Ten Thousand Lies Read Online Free PDF Page A

and chips, and speaking with British accents. They told themselves their means of travel was to keep down costs, so they’d be able to quickly pay back the man who’d given them this opportunity.
    Wishful thinking.
    They were transported to the warehouse dungeons to await inspection. By that time, they were terrified, knowing they’d been fooled into walking into something they knew nothing about. Their only luck so far was that their jailers hadn’t touched them. They were fed twice a day, and though the water tasted strange, it didn’t make them sick.
    Three days after they’d been locked up, Charles Godwin came in to inspect the cattle. The buyer he was procuring for had specific requirements, and he personally had to make sure the captives met the demands.
    He found them satisfactory. A little too satisfactory in Katarina’s case. He took one look at her and decided to keep her for himself. Willis was sent back to the Ukraine to get one of her sisters. Charles didn’t care which one, so long as it wasn’t the whore. Virgins were a part of the demand.
    It was the strange blue-green of her eyes that captivated Charles. He wanted them for himself, as if he’d been shopping for gems. No one but Charles could have her. That beauty, he wanted to own for himself.
    My mother was a virgin when my father brutally raped her for the first time. It was the standard practice. Show them who had the power, break their independent spirit, and then treat them with care. That cycle left her confused and oddly dependent on her tormentor until she naturally showed him affection in return. It took months of this before she was finally damaged enough not to want a different life.
    She made peace with herself. She’d be the exclusive whore of a wealthy man. After a while, it even became pleasant for her.
    Charles gave her a new identity. She became Kathryn Penchant, aged eighteen, which she nearly was. Then, he married her. No one knew why. It wasn’t as though Charles was capable of loving anyone, but perhaps in his own warped way, he did.
    Kathryn gave birth to Maximillian when she was just eighteen years old. Eleven months after that, she gave birth to me, James Charles Godwin.
    While Charles had forbidden that his children know of her past, Kathryn told us everything that had happened to her, everything she knew about Charles and his business. She warned us long before we knew firsthand what sort of monster he was and that he’d try his damnedest to turn us into the same.
    “He will make you murderers. And you will do it because, if you do not, it will cost you your lives. It will cost me my life. What you must hide from him is your humanity. You must never lose it. Do what he tells you until the time comes when you can end it.”
    It was rumored that I was his favorite. My brother, Max, looked very much like Charles. I, on the other hand, looked like Kathryn, down to the odd blue-green of her eyes.
    They earned me my nickname, Baby Blues.
     
    If anything could save my life from this disaster, it would be my eyes. My father adored Kathryn for her baby blues. Hopefully, her gift would save my life.

Ricki
    My life wasn’t flashing before my eyes.
    Is this a good thing?
    Blood trickled from a cut below my eye, dripping down my face and onto the left leg of my jeans. Staring at it, watching the stain spread, I could hardly comprehend what my father was saying.
    Oh, that I was no longer his son. He could never have sired such a traitor.
    Charles Godwin had thought he was raising cold-blooded killers. He had no clue that his wife had made sure his sons were warriors instead. It was a secret I’d be taking to my grave once my executioner showed up.
    Next to me, on his knees with his hands bound in zip ties, Ronen stared blandly at my father. Motherfucker wasn’t even breaking a sweat. He looked fucking bored. My arms were going numb. Charles’s bodyguards had made sure to make my ties particularly tight.
    Charles picked up his