From Enemy's Daughter to Expectant Bride (The Billionaires of Blackcastle 1)

Prologue

He woke up in darkness again.

His cheeks were wet, his heart battering his chest, and his screams for his mother and father still shredding his throat.

“Get up, Numbers.”

The vicious voice had terror expanding in his chest. The first time he’d heard it, he’d been terrified, thinking it was a stranger in his bedroom. But he’d soon realized it had been even worse. He’d no longer been at home, but somewhere narrow and long with no windows and no furniture. He’d been on the freezing ground, hands tied behind his back. That voice speaking heavily accented English, the language he knew so well, had said the same thing then.

And that had been how this nightmare had started.

“Seems Numbers wants another beating.”

That was the other man. He believed he’d never see anyone but these scary men ever again. And they called him Numbers. It was why they’d taken him. Because he was good with numbers.

He’d been offended when they’d first said that about him. He wasn’t “good with numbers.” He was a mathematical prodigy. That was what his parents and teachers and

all the experts who’d sought him had said he was.

He’d corrected them, and he’d gotten his first ever slap for it. It had almost snapped his neck, sending him crashing into the wall. As the shock and pain had registered, he’d realized that this was real. He was no longer safe and protected. Anything could and would be done to him.

At first, that had made him angry. He’d said if they returned him to his parents, he wouldn’t tell them they’d dared lay a hand on him. The two men had laughed, just like he’d always imagined devils would. One had told the other that this Numbers kid might take longer to break than they’d thought.

He’d still insisted his name wasn’t Numbers, and the other man had backhanded him on his other cheek, even more viciously.

As he’d lain on the ground, shaking with fear and helplessness, the men had told him what to expect from now on.

“You’ll never see your parents or leave this place again. You now belong to us. If you do everything we tell you, the moment we tell you, then you won’t be punished. Not too bad.”

But he’d disobeyed their every order ever since, no matter how severely they’d punished him for it. He’d hoped they’d give up on him and send him home. But they’d only grown more brutal, seemed to be enjoying hurting and humiliating him more, and the hope that this nightmare might end had kept dwindling.

“Shall we give Numbers a choice of punishments today?”

He heard his tormentors snickering, could barely see their silhouettes towering over him out of the eye that wasn’t swollen shut. And in that moment, he gave up.

It finally sank in that what he’d endured their abuse so long for would never happen.

This nightmare would never end.

His captors would never stop their cruelty, his parents would never rescue him and no one else would ever help him. It would never stop getting worse.

And if this was what his life would be like from now on, he no longer wanted to live.

But he couldn’t even kill himself. All he had in his cell were metal bowls for dirty water and slimy gunk and the bucket he used for a toilet. There was no way to escape them even through death. Except maybe...

The idea took hold in a second. He’d tried everything except playing along. Maybe if he did, they’d think they’d broken him, and let him out of his cell. He could escape then.

Or die trying.

One of the giants kicked him in the ribs. “Up, Numbers.”

Gritting his teeth against the shriek of pain, he rose.

A terrible laugh. “Numbers finally obeys.”

“Let’s see if he really does.” The other monster shoved his foul-breathed face in his. “What’s your name, boy?”

The burning liquid in his shriveled stomach rose to his mouth. He swallowed it with the last thought of resistance. “Numbers.”

A slap stung across his sore cheek, if not as hard as usual. They’d punish him anyway, just not as badly when he obeyed. “And why are you here?”

“Because I’m good with numbers.”

“And what will you do?”

“Everything you say.” Another slap left his ears ringing, his head spinning, yet he continued, “The moment you say it.”

In the faint light coming from outside, he saw them exchange smiles of malicious satisfaction. They believed they’d succeeded in breaking him. And they had. But he didn’t intend to live long enough for them to enjoy their victory.

And they did as he’d thought they would—they dragged him out of his cell. Too weak to walk, he hung between them, his bare feet and the knees exposed through his tattered pants scraping on the cold, cobbled ground.

Barely able to raise his head to look where they were taking him, he got glimpses of soaring, blackened columns and arches, with a roiling gray sky between them. The whole place looked like a medieval fortress from one of the video games his father had gotten him. The one thing he noticed or cared about now was that the walls between the columns were low enough to jump over. To escape...or fall to his death.

Then one of the monsters said, “If you get near the walls, you’ll get caught, beaten then thrown back in your cell for twice as long as it took to break you the first time.”