Page 3 of Promise of Punishment

Dorset, England

Wes, 21

Hell is home.

Mum walks out of the formal living room, where she orders me to stay. I’ve only been back a week at the countryside manor after graduating from Cambridge, and already she can’t stand the sight of me.

I refrain from shouting, “I’m not here for you, old bag. I’m here for Tessa.” If they’d stop forcing her home during the summer, I’d never return. Katessa has to wait until she turns twenty-one, like I did, to gain full control over her trust, which means our parents can hold it over her head.

If only Tessa had told me she accepted an internship for the summer. I’m shocked Mum allowed it. They like to hold her hostage during breaks. I hate it when she’s here. Here is bad. Here, I can’t look after her. Here, I never know if she’s safe from the twisted games our parents play.

The last fatal event happened when I was twelve. Tessa was ten.

We were dressed up like Rococo dolls, Mummy’s preferred costumes for us. Our parents were hosting one of their infamous swinger parties.

I shouldn’t have known what that meant at only twelve years old. Tessa was confused. I told her adult stuff happened at these parties, and it was better for her not to know what went on behind closed doors—or in the dining hall after we went to bed.

We never witnessed the debauchery. We only served the guests drinks and hors d'oeuvres before the sit-down dinner and evening festivities.

My parents were sick people with sick high-society friends. The staff they hired, who turned a blind eye for the money, were just as bad.

I hated walking around with a tray as both women and men eye-fucked me, but mostly I hated that Tessa had been forced to join me for the first time. She was sweet and innocent and deserved better. We both did.

That night changed everything for my family, mostly for Tessa and me. I don’t regret what I did. I’d do it again to protect my little sister.

I wouldn’t say I was a calm child by nature. I acted calm, but on the inside, black rage had been building like molten pressure in a volcano.

Ten minutes before we were allowed to go to bed—at which time we were locked in our rooms in the west wing of the manor—Tessa went missing.

The party guests always stayed in the east wing. This night had been a particularly handsy bunch. I’d had my backside brushed more times than ever. I assumed the same was happening to Tessa and kept a close eye on her. I disappeared for a minute to refill my tray, and she vanished.

My pulse surged as I set down the tray and searched for her, checking every corner, hallway, bathroom, and alcove until I found her. An old man—in his fifties, I’d guess—had her trapped on a writing desk in a small study that no one ever went in. His body was wedged between her little legs. Her face was turned away as she cried and beat her tiny fists against the fat bastard kissing her neck.

The entire room turned red as that black rage took over. Adrenaline and hate mixed inside me, a potent brew. I grabbed the nearest lamp and smashed him over the head with the heavy gold base. The man fell sideways, landing on the floor with a grunt. Before he could look back at me, I smashed his head again and again and again. My muscles strained as I hit him with all my might. Blood splattered the desk, my body, and my sister. She screamed, or maybe she’d been screaming. The man curled into a ball, but I didn’t stop. I continued to bash his head until the shape was unrecognizable, and his gray hair was stained with blood.

“Stop!” Tessa wailed. “Stop, Wes. Stop.” Her words turned into sobs.

I let the lamp fall to the floor. It landed with a heavy thud. The lampshade was gone, the bulb too. Breathing heavily, I lifted my blood-stained hands and turned them over. Shards of glass jutted from my palms. I couldn’t feel any pain. I felt nothing, and when my gaze strayed to the rotter on the floor, I had zero remorse for what I did.

The man wasn’t found until the next morning. My parents didn’t even know what happened to Tessa. I carried her to her bedroom. A maid saw us and helped. She bathed Tessa and told me to go clean myself. She didn’t ask for details, only if Tessa had been sexually assaulted—more words I shouldn’t have known at twelve. Her knickers were still on when I helped her down from the desk. That led me to believe she hadn’t been assaulted sexually, only her shirt had been ripped. I’d gotten there in time.

I slept in Tessa’s bedroom that night on the couch near the fireplace. The maid explained what happened to my Mum the next morning, and was fired. Tessa was sent to an all-girls boarding school, and I was sent to Eton. I never came home unless Tessa was here for the summer. I preferred she stayed away, but if my parents summoned Tessa to the manor, then you bet your arse I was there to watch over her.

My father’s deep voice rumbles from out in the hallway, drawing me from my thoughts. My hands curl into fists. I’ve been dying to punch that man in the face. Whenever I fight, I imagine my opponent is my dad and brutally win every match. Underground fighting became my solace the first year I was sent away. Fighting is how I appease the inferno of rage that came alive in me, like a demon, the night when I beat that fat fuck to death.

“You can leave now, Eleanor,” Dad instructs. “You did what I needed you to do. Off with you.”

“Make him stop, Nicholas, or I’ll have him arrested for what he did to poor Lord Hamilton,” Mom whines the way she has for years about this. “No mother should have to suffer as I have. He’s a monster.”

That’s it. I stand and stalk to the open doorway. “I’m the monster? What about you? I saved your daughter. You fed her up like a fucking dessert to your sick friends to feed your twisted desires.” I glare at her, then at my father. “Both of you should be in jail.”

Instead of tears filling Mum’s eyes, hatred darkens the gray color. “You’ve disgusted me since the day you were born. Soon, I won’t have to worry about you anymore.” She dusts her hands and turns on her heels, walking away with her nose in the air.

I clap. “There you have it. Lady Hale at her finest. Mother of the year.”

Dad smacks my hands down and gets in my face. His round cheeks are ruddy with anger. “I’ve had enough of you,” he spits when he talks. “If it weren’t for me, you’d be in jail.”

“And you with me.” If I go, they go too. I told them as much when Lord Hamilton was found dead in the study the next day. I bargained boarding school for me and Tessa. It was the only way I’d keep quiet. I had no problem going to jail. They, however, would have died.