Breaking Beth Read online

  Breaking Beth

  Jennifer Bene

  Contents

  A Note To My Lovely Readers

  1. Anthony

  2. Anthony

  3. Beth

  4. Anthony

  5. Beth

  6. Anthony

  7. Beth

  8. Anthony

  9. Beth

  10. Marcus

  11. Anthony

  12. Beth

  13. Beth

  14. Beth

  15. Beth

  16. Anthony

  Epilogue

  End Note

  About the Author

  Also by Jennifer Bene

  Jennifer Bene

  Text copyright © 2018 Jennifer Bene

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

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

  ISBN (e-book): 978-1-946722-21-8

  ISBN (paperback): 978-1-946722-38-6

  Cover design by Laura Hidalgo, Beyond DEF Lit. https://www.beyonddeflit.com/

  Created with Vellum

  About this Book

  It would take time.

  Time to destroy who she used to be... time for all her hope to die... time to truly make her a thing.

  But he would.

  Anthony took Beth to remake her into the perfect toy for his customers. Mindless, obedient, a broken thing without complications.

  But Beth is strong.

  She refuses to break, refuses to let Anthony erase her... even if that means losing in the end.

  * * *

  Instead of a dedication for this book, which would just feel strange, I have a quick little letter for you all instead. Please read it on the next pages and be sure you want to dive into this story before you get too far in to turn back.

  And remember, I adore you either way, lovelies.

  A Note To My Lovely Readers

  Hello lovelies,

  I wanted to start this book with a quick note, just so no one is blindsided, or buys it and later regrets it. This is a dark story, and I know you’re probably chuckling to yourself because all of my stories are pretty dark, or at least edgy and dirty. But Beth? Beth is unlike anything else I’ve published. If you’ve read the Thalia series you will have a greater appreciation for this book (if you haven’t, I do recommend it because this book will spoil a few surprises from Book 1).

  In fact, the spoilers are about to start, so… run away. Run away now if you don’t want them!

  Are they gone? Okay.

  Beth’s name originally appeared in ‘Security Binds Her’ where she was referenced by Marcus as another girl that had been trained by his brother Anthony — and, let’s just say that based on their conversation things did not go well. From the first moment I referenced Beth, I think there was a little spark of bloody darkness in the back of my mind that wanted to know exactly what happened to her. What horrific things did Anthony do that made even Marcus quail?

  Fast forward three years and Addison Cain, Cari Silverwood, and I were chatting one day about how people flinch at the things we put in our books sometimes… but we all admitted that we often hold back. We rein ourselves in with most of our books, and usually cut or never write some of the more fucked up stuff that we come up with. Thus was born the idea to have a ‘chains off’ anthology. No rules, no limits, no chains on our internal demons. Even as we were joking and laughing about everything we could do with our options wide open, I already knew what I wanted to write.

  I wanted to write the story of Beth and Anthony.

  Let me be very clear, this is not a love story. It is a walk into a deep, dark fucking cave where the only thing that happens is the light of the entrance shrinking ever smaller at your back while you keep trudging forward. Everyone that read this when it originally appeared in the ‘When the Dark Wins’ anthology has told me that by the end they felt gutted, emptied out, and basically depressed. Cari described it as ‘bottom of the grave dark, after the dirt’s filled in’. There is no happy ending here, lovelies, there is no ‘happy for now’ — there is no happy. This is a story about hope dying, about coming face to face with a psychopath and losing (or winning by losing, depending on your perspective).

  Now, ‘Breaking Beth’ will be followed by a duet of books that are a much more traditional dark romance about finding the right person and being healed. While I hope to write those books in such a way that this book isn’t required, it will always be the dark and fucked up first part of the rest of Beth’s story, and I love you for trusting me enough to read it.

  It will not be an easy read, but I do hope you enjoy it, lovelies. It’s for the truly dark hearted among us, or those who just have to know what happened to Beth.

  Love you all,

  One

  Anthony

  “Is the girl situated?” Glancing up from his phone, Anthony caught the flush in Marcus’ cheeks. It was either arousal or simple exertion — he’d always had trouble telling the two apart — but it didn’t matter. He didn’t care what his brother was feeling or not feeling.

  “Yeah, she’s in there.”

  “Secured?” he asked, and Marcus shoved his hand through his hair, gripping it at the back where it was just long enough to do so. The silence between them lingered. “Was that a complicated question?”

  “Fuck off,” Marcus snapped, stomping away from the bedroom, and Anthony sighed. Short-tempered and shortsighted, his little brother clearly needed to be coddled again.

  His least favorite activity.

  Following at a leisurely pace, he finished his email reply and then tucked the phone away in his pocket. Marcus was already pouring a glass of whiskey when he found him in the office.

  So weak. So pathetic.

  But… he had his uses.

  “Was there an issue acquiring her that I should be aware of?” Anthony waited as Marcus knocked back the whiskey and poured another.

  “Of course not, I knew where to get her. It was simple.”

  “Then would you care to answer my question?” Anthony sighed when Marcus muttered obscenities under his breath. “If you need me to secure her because you did not, tell me now so I can go handle it.”

  “She’s tied down, collar on, but I’m telling you my method is better. If you’d just fucking let me, I could make her like it.” Another grumbled curse as Marcus licked the whiskey from his bottom lip, an irritated sigh escaping. “You won’t even have a chance to talk to her when she wakes up terrified. She’ll just start screaming.”

  “Oh, I know she will.” A smile tugged at the edge of his lips, and he couldn’t ignore the buzz in his blood that the idea inspired. The only highs in his life came from those screams, and the crying and begging that would follow.

  Everything in-between those brief moments of suffering was just so much... white noise.

  “How can you expect to train her when she won’t even listen to you?”

  “They always listen to pain, Marcus.” Tilting his head, he met his brother’s eyes. “Eventually.”

  “Pleasure works faster.”

  “And did you pleasure this new one?” The mockery in his tone was unavoidable.

  Marcus’ greatest weakness was his lust. Lust for physical intimacy, lust for gaining positive responses from the slaves, and mostly his lust to finally come out on top and be better than him at something.<
br />
  Unlikely.

  Anthony had been taking and training slaves for years and bringing in his brother had simply been good business. The man had an eye for natural submissives, which made the process somewhat easier. He was loyal, and he was an excellent delivery boy. But it would be better for business if Marcus would stop thinking with his prick and viewing the slaves as anything other than commodities.

  There was an odd look on his brother’s face as they watched each other, some mixture of irritation with him and hunger for the girl. Not like it fazed him either way. But it promised an argument that Anthony did not want to entertain.

  After all, the girl could wake up at any moment and he wanted to watch her panic. To listen to those first desperate sounds, her first screams.

  “You know you’re not supposed to fuck them when you take them.” Anthony pressed his buttons, and Marcus slammed his glass down as if on cue.

  “I didn’t fuck her! I caught her, drugged her, and brought her here.” Thrusting his hand in the vague direction of the bedroom, he continued, “And then I secured her for you.”

  “Good. Then you can get back to whatever you had planned.” Anthony pulled out his phone again, wanting the cameras on in time for the wake up.

  The customers liked the first screams too.

  “We just sold the last one, Anthony, we could have waited another week.” He shook his head, swallowing another mouthful of alcohol as if it could make him not feel whatever odd emotions he harbored.

  Fortunately, Anthony had never had to deal with trivial things like guilt or pity. They had simply never been a part of him, and why should they be? Emotions were distractions.

  Flaws.

  Especially when there were so many things he could do to their new product. So many ways to make her scream, to break her down. Options unrolled in front of him like a luxurious, blood red carpet, diverting his attention from Marcus’ clear disquiet.

  He needed to end this discussion so he could be there when she awoke and her confusion slowly turned to fear.

  It would be exquisite.

  “I’m still trying to get the house set up, we didn’t need to grab Beth yet.” Marcus’ fingers twitched against the edge of the glass, an old tell that telegraphed his needs even better than the wobble of his voice when he spoke her name.

  Pathetic.

  Ignoring his sibling’s inconstant emotions, Anthony flicked on the cameras from his control panel and watched as the feminine shape appeared against the darker sheets.

  Marcus kept talking as if he hadn’t heard him. “Her name is Beth. Elizabeth Doherty.”

  “Do you have any useful information that I didn’t already find in my research?” He tapped away on his phone, sending out the alerts that a new event was live. “Anything relevant, or are you stalling so you can continue to chug my Van Winkle’s Reserve 20-year bourbon like an animal?”

  Marcus sighed heavily. “She’s strong willed, fought the drugs longer than I expected. Everything else you already know.”

  Anthony made a sound at the back of his throat, but otherwise didn’t acknowledge the unintentional compliment. Flipping back to the camera screen, he saw her stretched out and vulnerable against the bedding. Already so much different from her smiling driver’s license photo. In time he would erase that person completely. “You can go now,” Anthony dismissed him as he turned out of the office to walk towards the bedroom.

  “Why don’t you let me have her first? I can get her to understand her situation. Accept it.” The grating sound of Marcus’ voice followed him as he watched the girl twitch in her sleep.

  She would wake up soon.

  “Don’t you have a house to set up? Another girl to track? It was your idea to start running two operations.” And at least then Marcus’ whining would be a state away.

  “I thought I should be here to—”

  “Your assistance is unnecessary.” Pulling his eyes from the screen, he saw the tension in his brother’s jaw, a muscle ticking as he avoided eye contact. “What is it, Marcus? Do you think I’m going to hurt her?”

  As soon as he smiled, Marcus growled and flipped him off, turning back towards the front of the house. “I know exactly what you’re going to do.”

  “Really? I like to think I’m quite inventive.” The camera angle switched, and he watched as her body shifted.

  “I’m going, Anthony. I’ll be back in a couple of days.” Marcus spoke from the end of the hall, and he glanced up without another word. Goodbyes were for people who thought he was human, and Marcus had lost that illusion before he was six.

  It was better that Marcus was leaving. The last girl had broken so easily, and then she had cried for Marcus like he would help her just because he liked to make them orgasm. He hadn’t helped her, of course, but it had been irritating all the same. When Anthony made girls scream, he wanted them to beg him for mercy.

  Even though it would never come.

  Two

  Anthony

  Anthony sat at the foot of the bed, leaning back in his chair and working through the backlog of emails he’d been ignoring as he waited for the girl to wake up. Customers with requests, questions, and now he was able to answer them.

  Yes, there is a new slave.

  A new girl to watch, to bring in more customers, to feed their needs, and that always meant more money. It was nice to have a job doing something he enjoyed.

  His customers were mere shadows of men who did not have the fortitude to make their wishes a reality. Too afraid of repercussions, of their own weakness. But they had always paid well for the privilege of watching him work.

  The girl twitched on the bed, her legs pulling against the ropes that held her thighs wide. It was entrancing, the way the rope dug into her skin, already red and inflamed from her unconscious efforts, and he wondered for a moment just how hard she’d fight them.

  He thought about slapping her. As close to consciousness as she was, it would rouse her immediately — but then he wouldn’t get to watch her hope die slowly.

  Better to be patient, to wait.

  Something Marcus never understood, and likely never would. There was so much more to enjoy in this process beyond the physical, and he wanted to take his time. To destroy her slowly, devour every inch of her mind. To strangle it until her awareness was focused into a pinpoint of what her Master demanded of her.

  A quiet groan and the girl tried to turn, her arms and legs pulling in unison as she attempted to curl up. Finally, her eyes opened, her breath caught, and Anthony found his own breath had stilled in his lungs as he put his phone away to enjoy every minute of her devastation.

  Showtime.

  She gasped, her head rolling to look at the rope wrapped around her wrist as he stayed completely still, completely silent. Enjoying the way her knees lifted from the bed as she discovered the restraints. Her breathing picked up, panic setting in as she whined and pulled harder at the ropes. When she tried to sit up the collar tethered to the headboard stopped her short, but she saw him.

  More silence.

  The girl was exactly what he’d needed. Blonde, toned, tanned. Practically mail order from the requests of the customers. Her brown eyes were wide, and more than anything Anthony wished he could hear the scattered thoughts tumbling through her mind.

  That would be entertaining.

  “Hello,” Anthony spoke, breaking the spell, and she whined louder. Her body contorted, dropping back to the bed as she twisted uselessly against the ropes. From his vantage point her struggles were quite lovely, thighs spreading, hips working at empty air, but it was her sheer panic that flavored it perfectly.

  “Oh my God — this isn’t — no…” Lifting her head she looked at him, and he met her gaze calmly, leaning forward in the chair. Then her ribs expanded just before her first scream ripped free. “HELP! SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME!”

  “No one can hear you,” he told her, but his words didn’t register yet.

  “PLEASE! HELP! SOMEONE!” Jerking
violently off the bed, she twisted again, and Anthony just watched as her skin rubbed raw against the rope. He wasn’t concerned about her getting loose. Despite their conflicting beliefs, Marcus was excellent with knots. She wasn’t getting free.

  She was never getting free — she just didn’t know it yet.

  Another panicked, desperate scream sent blood rushing to his cock, but he ignored it. There was plenty of time for that. Patience was the thing that Marcus lacked. A year of working with him and he’d yet to understand that the best tool available was the slave’s own mind. Allowing them to torture themselves before the real fun began… that was how you broke them.

  The girl, Beth, sagged against the bed, breath whistling in her lungs as she turned her head and relentlessly worked at her bonds. He waited for her to come to terms with her situation — naked, tied-down, spread wide. Eventually, she lifted her head and met his eyes again. Round, brown, tear-soaked orbs in a pretty face.

  She would make them money for sure.

  “Who are you? Why am I here? Why me? Why?” Beth’s voice trembled, a little raspy from the dry mouth he expected after the sedative. Almost every girl asked the same questions in their own ways, so many whys, and it brought him that fizzy feeling of what others called ‘joy’ to answer her.

  “I’m your Master, and you’re here to be trained so I can sell you.” He hadn’t even finished speaking before she screamed again. A long, screeching wail that buzzed over his skin, making his cock rock hard in his pants.