Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 57240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
“Come in, Mr. Kaufman. Miss Lake,” comes a high, reedy voice. “I’ve been expecting you.” If a snake could talk, it would sound like this. We look at each other before we go in, and Cy nods for me to take out my phone. Begin recording. With shaking fingers, I do.
“There will be no need for that, Miss Lake,” he says, still with his back toward us. “I have cameras trained on every inch of this room already.”
“Who are you?” Cy demands. And it isn’t until his deep, raspy voice fills the room that the old man turns to look at us.
He’s got thick white hair and beady, cold silver eyes. Dressed in a three-piece suit. He exudes wealth and privilege and power.
“Me?” he says with a chilling smile. “I’m just an old man, Mr. Kaufman. Why don’t you have a seat?”
“I fucking won’t,” Cy says through gritted teeth. “Tell me why. What did you do this? Why?”
“Oh, you make it sound so simple,” he says, as if he’s trying to placate us, and my nerves are on edge. He’s waiting for someone or something, I know it. He’s biding his time.
“It is, though,” another voice says to his right. In the shadows of a doorway stands another man, younger than he is, dressed in military fatigues. “I can explain everything.”
The old man jumps into action, getting to his feet. He lifts a heavy paperweight from his desk and flinging it at the guy who enters, but his aim is off and his throw weak. Instead, he hits a window, and glass shatters to the floor.
“You shouldn’t be here!” he screams, and it’s the first glimpse we’ve had into his lack of sanity. He acts like a petulant child. “Don’t you dare! You ruined it. You ruined everything!”
The man lunges at the desk. In seconds, he’s got the old man pinned, on his knees, his hands behind his back, and Cy is at his side, his gun pointed at his head.
“Secure him, Harper,” Cy says, and with my trusty fucking tape, I do.
The younger man turns to us. “My name is Jay Hunter. I fully admit to my guilt in all that happened with the two of you. I was hired by this man to abduct you. I orchestrated all of this.”
Cy’s eyes are narrowed slits, his nostrils flaring. “Why?” he spits out.
The other man laughs mirthlessly. “Why else? For money. He promised fame. The experiment we were enacting would change the history of culture, forever.”
Cy shakes his head. “We have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“He chose you, specifically the six men sent to the island and you, Harper, because you had no connections to anyone back home,”
“My brother is no one?” I ask through gritted teeth. I hate this man. I hate the old man on his knees before us. I hate all of them.
He ignores my protests, and Cy gestures for him to continue. “We decided we were going to keep it simple. Six men to fight, so the strongest and most powerful would be victor. We chose the most dominant, the most powerful, the most fearless… and one woman.” My stomach is sick with confusion and anger at what they’ve done. Sick.
“Before you were brought to the island, we took the six men to a fake military compound in southern Florida.”
Cy shakes his head. “I knew it was familiar,” he says.
“We brainwashed you. We injected growth hormones to increase your virility and strength. While drugged, we showed you videos of rape and domination. We made sure that you were fully prepared to act on your most base instinct while there.”
Cy shakes with anger and his knuckles turn white on the handle of the gun. “Go on.”
“And it worked,” Morose said, his eyes gleaming with a maniacal glee that sends shivers down my spine. “It worked. Tell me, you two. Do you not love each other?”
My heart hammers wildly in my chest. We love each other, but not because of anything this bastard did.
Cy ignores the old man and turns to Hunter. “Tell me more. I want to know. Tell us everything.”
But as he speaks, I know something’s off. He’s either lying, or he’s also biding his time until someone else comes.
“Cy,” I say, shaking my head, but when he looks at me, I’m not sure what to tell him. He likely suspects the same. He gestures to my weapon.
“The plan was to bring all of you to the island. To give you what you needed and push you to survive. To record all of this. To be sure that our entire operation was videoed. And then after you’d fought to the death, and only a few of you survived… we’d introduce a woman. A powerful woman unwilling to submit to a dominant male. Someone who could choose her own life. A self-made woman of the world.”