Richer Than God

by Amelia Wilde

  Richer Than God

  Amelia Wilde

  Contents

  Prologue

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Connect with Amelia

  Also by Amelia Wilde

  Prologue

  Prologue

  Zeus

  Twenty-six years ago

  The first thing I see when I step out of the car is a woman, running. Not all of her, just a kick of her heel and a flash of strawberry blonde hair and then she’s gone. The corner of the massive building hides her. It’s a dark, hulking place, the size of a city block, which still does not seem big enough to contain my father.

  He’s already at the steps, glaring back at me. “Pay attention, Zeus. Keep up. I’m not going to teach you this twice.”

  I hurry to meet him on the steps, my stomach tight with excitement and nervousness.

  My father owns the city in lots of ways. Some are less obvious. Handshakes and money changing hands. And some can’t be ignored, like the whorehouse.

  He takes off his jacket as we go inside, throwing it at a woman who stands nervously by the threshold. I’m trying to listen but it’s so dark in here, so completely forbidden, and there’s a scent in the air like perfume and fear. Like the burn of a lightning strike in the forest by our house. He’s talking about expectations. He’s talking about women. We go through the lobby and up a staircase and down a hall.

  I’m too busy looking at the fine furnishings—built-in couches everywhere, so different from home—and I only stop because he puts his fist in the shoulder of my shirt and yanks me back.

  “You’re not fucking paying attention.” His blue eyes look into my brain.

  “Yes I am.” I cast around for the main points of what he said. “There are ways of being with a woman,” I repeat back, instincts kicking in to save my ass. “And the heart of it is—”

  “Power,” he supplies.

  I don’t know what he means. Not exactly. “Power,” I repeat. And then we go into the room.

  It’s dim, shadowy, and the twist in my gut turns instead into a shiver that I only just manage to hold back. This isn’t about the women. This is about pleasing my father. If I can do that, then I can live another day.

  He opens the curtain. The sun sinks down over the city, bathing everything in orange, and it makes the room glow. “Come in,” he calls.

  The door opens, and two women come in. They weren’t in the hall but they had to have been waiting close by.

  They’re beautiful. One blonde, one brunette. Both with tits encased in lace and thongs so small I can’t look without my face heating. I pretend not to notice, or care, but I’m hard—painfully hard. I could touch them. Kiss them. Taste them.

  Scare them.

  But—they’re already terrified. I’ve seen this look on my sister’s face before when she thinks no one is looking. Wide eyes. Darting glances. Their smiles are fragile.

  My father rubs his hands together. “Over here, darlings.”

  Darlings. It sounds strange in his voice, and as the women brush past me, I see the blonde one reach back to squeeze the other’s hand. Is it so bad, what happens in these rooms?

  He makes them stand by the window so the fading light settles in their hair. “I get first pick. That’s your first lesson,” he says. “The man with the most power gets to pick the best woman.”

  My father stalks around them, leaning in to taste their skin and test their tits in his palms. The blonde is bigger, the brunette is smaller. “You,” he says to the blonde.

  There’s a crack in her smile, a flash of fear in her blue eyes, but she nods a little, pretending to be excited. That means the brunette is mine. She’s slender, smaller, but I like the look of her. I like everything about her. I like the way her hair falls over her shoulders and the way her breath rises fast and shallow. Now I’m hard for her, not just in general—I want her.

  I want her so much that I don’t notice my father’s trip to a dresser at the side of the room.

  Until he comes back with the whip.

  “Now it’s time for your second lesson.” His eyes light up, but he keeps it contained. My blood freezes. When he contains his excitement, it’s worse—it’s more calculated. “The man with the whip has the power.”

  Tears gather at the corner of the brunette’s eyes, but she keeps smiling. Why doesn’t she run? Probably the same reason I don’t run from my father. It would be pointless. None of us run. Not my sister. Not Poseidon. Not even Hades, who is currently sitting in the nanny’s cottage with a cloth over his eyes and boot prints on his back. I look from the whip to the brunette. Obviously he has the power. Who else would?

  “Bend over,” my father says, indicating the foot of the bed.

  They do, hands up on the covers, palms flat. Both of them inch their feet apart to the same distance. They know my father, I realize.

  “I don’t want to whip them.” The words come too fast to stop. “I just want to fuck her.”

  My father inhales, and then in one smooth move sends the whip cracking across both their backsides. It’s a devastating crack and the brunette screams, the sound abruptly cutting off as she gets control of herself. A droplet of blood gathers from the line he’s left and runs down the back of her thigh.

  “That’s for talking back, boy.” He comes across to me and takes my shirt in his fist, hauling me up to the tips of my toes. “You shut up, and you listen. You have a lot to learn about women and what they need.”

  His grip is so strong in my shirt that it scares me, that animal part of me that’s like a deer in the woods. I’m afraid. And I’m disgusted.

  Because I’m still hard.

  He lets go of my shirt and steps back into place. He meets my eyes for a long moment. And then the whip cracks a second time. The brunette cries now, her face turned to the covers, and it’s wrong. It’s fucking wrong. Terrible.

  So why am I still turned on?

  Horror crashes into me. I’m like him. I must be sick like him. I’m his second choice, standing in my brother’s place, but maybe he knew. Maybe my father knew that I’m just like him on the inside.

  He moves to put the whip up on the pillows, stretching it out so everyone can see it, and then he comes to stand beside me. We look down at the women, still bent over, still obeying, even as they bleed.

  “We’re going to talk about how to hurt a woman without leaving a mark,” my father says. He undoes the cuffs of his sleeves and rolls them up to his elbows. “But if you talk back again, we’ll spend the rest of our time here scarring them up for good. Understand, son?”

  The pause is heavy. It seems like everything hangs in the balance. My morality. My soul.

  I can’t take my eyes off the thin lines of blood. They’re proof of his promise.

  He’ll make good on his threat.

  He’ll tear them apart if I step out of line.

  He’ll tear them apart—or he’ll make me do it.

  So I open my mouth, and I give him the answer he wants. “Yes, sir.”

  1

  Brigit

  They’re follow
ing me.

  They have to be. My father isn’t going to shrug and move on with his life. Not after the world’s worst family dinner. Family. Bitterness coats my tongue when I remember it, so I’m trying not to. Of course, it’s impossible to escape something if you erase it from your memory. It could always catch you unaware. In a dark alley, for example.

  God.

  Everything about this situation is impossible. And I am forever stuck with the memory of my own father trying to sell me off to my uncle.

  I tug my cardigan tighter around my shoulders and try to look relaxed. Is that the way a person should look when they’re waiting for a midnight interview at a brothel?

  Because that’s what this is, no matter how much it’s dressed up to look like a fancy hotel. A mansion expanding over an entire city block. A castle on the hill. A white, gleaming castle on the hill. I want to get inside so badly I can taste it. If I can get inside, then I’ll be safe. I’d rather sell myself of my own volition. At least this way I’ll be in control. My stomach tightens, and I glance back over my shoulder. Nothing behind me gives any indication that they’re close. A car trundles by in the midsummer heat, headlights cutting a path through the dark.

  “What are you looking for?” the girl next to me hisses. “Stop doing that. It’s creeping me out.”

  “Nothing.” I turn my face resolutely toward the door in the side of the wall. I’m not the first girl to show up here with somebody after her. My stomach drops anyway. What if I am? What if there’s a box on some paper form—Is your father currently hunting you to marry you off to your uncle? Y/N. If I check that box, will they turn me away?

  The only thing worse than going inside would be a man barring the door.

  The woman who asked the question isn’t the only one waiting out here. We’re not the only ones waiting out here. Somehow, I thought I might be alone while I did this. I thought it might be a clandestine operation, knocking on the door in the middle of the night and begging for sanctuary. Now, it’s turned out to be a group interview. What else would they be there for? Are they going to ruin my chances? This feels like an episode of bad reality television. It’s actually much worse than that.

  I have no other options. Except…

  The mountain.

  I’ve heard about the mountain. People whispered about it at school. How could they not? We could see it from the soccer fields. It’s also there, looking over the cramped quad at the community college I tried to attend. I made it one semester before my father stopped paying the bills. Now, his solution is—

  I don’t want to think about his solution. His solution is why I’m standing here in the night, even thinking about the mountain.

  But that involves a ticket and a train, and at the other end, there’s a man who’s more dangerous than my father’s plans. A shiver grips my spine. I hope that Zeus isn’t so bad. I’ve heard that his brother is the one who kills. That his own mountain protects him. Who would bother him in a place like that? For a little while, the train wasn’t running. No explanation—not one that I heard. I noticed the absence of the sound, like an empty space in the pantry.

  It’s running now.

  The train whistle sounds in the far distance, high and clear, and for a moment, my heart pulls toward it. It has the ring of freedom. But freedom is risky right now. I need three things, in this order. First, money. Second, a passport. Third, a plane ticket. The plan for the plane ticket is to get to France. My mother’s family is from a tiny village in France called Saint-Gaultier. I don’t speak French and I’m sure all of them are dead, like she is, but it’s a place on a map—a direction to go when I’m fleeing the country.

  Getting myself trapped and killed in a mountain is the opposite of fleeing the country. Nowhere in these borders will be safe enough to keep me from my father.

  Then again…

  I only have one thing to sell. One way to get the money for a plane ticket.

  I twist the cardigan in my fists, pulling it even tighter, stretching out the fabric.

  Someone nearby snorts. “Why not just get a job as a waitress?”

  Trust me. I tried. I pinch my lips shut. My father wouldn’t let me get a job as a waitress. He wouldn’t let me save any money. I don’t even have a bank account. And if I tried to open one….

  It still feels like someone’s watching, and I steal another glance over my shoulder. If I tried to open a bank account, they will find me. A streetlight at the corner spills a pool of light onto the concrete. Better in this man’s brothel than waiting under that light. I would never know who was pulling the car over to the curb, who was rolling down the window. It wouldn’t take long to run into someone who wanted to kill me. That’s what happens in the dark, when you’ve run away from your father’s house, when you should be fine, since you’re twenty years old and you should be able to take care of yourself.

  I don’t even have a pocketknife.

  Maybe if I had a pocketknife, I would feel better. I imagine the feel of it in my hand. Something small, easy to tuck into my palm, but with a sharp edge.

  “Why is she here?” one of the girls whispers. “She’s obviously too good for this.”

  The way she says good, it sounds like the opposite. As if she thinks I’m uppity.

  The assessment rises into the night air and dissipates into other whispers, too quiet to hear. Run, says the voice in my head, louder than all the rest. The whistle of the train curls across the night, stroking the back of my neck and pulling the hairs there up from my skin. If I ran right now, I could get to the train station and be there when it pulls in. I could throw myself onto one of the cars. Make myself small. Get out of the city, at least. My muscles tense, abs pulling tight to lean and sprint and fly, and I’m going to do it.

  A big breath of night air and I’m on the balls of my feet, ready, set—

  The door in the side of the wall opens.

  For a heartbeat, I can only see a silhouette—curves and curls and the drape of a gown. Two blinks, and the shadow resolves into a woman. Dark hair. Lipstick the color of oleander. I take a half-step back, but she only smiles out at us, turning her head in both directions before she looks down at the crowd of desperate women. “Is this everyone?” Her voice is low and sultry, and I bet she makes hundreds of dollars a night, just from the way she speaks—like each word is an invitation to something dirty and wonderful.

  It makes me feel like a child.

  I don’t sound like that.

  I’ll never sound like that.

  How am I supposed to convince a man to buy me if I don’t sound like that? How will I get the money I need to buy my way out? This seemed relatively simple, when I lay awake in my bed and thought about it. Lie down. Let a man have his way with me, or two, or three. Be confident. Charge a high price. Walk away.

  It doesn’t seem simple now.

  I made a mistake. The words rise to the tip of my tongue, hovering there. Only they won’t come out. I haven’t ordered the wrong coffee at the café down the street from what used to be my house. “I’m sorry. I forgot my wallet. I won’t be having the drink after all.”

  The lady in the doorway laughs. “Don’t look so nervous, girls. I won’t bite. Come in, come in. We don’t have long to get ready. They’re the ones who bite.”

  I take my final moment outside to relax my face. To let go of the urge to run. I’ll feel it—that’s fine. But I won’t show them anything.

  2

  Zeus

  I’ve finally found a problem I can’t fuck my way out of.

  It’s a mindset issue, really. Being this despondent makes it difficult to be interested in sex. It’s not that I can’t do it—that would be a cold day in hell—but that I have no interest. I might as well be dead. As dead as all the people I’ve killed. My hands flex, thinking about slim throats in my palms. It’s not the killing that gives me a rush, I’ve decided. It’s being the one to go on living.

  At any rate, it’s very charming, this desolate look I have going o
n. Staring out the window is a regular habit in a whorehouse, where one needs to rest his eyes every so often to avoid too much tampering with the merchandise. A certain amount is allowed if you’re the owner, which I am, but even now, I’ve cleared out the prizes I usually use to decorate my office. They’re useless when I feel like this. When all the adrenaline has gone out of me from a brutal fight and there’s nothing left but old instincts and an enormous pile of money.

  It’s late.

  The women like to show up late and in the middle of the week, when things are quieter. Perhaps they think it’ll be simpler to deal with the men who are the most desperate for a fuck. I wouldn’t know. What I do know is that there was a bit of a crowd not long ago at the back door. I’ve never posted an ad online looking for new whores, and yet they all find their way to the correct entrance anyway. I’ll admit that I long for the day one of them shows up at the front and makes a fool of herself. It would be fun for me. As it stands, the street in front of my establishment waits quietly, the occasional car edging up to the curb, depositing a client, and disappearing into the clear night. No clouds. My brother’s mountain will be visible from here. It would look so lovely going up in an inferno, rock hurtling into the sky, various screams....

  It would be a filthy prospect. I try not to get involved in those at this point in my life. But there’s always one more, isn’t there? There’s always someone barging into my office to fight me over a simple misunderstanding. So irritating.