47 | The Past

*“And they roar as loud as thunder and carry lightning in the strike of their cruelty, but what are thunder and lightning to fearless girls who are used to carrying entire storms and hurricanes in their fingertips?” - Nikita Gill*

**Third Person POV**

***Sienna - 15 years old***

*It was not necessary for Ivory to accompany them, but she went everywhere with Sienna’s father, Mr Emerson. A man with considerable wealth and notorious influence who needed to use his daughter to advance his business dealings.
And the woman, with the latest season Prada bag, Jimmy Choo shoes and attire that must have costed a fortune, sat in the car with her when they commuted to the hospital. The reason Ivory glued to Mr Emerson was because of the paparazzi that followed everywhere. She wanted nothing but to showcase the dazzling diamond on her ring that somehow validated her immoral relationship with Sienna’s father and as his mistress.
Fifteen-year-old Sienna did not know if she took the right decision. She just decided on the spur of the moment and in a desperate attempt to keep her mother alive.
When the car pulled up in front of the VIP entrance of the hospital, three of them climbed out of the car and walked into the reception area. A man in a Brioni suit waited for them.
“Mr Abbott.” He extended his hand in greeting.
“Mr Emerson.” His cool, green eyes shifted towards Sienna and flashed his whites. “Ah, there’s the beautiful girl. How are you, sweetheart?”
In response, she scowled away.
Mr Emerson cleared his throat, glaring at his daughter. “Sienna.”
“I am good.”
“I see. She is one of those rebellious ones. But I have been told that she consented. Isn’t she?”
“She did,” Ivory jumped in. “By nature, she is stubborn, Mr Abbott. But once she comes of age and realises what is at stake for her, I am sure she will be much docile. She will be exactly the kind you are looking for. I mean, for your son.”
“Ivory, isn’t it?” He asked coolly. “You have been quite the mother to her.”
Sienna could not take it anymore as she snarled back in disgust. “She is not my mother.”
“Why don’t you go into that room and change?” Her father insisted.
To that, Zane Abbott added. “Nurse, please accompany Miss Emerson to the examination room. I will be in shortly.”
Sienna found herself in a skimpy hospital gown and lying on a bed. There was a harsh light above her, which the doctor conveniently moved between her legs.
She bit down on her lips to point it almost bled and vibrated with shame as the male doctor patted her down. She did not understand the need for it, only increasing her humiliation. She flinched when he touched her breasts and performed the medical checks before asking her to spread her legs.
The door opening and closing behind us pulled behind them pulled the attention to Mr Emerson entering the room.
The doctor took the moment of distraction and swiped his cold fingers across her sex, making her hiss out in pain and disgrace. Sienna barely held herself together when the doctor smiled back to the man and announced, “She is pure. Her hymen is intact.”
Mr Emerson nodded. “Still, I would like to make sure of it.”
“Definitely, Mr Emerson.” The doctor stepped back, making way for him. “You paid for this exam.”
It was the peak of her embarrassment and discomfort as the fifty-plus something man plunged his thick fingers inside her vagina. He did not delve deeper, merely playing with her clit for a few seconds for his amusement before pulling out.
With a devilish smirk and wicked intent, he corroborated. “Yes, she will do. I just hope she turns out to be a valuable asset*.”

*******
**Present**


Gabriel has not felt a wave of anger so acute as this one for a long time. It has been years that someone pissed him off so badly that he wanted nothing but to rip off his head and sew back on it just for the heck of it.
He has not met this Zane Abbott, and yet he wanted to strangle him. He would love to see him choked and his skin pale before he would kill him off.
“Why? Why the hell did you allow that to happen to you?” He gritted out.
“You think I liked it?” Sienna spat. “I liked his disgusting, probing fingers between my legs? I was blackmailed.”
Gabriel clenched his teeth and refused to budge. “Why?”
“I don’t know you if would believe me or not, but—”
He sat up, locking his eye with hers. “I believe you. Tell me.”
Sienna closed her eyes, afraid that the tears would make her weak…broken and merely turned her head away. “Why? You barely know me.”
He cupped her chin, gentling his voice and redirected her gaze on his. “Just tell me, Sienna. Who forced you?”
Lethal anger clouded her features as her lisp curled into a nasty sneer. “Who else but my father? But it would be completely wrong to say that he forced me. He gave me two choices, and I happened to pick up the one that landed me in that situation.”
Gabriel could not believe his ears for a second. What kind of a parent would force her daughter to be in a situation where Sienna was?
He asked again, almost incredulously. “Your father?”
Sienna nodded with a hint of ironic sadness. “I had two choices, Gabriel,” she revealed with a wry smile. “I could either let my mother die or sell my body to the devil. I chose the latter. And no matter how dirty it makes me feel, however slutty, I don’t regret the choice.”
The flashes of her past, the one that still haunted her nightmares, floated into her mind once again. She was barely fifteen years old, crying and helpless, and trying to keep her mother alive. She did not know if her mother would ever wake up again, but the thought of being motherless scared her shitless.
And her father merely took advantage of her situation.
Even without the bright light, Gabriel could see her glistening tears streaming down her face, and he reached out to wipe them away. It was the least he could do to soothe her and offer comfort.
But he also needed to know the truth.
Gabriel thumbed her cheeks gently, cajoling her. “Sienna, you got to explain me. I don’t understand a word of it.”
She sniffed, looking down. “My mother had a brain stroke when I was fifteen. Largely, my father was responsible for her condition. She had been on sleeping and depression pills, all thanks to my father’s multiple affairs and ‘business trips’ that pushed her to that state. I was in school when the bodyguard rang up and told me that my mother had slipped into a coma.”
If Gabriel thought he was the devil in his previous life, he did not have many words to define the kind of monster Sienna’s father was.
“I was heartbroken when I first saw her in the hospital,” Sienna sobbed, recalling every moment of that day so vividly that her heartache began anew.
Gabriel pulled her to his chest, his arms wrapped around her back and gently patting her head. “I am sorry. I am so sorry to hear that,” he murmured into her hair.
Sienna pulled back, swiping the back of her hand across her apple cheeks. “Reluctantly so, my father consulted a few doctors and their teams on her condition, but everyone has the same answer. She has little to no chance of waking up. Ever.”
Sienna looked away. “She is on life support, and she will remain like that as long as we want to keep her alive.”
“As long as?” He prompted.
“Yes, that is the keyword.” She smiled, and it was the most miserable smile Gabriel had ever seen. “As her spouse, my father has the last say when her life support be taken off. Of course, he would need the authorisation of the Court, but it would be a cakewalk for my father. He has bribed high places to get what he wanted—always.”
“So he can marry your stepmother? Ivory?” Gabriel asked.
Sienna was mildly surprised that Gabriel knew about Ivory, but she did not mention it. “Ivory is just one of his many distractions. But, no, that is not the reason. My mother’s life insurance is worth in millions, and it is the reason my father wants to remove the life support.”
He let out an audible sigh and scrubbed a hand over his face. “And where do you come in this whole cluster-fuck?”
“My father made a deal. If I marry Zak Abbott, the son of Zane Abbott, he will not remove the life support of my mother. The wedding is going to take place when I turn twenty-one. And—”
He held his breath for whatever rubbish came next. “And?”
Sienna did not want to speak about this. But for the first time, she was actually talking about it, and her heart felt lighter. There were no secrets between them, and she trusted him enough to bear her heart and soul.
“Zane Abbott wanted to ensure that the bride of his only son, his heir, is pure. A virgin.”
“What the fuck?” He barked so loudly that for a second, Sienna was scared. She has never seen this side of Gabriel. Normally, he would just be angry and composed but not blasting out like a denoted bomb.
“Apparently, the white bed sheet on a wedding night is a much-celebrated ceremony in their family,” she whispered, risking another outburst from him. “When Zane Abbott made a deal with my father, he took me to the hospital to have a doctor check if my hymen was intact. As if it was not enough, he plunged his finger and checked for himself.”
“Fuck.”
Sienna unfurled another truth. “It was not my father’s idea to sent me here, at Mount Carmel. It was Zane Abbott who paid for it so that I remain in an all-girls until the day I marry his worthless piece of shit of a son.”
To say that he was angry would be an understatement.
He was *livid*.
Still, Gabriel managed to purse his lips and breathe through his nose and then pinch the bridge. “Tell me one thing,” he said. “A few months ago, when a visitor request came for you and in the name of Mr Abbott, who the hell was it? The father or the son?”
“It was the son, Zak.”
He thought for a moment, relying on his eidetic memory. “And you lashed out the very same day. Was it because of him?”
“Yes. He promised retribution, and it pissed me off.”
“Good.” That was all he managed to say.
“Good?”
He nodded once again and grabbed both the side of her face, looking directly into her eyes. “You are not marrying this Zak asshole, and that is final.”
It was both a declaration and a promise, and Father Gabriel Sullivan just sealed it with a kiss.
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