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  Ruthless

  S.S. Richards

  Ruthless Copyright © 2020 by S.S. Richards

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, events, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual places or events or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

  Contents

  Blurb

  Warning

  Part I

  1. Dean

  2. Dean

  3. Anna

  4. Anna

  5. Anna

  6. Anna

  7. Anna

  8. Anna

  9. Anna

  10. Anna

  Part II

  Prologue

  1. Anna

  2. Anna

  3. Anna

  4. Anna

  5. Anna

  6. Dean

  7. Anna

  8. Anna

  9. Dean

  10. Anna

  11. Anna

  12. Dean

  13. Anna

  14. Dean

  15. Anna

  16. Anna

  17. Dean

  18. Dean

  19. Anna

  20. Dean

  21. Anna

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  What’s next?

  Also by S.S. Richards

  About the Author

  To every person who had/has abusive parents…

  You’re brave.

  You’re strong.

  You’re not alone.

  Blurb

  He lurks behind the shadows and watches my every move keenly.

  I feel his powerful presence in my sleep but it doesn’t frighten me.

  I should hide.

  I should feel suffocated.

  I should try to escape.

  But...

  I want to stay.

  I want him to possess me.

  I want to drown in his pain and sorrow.

  Between the walls of this castle, I found my escape and eternal peace.

  We're the unlucky ones. The tortured ones. The pitiful ones...

  I'm Anastasia Smirnov, and this is my story.

  Warning

  Ruthless is a dark romance. There are extreme sexual themes and violence in certain scenes, which could trigger emotional distress.

  Please proceed with caution.

  You’ve been warned, so don’t say I didn’t try.

  However, if you’ve read my previous work and you trust my writing, then carry on reading… I promise you a happily ever after.

  xx

  S.S. Richards

  Part I

  Dean

  Ten years earlier

  I wake up to the sound of my sister screaming. My heart hammers in my chest as I rise from my bed and storm outside of my bedroom. The hallway is dark and empty, and I instantly get the feeling that something bad is happening. I don’t hear my parents. But I know there are strangers in our house. I realize that the sound is coming from her bedroom as I get closer to it. I lean against the wall and hope to God the intruders aren’t able to hear the loud thumping of my heart in the deadly quiet hallway. The sound of a gun shooting reverberates off the walls, and I flinch as my eyes widen. But then I hear her crying even louder, and I blow out a sigh of relief. She’s still alive. At least there’s that.

  I slowly peek into her bedroom and see three men dressed all in black, standing over her as she’s tied to a chair. Their backs are facing me. She looks into my eyes and screams for my help. I freeze, and my hands ball into fists, turning my knuckles white. I feel the fury rise up within me. I want to storm inside and get her out. But I have nothing to protect her or myself with. They’re three and I’m only one person.

  Where the fuck are our security men? Where are my parents?

  One of the men grips my sister’s throat.

  “Blame your father for this, sweetheart,” he says coldly.

  She looks into his eyes with vulnerability that breaks my heart into a million pieces. The other man holds the gun against her forehead, and she drops her gaze and looks straight ahead. She looks at me for a beat before squeezing her eyes shut. Her sobbing comes to an end and a second later, the sound of the gun becomes the only sound that I hear loud and clear in my ears. I run as fast as I can and storm inside one of our guest rooms. I slide underneath the bed and sob silently. Shattering agony takes a hold of me as I feel helpless and lost. I just watched my sister die right before my eyes, and I couldn’t do anything to save her.

  I suddenly hear footsteps outside the room, and I hold my breath.

  “Did we get everybody? How about the son?” one of the men says.

  “I don’t think he’s home. I searched everywhere, including his room, and the little fucker is nowhere to be found. We gotta go anyway. The cops will be here soon,” another man answers.

  Their voices disappear as well as their footsteps. I remain silent, hiding underneath the bed.

  I don’t know how long I remain hidden away in the dark until I hear the sound of sirens, followed by a strange, loud ringing in my ears. My body feels light, and I can barely feel my hands or my legs. My vision is blurry, and the last thing I feel before oblivion takes over is someone yanking my arm and a black tall figure towering over me.

  They’re cops.

  I hope they are.

  Dean

  Tik Tok.

  Time is going by slow as I stare at the clock sitting on my desk. It’s ticking away my time slowly, and it doesn’t seem to bother me. Because for the past few years, that’s all I’ve been doing. Waking up every morning and taking the stairs up to my office, which is located in the east wing of the castle. The only place that nobody is allowed in. Not even my staff. Except for Andrew, my butler. I pour some more whiskey into my glass and chug the liquid audibly. It burns the back of my throat, but I’ve gotten so used to the taste that it doesn’t hurt anymore.

  I don’t know what time it is, but as I look out the window, I realize that the sun is waking up, making the view outside mesmerizing. These simple moments that make my heavy heart feel light are priceless. Because I don’t get to live these moments often. A smile tugs at the corners of my lips, followed by the memory of the shattering agony that lives inside of me which causes my heart to thump uncontrollably in my chest. It never lets me breathe without reminding me that I don’t even deserve to live. I deserve to die, so I can free myself from this misery. My mind is a dark tormented place, and time has been way too heavy on my soul. I’ve been alone for a long time now, and I’m afraid that there’s no going back. Every single day I recall the events that led me into living in this loneliness. Erasing the memory off my brain only seems to happen when I chug the hard liquor a couple of times.

  I shake my head and lean back in my chair. The constant guilt that torments me and consumes me from within is something I have gotten so used to. It’s that look on her face when she begged for me to help and save her. I remember feeling bound and helpless, tears ran down my cheeks as my heart hammered savagely in my chest. I knew that I wasn’t gonna be able to save my sister. So I cried, stared into her eyes and asked for her forgiveness silently, allowing my eyes to convey to her the things my mouth simply couldn’t. I shut my eyes and take a deep breath in. That’s what helps calm my anxiety every time the past comes crawling back.

  I have no family anymore. Nobody to give me hope but the dark corners of my mind. It all turned me into a beast. A monster who hides during the day and only shows up at night when the world
is asleep and the hallways are empty. The darkness that lives inside of me blossoms only when the world shuts down. That’s when my thoughts come alive and the whiskey numbs my body and mind, making the pain bearable.

  When was the last time I was sober? I don’t even remember. I hear a soft knock on the door, and I turn fully, facing it.

  “Enter,” I say and take another sip from my glass.

  Andrew, my butler, walks into the room and nods his head slightly.

  “Good morning, Sir,” he says.

  “What is it, Andrew?”

  “I was wondering if you needed the jet today, Sir. I remember you telling me last week that you had an important meeting, and you were going down to London to attend it.”

  I narrow my eyes at his words and then remember. I did have a meeting, and I was dreading it. It could be the whiskey, but I completely forgot about it.

  A deep sigh escapes my lips. I open my laptop and check my calendar. It’s a meeting with a potential new director that I need to hire for the London office. I scratch the back of my head as I begin to think of ways I could possibly cancel this meeting. I know I shouldn’t. Hiring a director should be a priority of mine. Only if I wasn’t too sorrowful to leave my home. Only if I wasn’t depressed and dejected. Maybe then I would be a normal CEO. Not a ghost who only works from home.

  “I’m gonna have the meeting through Skype,” I tell Andrew as I shut down my computer.

  “Sounds good, Sir,” he says and walks out of my office quietly.

  The last time I went to the office was six months ago. Before, I used to pay a visit once a year. Now, I tend to do it twice a year instead. At least it’s an improvement.

  I hired many therapists over the years, ever since the event that changed my life forever happened. But nobody was able to get me out of my miserable state. They were all after my money. And every time, I found myself firing them after four sessions.

  I pour more whiskey into my glass and rise from my seat. Crossing the empty hall over to my bedroom, I shut the door behind me and remain standing with my back leaning against the door for a long moment. Every day I wonder to myself if things will ever go back to normal. Just like when my parents and my sister were still here. I was happier then. I was alive.

  Now, I feel like a zombie. My body and my brain might still function, but my soul shut down a while ago.

  I walk toward my bed and open the first drawer of my nightstand. Sitting on top of my bed, I pick up the gun and hold it against my temple. I shut my eyes as a tear rolls down my cheek. My hand begins to shake, and I can feel the gun practically dancing in it.

  Do it, you fucking coward!

  I tell myself as I roar like a beast in pain and throw the gun across the room. I howl in agony and punch my night table so hard that I make a hole in it. I’m supposed to feel pain radiate up my arm, but I feel nothing. My knuckles turn bloody, and my tears don’t fucking stop. They keep streaming down my cheeks like rain. I hate myself for not having enough courage to end my life once and for all. I hold that same gun to my head every fucking day. But I’m too much of a coward to do it.

  I shake my head and pick my whiskey glass up off the floor. Heading over to the mini bar across the room, I pour more liquid into it. I raise the glass in the air and cheers to another lonely, forsaken day.

  Maybe tomorrow I’ll have the courage to end my life.

  Anna

  I open my eyes to the sound of the TV coming from the living room. My father always has a habit of waking up early and watching his favorite show before any of the kids wake up. I blink slowly in order to ease the blurriness that fills my vision. I look around me and find all my siblings still deep in their sleep. I’ve always been an early bird, just like my father. But every time I wake up in the morning, I don’t go and join him. I wait until I hear noises coming from the kitchen. That’s how I know that my mother is awake and is probably already preparing breakfast.

  We are a family of seven people, that includes my parents. Unfortunately for my father, he never had a son despite wanting to have one so bad; my mother was always the one to blame because she could only give him girls. He wanted someone to help him make a living for the family. We live about an hour and a half away from Moscow, and my parents always struggled with money. My father has all of us to take care of since he’s the only one who works.

  The oldest one out of all my siblings is my sister Tiana, who turns nineteen in a couple of months. Birthdays in the Smirnov household consist of a meal that all of us cook and a movie night that the whole family gathers to watch. Nothing like the usual birthday parties that I see in movies or read about in books. In fact, despite not being too far away from Moscow, I’ve only been there twice in my whole entire life.

  My parents never liked the city life, even though that’s where they grew up. As soon as they got married, they moved to the countryside and decided to start their life here and to stay away from everybody, including their family members. I am not sure what happened, but I once heard my mother tell my father that she cut off her family members for the sake of marrying him. She said it in the heat of the moment. And when I asked her about it the next day, she gripped my forearms tightly and ordered me to never bring that up to anybody and to act like I never heard their conversation.

  When I didn’t reply, she shook me harshly and gave me a lesson on how eavesdropping is wrong and that if my father knew about it, he would punish me. I remember the rush of fear that ran through my whole body at the mention of punishment. My father’s punishments are hard-core, and out of all my siblings, I’m the one who has experienced his violence and inhumanity the most. I’m not the type of person to remain silent like the rest of all my sisters. When something’s wrong, I say it, and my father hates it. It challenges him, and he always ends up making me regret opening my mouth and letting the words out. But I never learn my lesson.

  I hear the sound of the dishes clinking loudly and fresh energy instantly fills me. I rise up from the bed and begin to get ready to go to the kitchen and see my mother. My sisters are still sleeping, and it’s always a mission to get passed them to reach the door. I’m always scared I might step on one of them. I hold my breath as I walk past the living room where my dad is sitting, watching the news before he leaves for work. My father and I never talk in the morning. In fact, he’s not much of a talker in general. He only ever makes conversation with us if he needs something.

  As I walk into the kitchen, my mother turns around and flashes me a wide grin revealing her flawless white teeth. She’s beautiful. And out of all my siblings I’m the only one that looks exactly like her. The blond hair and the light blue eyes I got from her make my other sisters jealous. Because most of them got my father’s brunette roots, except for me.

  “Good morning,” she says.

  “Morning, Mama.”

  I hug her waist and close my eyes as I inhale her strawberry scent. Without my mother in this household, I believe most of us would have ran away from my father. She’s the only person that’s keeping this family together.

  “Do you want me to make the eggs, Mama?”

  “Yes, Sweetie. Your father is leaving earlier today so make sure to serve him as soon as possible and go wake your sisters up.”

  I smile and begin to cook the eggs. My father loves his breakfast to be plain. I place three toasts on the plate and pour the scrambled eggs right next to them. I then take a deep breath in and let it out smoothly before straightening my posture and carry the tray over to the living room.

  My father doesn’t look at me as I place the tray on top of the small table in front of him. His eyes remain locked to the TV. I never know what to expect when it comes to him. It looks like today is my lucky day because his eyes don’t leave the TV. Like I don’t even exist. I begin to walk back toward the kitchen in silence when his voice startles me and brings my steps to a halt.

  “Where’s my coffee?” he asks gruffly.

  “It’s coming, Papa,” I say and storm
inside the kitchen. My heart races in my chest as I pour coffee in the mug. My hands shake uncontrollably. I don’t want him to be mad at me.

  My mother walks over to me, her lips are pursed and eyes wide.

  “You forgot his coffee?” she asks, her voice is low, almost soundless.

  I nod my head frantically.

  “I’m sorry, Mama.”

  I rush toward the living room and find him glaring at me. I instantly drop my gaze to the floor, avoiding his intimidating look and place the coffee mug next to his plate.

  With my eyes pinned to the floor, I walk back inside the kitchen and place my shaky palm on the beating of my heart. I close my eyes and inhale deeply, reminding myself that it could have been worse. I can deal with the glaring. Just no punishment.

  Please God, no punishment.

  Anna

  “Maybe one day, prince charming will come and snatch me from this place,” Darya says, waving a hand in the air and grabbing another potato with the other.

  My sisters chuckle, and I roll my eyes at her. Darya is the closest one to me out of all my sisters. I’m fifteen and she’s fourteen. Darya believes in happily ever after, and I don’t. Other than that, we seem to agree on everything else.