The Human, the Witch and the Were

No Judgement

Kayla had heard the shouts and the sounds of a struggle from her bedroom. Common sense told her to stay in her room and wait until it was over, but she felt compelled to see what was happening. She walked cautiously down the hall, trying to stay as quiet and unobtrusive as possible. She didn't want Phillip to catch her being nosy. The commotion was coming from the Were's room. From what she’d overhead earlier they'd started testing the new drug on her but so far, they didn’t seem to have had any results.

Obviously, something had happened this time, but by the sounds of things it wasn't producing the results they wanted. She watched from down the hall as men were pushed out of the room and then ran back in again.

Suddenly something shot out of the door of the Were's cell. Without thinking Kayla moved inside the door of an unoccupied cell, effectively making herself invisible. The Were bolted past her down the corridor, with all the guards in pursuit. It was obvious to Kayla that they were never going to catch her, the Were had too great a lead.

Phillip was the last to follow. Once Phillip had passed her, she slipped into the corridor and followed him. They didn't get far from the front door when she heard the shots. She stuck her head around the door just in time to see the Were fall. She stood paralysed, not aware of her own danger as Phillip stormed passed her into his study. The Were was dead. The Were who had put up one hell of a fight had been shot in the back.  Kayla felt nauseous.

Why did the Were have to fight so? Was it worth her life in the end? If she had not resisted, she would still be alive. Kayla sighed at a life so pointlessly lost, but then considered her own situation and realised she was in no position to judge. She was a slave w***e to a man who beat her mercilessly for pleasure for years, and she had taken the coward’s way out and chosen to stay rather than run.

No, this was no life to lead, and she was certainly in no place to judge. Shaking, she went to find Greta to give her something to do and keep her mind from sinking into the dark abyss that threatened to overwhelm her.

***

Phillip sat at his desk with his chin on his hands, lamenting the loss of his Were test subject. No doubt about it, today had been a disaster and one he didn't want to repeat in a hurry. He cursed his own lack of knowledge of how to deal with Weres and his poor choices. It was his bad decision that had allowed the Were to get out and subsequently killed. He should have just left her. He couldn't blame his men either. They had been trained to shoot to kill if any of the girls left the front door unattended, barring Greta and Kayla.

Phillip sighed. He knew he should be happier with his lot in life, and he knew he should leave well alone but he couldn't. He had more money than he knew what to do with. He had a beautiful wife; worth every cent he'd spent on her to keep her beautiful. He had two lovely daughters and an on-call whipping girl to do as he liked with.

He should have been content, but no, he wanted more. Instead of making money for the family, he wanted the family to make money for him. He had believed that marrying Boss de Luca's daughter would have given him an automatic step up on the power hierarchy. He'd even taken the b***h's name for f***s sake. The gall of it! Phillip Caruthers, taking a woman’s surname. He'd done it to win favour with the boss. He thought he'd become the Underboss after marrying her, getting primed to take over from Boss de Luca when he died.

But no, he was still a lowly Capo. Albeit one of the richest and most powerful Capos in the country but he still had two people above him to report to, the Underboss and Boss de Luca himself. Phillip growled softly to himself. Phillip Caruthers didn't report to nobody.

He knew why he was still a Capo. He was his own worst enemy. It was the Capo's job to make money for the family and making money was something Phillip was very, very good at. He had initially been put in charge of the extortion component of the family, but he had soon branched out, looking at race fixing and drugs. His first big money winner was the Fighting Pits.

Before he got his hands on it the Pits had been a poorly managed shambles. Anybody who was anybody could jump in the ring, with punters betting on who they thought would win. Through his position and contacts, he had managed to make it his, although it had taken more than its fair share of casualties to get there. He had started by charging an entrance fee to watch fights and a minimum buy in of $1000. After that he banned all recording devices from the Pits. This had been met with howls of protest.  Anyone caught secretly recording the fights was executed on the spot ringside. After the first two executions people had started to get the idea. He’d begun modestly; live streaming the c**k fights on the net to gauge the public response. If people wanted to watch, they had to pay a fee. He had been unprepared for the overwhelming popularity of the fights. From there he had added the dog fights, again with an overwhelming response. It hadn't taken Phillip long to realise he was onto something, and it was when he started streaming fights between people that the money really started pouring in. Boss de Luca had been ecstatic and had attended a few fights himself to see what it was all about. He’d said it wasn't really his thing but was happy to let Phillip handle it. Phillip thought that this would have been the break he was waiting for, and a promotion was imminent, but Boss de Luca has said nothing about it, happy to let him continue making money, lots and lots of money.

Phillip had once made the mistake of mentioning looking into prostitution to the Boss, thinking it was good idea. He has always wondered why the de Luca family hadn't gone down that path but the reaction he'd received had been violent and unexpected. Boss de Luca had flown at him, beating him personally with the gold headed walking stick he always carried. Phillip was bewildered at his reaction and couldn't comprehend what had caused such a violent outburst. Turns out as much as Boss de Luca loved making money, he despised prostitution even more. He said all those women were someone's daughter or sister or mother and he would not tolerate it. Phillip had shaken his head in disgust. Prostitution was one of the oldest and richest professions in the world, as long as you kept the girls clean. Boss de Luca was delusional if he thought the family could continue down the path, they were going without controlling the prostitution in the city. Boss de Luca was delusional if he thought the family could continue to control the city without controlling the prostitution that was the underground backbone of the city.

So, Phillip had decided to take it upon himself to get it started. As he always thought, it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, especially when asking for forgiveness whilst offering millions of dollars.

  ***

 Phillip was still not sure what to do about the vamps. He had employed the same method with the vampires as he had with the witch. He was slowly but surely starving them into submission however theirs was a much longer process as they didn't need to eat so often, and he chafed at the delay in getting out his new vamp version of Twilight. He needed to get his hands on another Were and another vamp if he could manage it, however this time they would be properly subdued from the start. He had ordered his pharmacists to start producing the drug despite the issues with the trials. They claimed they had enough data collected from the Were to work out where they went wrong and make the right modifications. He had authorised it against his better judgement, but he had decided to take a gamble. He hadn't gotten to the position he was in without taking a few risks.

The witch was another problem entirely. It had been four days since he had banned any food from being sent to her room yet there was no change. The witch still sat on her bed, surrounded by glacial temperatures. He couldn't work it out, she should be begging for food and water by now. He mused over how she could be maintaining her energy. Maybe inside help? He considered who had access to her. Kayla, Greta, himself, Carlos and his guards. He trusted Carlos explicitly and he didn't think for a second that Greta or Kayla was helping her. Greta had worked for him for years with not one black dot on her record and Kayla was too scared of her own shadow to even dare thinking about moving against him. Possibly one of his guards? He decided to monitor the comings and goings more closely around the witch’s cell. He smiled grimly. God help anyone who betrayed him, when he was through there wouldn't be anything left of them to identify.