Reign (Riders of Apollo #1)

Chapter 20: Roman Hayes

I sit down on the arm chair with Peyton leant back onto my legs as she grips her bottle tight enough to make her knuckles white. The entire club is scattered about on the floor and the three couches and four armchairs in the room. They're all looking at her and she's terrified about what she's about to say, I can feel it from here.

"Okay, so this is gonna be a bit awkward since I've never told anybody this story before. At least not fully. They kidnapped me from my parents Slasher and Marie at Fire Demons MC, took me from my crib when I was one. They took me and three others with them to Russia, into this underground bunker that was impenetrable and impossible to escape from.

When we turned two they started teaching us languages, maths and a few other subjects and if we didn't pick it up quick enough we were beaten within an inch of our lives. Those were the easy days if you'd believe it, it got worse when we turned three. At this point we started training, we could walk, we could form basic sentences so they figured we were grown up enough to begin, we would have to harm each other every day so that we could eat. If we pulled punches we were tortured. Torture was like a different language to them, I mean blades, bullets, fire, anything to make us scream and panic and give over to the control they exhibited."

At this point I'm starting to understand the scars on her body, when I was with her last night I kissed all of them but didn't think to question them. Scars are standard for me and I guess for a second there I forgot she wasn't raised in the life that I was. I figured she'd got them from bounty hunting but that amount of scars couldn't have come from that. I can be really dense sometimes, I really should pay more attention.

"At ten they started with the extremes; making us stay awake for entire weeks and not show any semblance of tiredness or we were waterboarded; forced us into the Sahara with no water; forced us into the tundra with hardly any clothes. We lost the first one to the tundra. It was difficult, I mean we were basically siblings by this point. We slept in the same room, ate at the same table, trained in the same room. We knew each other back to front and we weren't even allowed to grieve, crying wasn't a thing here. Beatings were given, one punch for every tear. It was ridiculous.

But once he died, they got worse. They started with the pain, they wanted to make us immune to it so that we could take a bullet and carry on fighting, so we could get stabbed and just carry on like nothing happened. We had to hold our hands over a flame and not move it or we would be shot. Not to kill us, just so we'd need medical treatment that we had to give ourselves. I mean we learned how to sew skin back together using wire and a bottle of vodka, before we found that cauterising it with a hot poker was more effective. Granted, at this point we already knew how to cripple empires, network with governments and gain control of any situation, we were learning a lot so they moved on.

At twelve we couldn't feel pain, at least not properly, no matter how hard we were hit or how deep we were cut we didn't feel anything. At this point they knew that they were going to start losing control of us, I mean we could fight and kill and maim and we couldn't feel pain. They had to feel threatened so they decided to do something else. To lock us in dark rooms, three deadlocks and a metal handle that had 200 volts coursing through it so if you touched it... anyway, there was no light, not even when they opened the slat to deliver food. They fed us well, surprisingly, I doubt they wanted their trained assassins to lose weight or anything.

They left us there for three months, while for two of us the darkness honed our senses, we could hear everything, used vibrations and other noises to determine where things were. We could basically see in the dark and our senses rival that of wolves. We continued to train everyday while in there, we didn't know a different life, it was everything to us, to succeed in something. But the other, the youngest of us all, he was driven insane. We were released into an arena and we were only able to leave once he was dead. He was feral, rabid even and kept launching himself at me and I ended up snapping his neck.

That's when the missions started. They let us out but only after installing a bomb in our necks that would explode if we tried to fucking run. Finally at fifteen, I got the upper hand and tore the bomb out of my neck and then his, we attacked everyone in the compound. We escaped and on the run for a year before I decided to move to Scotland, he moved to Australia. An old lady named Mary took me in and raised me for five years, that's how I understand Red, she died when I was twenty and I inherited her money. I had spoken to her about maybe moving to America when I was older and she told me that I would get there one day.

I moved here a few months after Mary died, brought everything I'd ever owned and bought the house where I still live now. Became a bounty hunter because I like being able to track down criminals like the ones who took me and put them where they belong. It's also good money and I couldn't just work as a waitress or something, I need to fight and it's the perfect job for me. Then I ran into your picture, Bear, online and I guess I entangled my fate with yours because I'm back."

Everybody was silent throughout the entire thing. No one dared to butt in or ask questions, everyone is struck dumb by the strength of the woman sat in front of us. Her unwavering care and her intelligence has shown everyone just how much she can go through and still come out fighting. She is extraordinary in human form, with the elegance of a Queen and the strength of a Goddess.

And she is mine.