pressed the gun against his forehead.
    He pulled away, but the two men were on him, holding him in place by his elbows.
    I grabbed her hand. “Mom?”
    “This is what you need to learn, Sinclair. This is what you have to be.” She never took her eyes from Mr. Rose.
    “No.” Mr. Rose cried and sniffed, a line of snot rolling to his lips. “Please. My family.”
    Mother laughed. “Dead. All dead. All gone. Did you have fun at the Christmas trial?”
    He shook his head. “Wh-what?”
    “Answer my question. Did you have fun at the Christmas trial?”
    “I only did what everyone else—”
    She cracked the butt of the gun along his cheek. “I asked you if you had fun. Not everyone else.”
    “I-I- don’t remember… Please, Rebecca.”
    She cracked him again in the same spot and he screamed, but the men held him steady as more blood mixed with his tears.
    “Yes, Sovereign. I did. Yes.”
    “Remember my Acquisition? Remember what you did to her? I can still hear her screams as you violated her, hurt her. I know every word you said, every time you told her to take it and called her a slut, every time you said she was a cunt who loved getting fucked in her ass. Do you remember all that?”
    My stomach lurched, and I turned to the side. What little contents I had in my stomach emptied onto the floor in one powerful heave. The foreman laughed and stepped back.
    “Sinclair!” Mom grabbed my chin and wrenched my face around to hers. “Watch every moment of this. Don’t turn away. You have to learn.”
    I shuddered at her touch, her nails digging into my face. “Okay.”
    “Better. Now, where was I?” She tapped the gun barrel on her cheek. “Oh, right. You raping my Acquisition over, and over, and over again.”
    Mr. Rose didn’t respond, but his eyes pleaded with Mom. I clutched the sugar cane leaves until my fingers broke through them.
    Mom backed up a few feet and pulled me with her. “Don’t look away, Sinclair,” she said as she raised the gun. “Never look away.”
    “Please—” Mr. Rose’s plea was cut off by the deafening roar of the pistol. His right cheek exploded, the white of his teeth showing through, and he slumped to the ground. The men who’d been holding him backed away and wiped his blood from their faces.
    I screamed. The sound ripped from me as Mom gave the gun back to the foreman with a steady hand.
    The foreman nodded and smiled. “ Muy bien , Señora Vinemont.”
    The cry died in my throat as my lungs burned for want of air. I gasped and stared at Mr. Rose, unmoving on the floor. One of the men kicked him over onto his back. Only one eye remained intact, and it stared at me. If his mouth could move, it would tell me this was all my fault somehow.
    “Get him out of here and clean this up.” She waved a dismissive hand at the men and grabbed my upper arm.
    “Mom?” I let her pull me to the dining room. She shoved me into a chair, took the one across from me, then snatched the sugar cane leaves from my numb fingers. My ears rang in a high note, nothing like the deep sound of the gun. And I couldn’t stop the tears.
    “Mommy?” I needed her more than I’d ever needed anything. Where was