Savage Charm

His angry voice boomed and tumbled through the slightly open office door as he interrogated the security team. No one flinched or blinked as the accusation flew.

“Which one of you jackasses is fucking my daughter?”

As my father paced, beatitudes continued to flow from his lips. An unaware bystander would assume that I was his innocent pride and joy. Sadly, the men in that room knew the truth. I was far from innocent and definitely not my father’s treasure.

On any given day, Aldrich Jackson Daniels barely acknowledged his only living heir. It wasn’t always that way between Father and me, but when those bastards killed Mom and my baby brother, Father stopped loving everyone, including me. Grief became animosity, and his heart turned cold. There was nothing I could do to thaw it either. I tried. Lord knew I tried.

At that moment, it wasn’t the past irking Father. He had one simple rule for every employee—don’t touch me. The warning wasn’t given with love. Oh no! The man wanted me as pure as possible. My long-gone virginity was used as a bargaining chip to bend competitors to his will. Only the idiots, however, believed I was pure. That morning’s meeting was about an employee having the unmitigated gall to screw me. After all, that was a job belonging to Father’s highest bidder.

Doing shit to piss him off was the only way Father noticed me, and I never hesitated to give him reason to. If I didn’t get off on fucking the staff, the security team wouldn’t be lined up before a firing squad of one.

Some people might say that I did whatever the fuck I wanted in an effort to get Daddy Dearest’s attention.

Not hardly.

Others might surmise that it was a reaction to being rejected by a parent.

Possibility.

If anyone bothered to ask me, I would have gladly told them it was a shoddy attempt to catch the eye of a certain man.

But none of it mattered. Nothing ever mattered to me anymore—all because of the dance recital turned tragic. I screwed up that day. If it hadn’t been for my needs, Mom and Jackie would have lived. At least that was what Father told me every chance he got.