The Elder_Mississippi Kings

by Celia Aaron

  Sinclair

  The Acquisition Series, Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Past

  Blood streaked my mother’s face and dripped down the front of her yellow sun dress. Screams ricocheted through the night, and flames leapt into the sky from the neighboring property.

  The house was eerily quiet. Mom and I were the only ones inside. I blinked hard, trying to erase the horrors I’d seen from my vision. But when I opened my eyes, Mom was still there, still staring down at me.

  “Why are you crying?” She grabbed my wrist and yanked me toward the wide front doors.

  I wiped my tears with my free hand as she lifted the bar from the doors and tossed it onto the floor, marring the wooden planks. She wrenched the door inward. The screams were no longer muffled. Agonized cries rose from the fields of sugar cane that stretched as far as I could see in the pale moonlight. The neighboring fields were on fire, the acrid smoke making my eyes water even more.

  She ripped me down the front steps. I yelled as my ankle turned on the last stair, but she only pulled me harder toward the fields.

  “Mom, please!” I tried to dig my heels into the hardened dirt.

  She whirled and stabbed her index finger into my chest. “Don’t you ever beg anyone! You hear me? You’re a Vinemont. You don’t cry. You don’t beg. You do what you have to do to keep this family on top. Do you understand me?”

  My chest ached where she’d poked me, and her harsh words only made me cry harder. “I-I’m sorry, Mom. Let’s go back.”

  The blood around her mouth had crusted a deep brown, but the streaks along her cheeks glimmered like fresh paint. She bent down and wiped a tear from my face with her thumb.

  “There is no going back.” She stared into my eyes, a cruel smirk on her face. My mother, but I didn’t recognize her. Something had happened to her during the last year. Something bad. “No going back. Never. Never again.”

  “Mom.” I took her hand. “Let’s just go. Let’s go. Please!”

  Her stinging slap rocked me back on my heels. “Not yet.”

  I clutched my cheek. She’d never hit me before. I couldn’t hold back the sob that shot from my lungs. I wanted to wake up. It had to be a nightmare.

  She dashed to the edge of the sugar cane field and yanked down a stalk. She pulled off a set of green leaves and turned back to me as her foreman sauntered around the side of the house. Two men behind him dragged a third.

  “Señora Vinemont!”

  She grinned and took my hand, pulling me back toward the house. The man lifted his head, a bloody gash running along his bald pate.

  “Rebecca?” He blinked, his eyes teary from the heavy smoke, or perhaps from something else.

  “That’s Sovereign, to you.” Her voice was hard, like stone grinding against stone, but she curtsied like a little girl. “Edward Rose. So nice to see you again.” To the foreman, she said, “Take him inside.”

  The men dragged Mr. Rose up the front steps as we followed behind, my hand clamped firmly in my mother’s strong grip. A cold tingle ran down my spine. Instead of going inside, I wanted to escape. But the screams in the fields at my back kept me hemmed in. There was nowhere to run. And my mother was gone, though she looked the same, had the same voice.

  Once we were all inside, the foreman barred the heavy front doors again. The men set Mr. Rose on his feet. Mother circled around him, her skirt swaying as she perused him with eyes that were foreign to me. Gone was the mother who used to read to me, hold me in her lap, and chase me around the house when I rode my bike indoors. This woman—the one with the cold blue eyes and the blood-streaked face—was a stranger.

  She circled Mr. Rose one more time as he finally stood on his own. His eyes remained downcast.

  “Sovereign, I-I—”

  “Shh.” She stood in front of him as the other men smirked and backed away. Mr. Rose swayed, but stayed on his feet. Then she held out her right hand, her fair skin still delicate even though it was tinged with 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 she?

  The woman across from me smiled. “Hold your hand out.”

  I shook so hard my teeth chattered. “N-no.”

  “Sinclair, put your hand on the table.” Her voice darkened. “Now.”

  I swallowed hard and placed my hand on the edge of the table. She reached across and yanked it so I was leaning over, my arm outstretched. My tears plopped onto the dark wood beneath me.

  She plucked a sugar cane leaf and felt along the stiff side. As she slid her finger down the sharp edge, red welled up from a smooth cut on her fingertip.

  She smiled and placed her other hand, palm down, next to mine. “Now, let’s begin.”

  Chapter 2

  Present

  “Have you heard who’s gotten picked for this year?” Judge Montagnet sipped his bourbon, his black robe open as he lounged in his chambers.

  I pulled on my sleeves, ensuring that my cuff links were perfectly turned.

  “No, Judge, I sure haven’t. Should be an interesting year with Cal in charge.” I smiled. It was mechanical. Sometimes I would have to actively think about how a normal person would react to a statement or an action, and then attempt to mold my response in the same fashion.

  “I really can’t wait. Christmas trial is always my favorite. Did you attend during the year Cal won?” He shifted his hips higher, the law clerk between his legs making sloppy noises as he bobbed his head on the judge’s cock.

  “No, I’m afraid to say the sugar business called me away to foreign lands quite a bit that year.” I finished my bourbon and set the glass on the polished wood table to my right.

  Judge Montagnet closed his eyes and gripped the young man’s head, pulling him close. After a series of choking noises and some low grunts from the judge, it was over. The law clerk sat back, sputtering and gasping for air. He wiped his sleeve across his eyes, and it came away wet with tears.

  No pity for him welled in my deadened heart. I had no concept of what that word even meant. Was it a feeling? A thought? I was better off without it, not that I had a choice in the matter. I couldn’t miss something I’d never experienced in the first place.

  Boredom swirled around me, and I wanted to get the hearing over with as soon as possible. As the district attorney for the parish, I had to prosecute all criminal offenses while Judge Montagnet made a show of presiding over the trials. The job only became fun when I found a really nasty rat and made him squeal.

  Luckily, I’d found just such a rat in Leon Rousseau. His arraignment was set on the docket, and I had big plans to investigate every scrap of paper and every dime flowing to and from his accounts. Making his life a living hell would amuse me for a time, at least until I found something better.

  Judge Montagnet zipped up and patted the law clerk on the head. “Good work. Run along now and let them know I’ll be on the bench in a moment.”

  The clerk stood, crimson painting his cheeks, and left.

  “I guess that’s my cue.” I rose as the judge straightened his robes and smoothed his white hair.

  “I’ll see you out there. Anyone you want me to roast today?”

  I smirked. “I think I can handle the roasting at the moment. You’ve had all the fun so far. Now it’s my turn.”

  He smiled, his wrinkles turning his thin skin into accordions around his mouth. “I sure have.”

  I fastened my top coat button and strode out into the courtroom. The bailiff nodded at me as I skirted the bench and headed toward the counsel tables. The public defender had already set up his files on his side. My side was bare. I knew my cases; no files necessary.

  I scanned the gallery behind the short wooden wall separating the front and back of the courtroom. Leon Rousseau sat and stared at me with his beady eyes. But he wasn’t what caught my attention. I didn’t break my step, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the redhead sitting beside him.

  Her head was bowed, and she wore a black suit, the skirt too long for my tastes and the cut too modest. So prim and proper. I wanted to toy with her, bat her around like a cat playing with a mortally wounded mouse.

  I’d never been drawn to another human being. The sensation was odd, irritating. Even so, her red hair would look perfect clenched in my fist, and I had to take a sharp breath at the thought of her skin bearing marks from my belt.

  I walked the remaining steps to my table, but she didn’t look up. The flame of desire began to burn lower when I realized she was too tame. I would break her in an instant, and I didn’t want to play with broken toys. Pity.

  She looked up at me. Her green eyes pinned me to the spot, and my heart kicked against my ribs. She was more. So much more. Her hateful gaze scorched me like a firebrand, and I wanted the burn. I wanted to give it back to her, make her scream and call my name—in agony or pleasure, or that perfect mix of both. She held me there, as if the hate in her eyes had snared me in a trap.

  “Counsellor Vinemont?” Judge Montagnet’s voice echoed around the wood-paneled walls. “Which case would you like to handle first?”

  I cut my eyes from her to Leon Rousseau and back again. He gripped her hand with his. A name flitted around my mind. A daughter, he had a daughter. Stella. I smirked as her name came to me, and she kicked her chin up a notch in response.

  Still meeting her gaze, I called, “Judge, I’d like to take Leon Rousseau’s case first, if that’s all right with you.”

  When her eyes fell, the beast who lived in my hollow heart roared. She was fire, but she could be contained. Dominated. By me. And I already felt the need to do it again.

  Chapter 3

  The Victorian house needed work—the paint on the window casing was peeling, and some areas of the roof bowed. The grass was neatly mowed, and a porch swing with fluffy pillows moved with the breeze. Something about the swing made me think that she often dallied there. Perhaps she liked to read.

  “Ready?” Sheriff Wood’s voice crackled over the hand-held radio in my car.

  I clicked the button on the side. “Hit it.”

  Several lawmen rushed from the unmarked vehicles along the narrow street. Most converged on the front porch, while a few others rushed around the back. After Mr. Rousseau pleaded not guilty at his arraignment two weeks prior, I set the wheels in motion to crush him. His life was mine to destroy, and I looked forward to watching it crumble.

  I climbed out of my car and leaned against it, the sunlight warming my skin and trying to penetrate my dark glasses.

  After a swift knock, Sheriff Wood leaned back and kicked the door in. The deputies swarmed inside as if they were looking for the number one man on the most wanted list. In reality, Mr. Rousseau was just a low level schemer and a high level liar.

  But I liked the flair of going big, and more than that, I wanted to rattle his daughter’s cage. Just the one glimpse of Stella had haunted me. Her soulful eyes, the emotions that roiled beneath her surface, were ingrained in my mind. She was something different. Something wild. While I was a placid lake, nothing daring to touch the treacherous surface, she was a cascading river. Alive where I was dead, making noise while I lay silent.

  She was a mystery. One I needed to unravel and devour.

  I’d pulled everything on her that I could find—her high school yearbook photo, and a news clipping about her mother’s suicide were the highlights. Stella’s own suicide attempt intrigued me, and I’d only discovered it after getting her medical records from Dr. Ward, a Vinemont family friend. Her father had found her after she’d slit her wrists. What drove her to it? Him?

  Shouting brought me back to the task at hand. Voices rose inside the house, and then quieted. Once satisfied everything was on lockdown, I strolled through the broken front door. A small library was to my left, a sitting room to my right. I continued down the narrow hallway, my shoes silent on the threadbare rug.

  “—bust up in here and do whatever you want!”

  I turned the corner into a den area where Mr. Rousseau,
Stella, and a young man with blond hair stood under the guard of two deputies. The other deputies ransacked Mr. Rousseau’s desk. Noise from upstairs told me the deputies were destroying things for fun during their ‘search’.

  Just as I’d instructed.

  “Son, don’t make me take you in. Spending the night in a jail cell—”

  “You wouldn’t dare. My mother is—”

  “I don’t give a good goddamn who your mother is. This is an official parish investigation. If you keep interfering, I’ll arrest you. Got me?”

  “That won’t be necessary.” I strolled to the deputy as another crash sounded from upstairs.

  “You.” Mr. Rousseau narrowed his eyes and wrapped his arm around Stella’s waist. She wore a white T-shirt and jeans. A simple ensemble that hugged her curves. It would look even better stained with blood or tears, maybe both.

  The young man bristled. “Don’t look at her.”

  I met his gaze for a moment. He was muscled with a thick neck. Based on his clothes, he played lacrosse. Based on his muscles, he had a penchant for steroids. I gave him a withering glare and turned to Mr. Rousseau. “I have a warrant. Everything is in order, I assure you.”

  “Signed by that snake, Judge Montagnet, no doubt.” Stella scowled.

  A smear of blue paint colored her cheek, and her fingers carried a mix of the same blue and streaks of yellow. I’d visited the small gallery in town and studied the few paintings of hers that hung there. They were dark and brooding. I rather liked them. But her current palette was lighter. I’d work on the colors, pushing her back into darker and darker shades. After all, this was only the first search of many. I intended to turn the screws until Leon Rousseau jumped at every sound and feared I was the monster under his bed.

  “Snake, Ms. Rousseau? It isn’t wise to impugn a judge’s honor, especially one presiding over your father’s case.”

  “We aren’t blind, Mr. Vinemont. I saw you in his chambers before the arraignment.” Her shoulders moved back, her challenge obvious. My gaze flicked to her hardening nipples. She wasn’t wearing a bra. She must have been spending a comfortable day in her house of straw until the big bad wolf came to her door. Now the wolf was inside, and all I wanted to do was eat her up.