Claimed By My Father's Sin

♠️WORTH'S POV🖤 L©ND©N 'It is a pleasure you have gotten to this page, you wicked, perverted human. It is no wish of mine to be a housewife or to get caught up in my father's dirty business. If you expect more from me, you are just right—it might not be more of good but more of bad, unethical things not expected from a lady. The sound of my fart is unpleasant to the ear; the smell is like wet, used socks or more of a rotten egg. I laugh too loud, talk loudly, and gossip a lot. I am dirty and ill-mannered. I possess no good virtues; you might better still pluck your rose from somewhere else. Yours, Worth Cassandra Ashcroft.' “Father won't be pleased with this. You are taking a risk here, Worth. What if he gets angry with you?” Goldie chased me down the mansion stairs. We would be in so much trouble if a suitor came across that letter… Things hadn't ended up well when our older sister had betrayed Father’s trust by running away with a guard, and now I was doing even worse, trying to escape marriage… Mother expects more from me; she sees me as the daughter who would bring her out of that shame she had faced and the hatred from Father for not being a good mother like his other wives. It seems Mother had bad luck with her first two daughters. “I do not want to get married. Any man who reads that and still chooses to marry me must be either mentally unstable or really a pervert,” I whisper-barked as I got off the stairs, going to join my twelve stepsisters who had come of age like me, ready to get sold to devils. I clutched my letter tightly to my waist as I watched Father—the man of the house—sitting on his fancy leather chair, a bottle of Scotch and his walking stick in his hand. A middle-aged woman stepped forward, taking the letters from all of us. “The men would love to test your literacy. The letters would be spread out to many suitors, alongside your pictures. A party—more like a ball—would be held at the west ballroom tomorrow, and those men would be here… Your mothers and other married women would get you all prepared.” Goldie, my sixteen-year-old sister’s hand caught mine in a hard grip, her palm sweaty, and I couldn’t swear I felt bold either. My heart was beating right below my feet, not because of what I had written, but because of the party—the second party I would attend in my eighteen years of existence. The first party, though I was not invited, but it was bleeding right at the back of my head like a fresh wound, like it was just yesterday. The boy got killed because of my mistake in father's courtyard. A sudden sense of dread filled me as that night played before me. It was my stepsister’s wedding night, where Father had successfully gained an alliance with the said Italians. If only my eleven-year-old self had heeded my mother’s words and stayed indoors with my siblings—but no, my curious self wanted to see how a party looked, if it looked like those in the fictional books my governess had given me to read. If women wore beautiful, flashy gowns and the men wore fine historical British suits, if my stepsister would be dressed in a dreamy white gown with diamonds embedded on it. But to my dismay, it wasn’t like any of what I thought. Though there were cheers, throaty, creepy laughter, and elegant women, it felt like a memorial service. Everyone wore black. I had stood in my nightgown, barefooted, the wind tossing my hair into my face as I watched from behind a pillar, staring at the gun in a man’s hand—not only him; almost all the men there had it. My stepsister’s old, gray husband, whose character seemed utterly disgusting, and my father had guns poking through their pockets. At first, I had wondered why my stepsister, Lucky, would have chosen to marry a man older than our father, but I learned the hard way as I grew that Ashcroft females had no say; our father or elder male brothers made the choices for us. My breathing paused, and my eyes widened as warm hands pressed softly yet firmly against my mouth from behind. I began struggling against the grip, intending to bite into the palm and run, knowing I had been caught. “Shh… what are you doing here?” The voice didn’t sound like an adult male. It was calm and younger, with a much different, thicker accent like most people in the room. My breath grew soft as I let myself get dragged away to a place that looked like my father’s courtyard, and then I was let go. Turning to see who had caught me, it wasn’t one of my brothers—it was a boy with beautiful blue eyes, long, shiny black hair, and a tall frame neatly tucked in a vest. He looked like he had walked out of one of the comic books I had stolen to read. He dipped his hand into his pants pocket as he gazed at me from the nails of my toes back to my hair, his brow pulled into a questioning look, his gaze now on my hand clutching my nightgown tightly. “What do you want from me?” My voice came out with a squeak. His lips raised in a light smirk… He looked like he would be the same age as Winston, who was three years older than me. “What can I get from a scared lost kid?” A black bunny from nowhere stood beside his legs as he picked it up into his arms. “You know you shouldn't be there…” “Would you tell my Papa?” “I don’t even know your Papa… Is he one of them?” I could make out the wicked, sarcastic glint in his eyes, and I shrank back in fear. “You look like you stay in this house. You are an Ashcroft… your father is a regional boss in the firm.” I didn’t understand everything he said. My Papa was no boss, but I am an Ashcroft, and I knew no word called firm or regional. “Yes, my papa had asked me to wait for him here.” I lied, scared that he could go back in there and tell my papa the truth—that I had escaped from the rest of the siblings. His eyes seemed to shine like stars as he tilted his head 'Was this boy even real?' “Your papa trusts you in that room with men like that? Men who could split that tiny head of yours in two?” He scoffed, patting the rabbit on his shoulder as he stepped closer and I took a step back almost falling on my butt at how intimidating a boy could be. “It’s quite expected for a locked-up kid to lie. Run on now, child.” He halted in his step, but being called kid and child—when he looked to be just a few years older than I was—stirred something in me. Anger. “Do not call me kid!” He said nothing, taking another step backward, and I thought he was going to go call my papa. But his gaze snapped toward the little passage facing the courtyard—the one that led back to the party—like he had sensed something. “Get out of here, kid.” I should have listened when I was told, but it felt like my feet were glued to the floor. I could hear my heartbeat, even though I had no idea what was going on or why his gaze wasn’t leaving the passage—i knew it wasn't for a good reason. A violent, sharp sound cuts through the air, a sound I later learnt was a gunshot. It didn’t sound once, but many times. My eyes widened as I stared back at the boy, his pair of blue eyes now back on mine, filled with frustration. “God, I told you to leave!” The metallic c*****g sound caught my attention, my gaze snapping to his hand, only to find a gun there. He tugged me forward so I could stay behind him. “Now you know why little girls like you should stay in their room—we could both die here if we are lucky…” Die. That was the only word my mind could pick out. “I… I don’t want to di…e." My voice had grown weaker, my knees trembling as I subconsciously clung to his waist. He made no comment, his gun stretched out, waiting, calculating. “If we were to try getting you back to the main house, I fear we wouldn’t make it past. We should be surrounded already. All we have to do is wait for death or to be saved.” His voice was hasty, but I could see the trembles he tried to sustain in his hold on the gun. I couldn’t help my fears either. I pressed my face into a stranger’s back, light sobs escaping my lips, the sound of gunshots and men yelling haunting. “Do you know any escape route from here?” I had come here through one of the other entrances at the party hall. I knew none around this courtyard. I shook my head, hoping he had caught that. “Cazzo!” His voice was so low. He turned back to me, gripping my shoulder. I didn’t know if what I saw was anger—his jaw was clenched so tight it scared me how painful that could be. “No matter what you hear, do not come out. Do not make a sound!” That was second to the last thing I heard from my saviour before I was hidden in the shadows behind the fountains. “What about you?” He gave the black bunny to me. “They would say I wasn’t fit for Don if I ran or hid.” It wasn’t the angry tone or the serious one he had used earlier—it was a soft whisper. I heard his retreating footsteps before it came to me that the cause of this had gotten to us too. I hugged the bunny tightly as three gunshots rang out and the struggling voice of the boy—That was my first time feeling suffocation. I wasn’t allowed to make a sound. I was trapped in the darkness, and it felt like I had been brutally thrown into a horror story. The darkness of the night deepened and blurred before me as I heard words that made me assume my saviour might have been killed “Unmoving… seems the La Rocca weren’t strong after all. A Don this weak…” I bit hard into my lip as my chest palpitated wildly. The bunny grew restless in my arms as the world spun furiously before me—but I heard a familiar voice before everything went pitch black. “You can hand over his body to the Russians…” That sounded so much like my father—that thick British accent.