The Price of Submission: A Kat Wayward Short

Author’s Note: I had written this scene during The Assassin’s Sin, when I realized how important Griffin was to Kat, and I was exploring just how truly twisted Elijah was. If you haven’t read The Assassin’s Legacy or The Assassin’s Sin, there are some spoilers here. 

Fun Fact: I thought this scene had been lost. I asked several readers if they remembered me writing it so I could track down what version this was in, but no one had. I’ve been looking for years. When I opened my old files to look for a different scene for you all, I stumbled across this gem. It’s almost as if it was waiting for the right time and readers to share it with. I’m really glad that’s you guys.

Enjoy!

Kat beelined for the Senior Assassin’s office. She would kill him or die trying. This fact rooted deep into her mind, and grew throughout her entire being as she raced up the stairs to his office. She envisioned ripping the skin from his body, boiling his eyes balls with them still attached. It didn’t matter these things would never happen, that she was most likely going to be killed. Shay was–

“Kat! Katherine! Wait up!” A hand wrapped around her wrist and tugged her back a few steps. She spun, throwing her free elbow. A strong arm caught it, then pressed it down into her heaving chest. Griffin’s dark brown eyes bore into her as sweat dripped down his forehead. With a quick assessment of his attire, shorts and a drenched workout tank, she realized he must have spotted her as she raced past the training areas.

 “What are you doing here?” he asked, still pinning her arms in place. “I thought you weren’t coming back.”

She took several deep breaths, unable to think straight. Dominic’s broken voice replaying in her head. They’d found Shay’s body. Her beautiful Shay was… no. She couldn’t even think it. She was ordered to leave him. Break his heart and return to Headquarters, and she did. But it wasn’t good enough for her Granddad. “He’s going to pay, Griff.”

“For what?” There was no need to ask who he was. They both knew who controlled her life—their lives: Her Granddad; their Senior Assassin. 

“Shay is…” she couldn’t even speak the words. “He’s been…”

Understanding crossed Griffin’s features and he released her. “I’m sorry, Kat, but did you expect?”

Katherine reeled back and slapped him, the sound echoing in the stairwell. “How fucking dare you.” This was not her fault. She did exactly what was demanded of her; she’d left Shay. 

Griffin’s tongue licked the spot of blood that appeared on the corner of his mouth and shook his head. “How many times have we seen this happen?”

“This isn’t the same.”

“That’s what they always say,” he said softly.

She furrowed her brow. He’d tried to warn her. She wasn’t supposed to fall for Shay—for anyone. 

“Look.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry. I really am. He was a great guy. But pretend he died of an illness. Or in a car accident. Or that he ran off with a different girl. Tell yourself whatever story you need to, but don’t let your Granddad win.”

Her heart pounded in her throat. “He’s not dead, Griff,” she whispered, the emotion threatening to choke her. “That would have been better.” The words hung in the air between them, and she swiped at the tears falling down her cheeks. She’d been crying non-stop since Dominic called with the news—Shay had been found beaten, near death, and completely incoherent.  

“Well, I….” He stopped himself and sighed, shaking his head.

His unfinished sentence hung like an anvil around her. I told you to come home with me. But Griffin would never say it. He’d been her best friend for as long as she could remember. Her secret keeper. Her anchor. He knew she’d fucked up; she knew she’d fucked up. No need to beat a dead horse.

Griffin opened his mouth a few times, the internal debate clear. “Come here.” He pulled her into a hug and she leaned her head into his chest. He wrapped his arms tighter, her tears mingling with the sweat-drenched shirt.This wasn’t fair. Her and Shay weren’t hurting anyone. Why couldn’t he just leave them alone? Why couldn’t she just leave him alone? Guilt burrowed into her spine and a fresh sob left her. Shay didn’t deserve that–no one deserved that.

Griffin rubbed her back as she cried, then pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Just leave it be. Please. Nothing you do is going to change what happened to Shay. Let your Granddad have this.”

She pulled away, face twisting in rage before she could pull her mask on. Let him have this? Torturing innocent people for fun? No. He was done ruining people. It took a few more breaths before she could convince herself to speak. She wouldn’t drag Griffin into this either. It was her fight. Kat pushed him lightly, backing him down a few steps, and took a shaking breath. “Go finish your workout. You’ll see me in a few hours.”

“Breathing?” he asked, concern etched into his face. 

“I guess we’ll find out.” She turned, racing up the stairs before he changed her mind. He was right, what she was about to do wouldn’t fix what happened to Shay; but he was wrong on the other point—she would never allow her Granddad to break her.

The office door was cracked, and she took several breaths, tamping down the tears and anger inside of her. But only the tears stopped. Her anger spiraled in her gut, its claws digging into her. The last thing she said to Shay as she broke both their hearts had been, “This will keep you safe.” How stupid she had been. Griffin had told her—it hadn’t even been a warning, just a fact.

The anger crawled its way up her throat. Never again would her Granddad hold such power over her. Never again would he break another person. She shoved the office door open and he glared up from his laptop.

“Manners will get you quite far in life, Katherine, although you seem to take after your mother. To what do I owe the pleasure?” Although his words were polite, the curl of his lip gave away his displeasure at the interruption. 

Fuck his displeasure. “What the hell happened to Shay?” she demanded, closing the distance to his desk. She slammed her hands down on the dark wood. “What did you do to him?”

He closed the laptop, his blue eyes boring into her. “Excuse me?” 

The danger in his tone halted her anger, a healthy dose of fear finding home in her heart. What was she doing? This was suicide, and would do nothing for Shay–but it was too late to back down now. “You told me to leave him. I did. I came home as requested. Why?” Her composure broke, the last word coming out in a crack.

“How would you know what happened to him if you truly left them behind? I need to be able to trust you, Katherine. I need to know when I give an order you will follow it.”

“They weren’t a danger!” she yelled. “He was just a boy.”

“And you are not just a girl, Katherine. You are the heir to Legacy Inc.” He pushed himself up and Kat took an involuntary step back. “I needed to be done.”

She shook her head. 

“Say it.” His voice remained low, and Kat wished he would yell at her so she could yell too–but he wouldn’t raise his voice, maintaining control of the situation. 

She shook her head, refusing to say the words. Torturing innocent people never needed to be done. 

Her Granddad rounded the desk, Kat’s feet refusing to move, but she kept her eyes on him. He walked past her and she jumped as the door snapped closed. “Say it.”

“No.” The word forced itself past her dry lips and she straightened her spine. She wouldn’t fold–couldn’t. Shay hadn’t deserved that, and she would never say otherwise. 

His face darkened with a frown, and before she had a moment to react, his hand swung, the back of it connecting with the side of her face. Her breath caught in her throat, holding her cry hostage as she stumbled to her knees, and she slammed her hands into the ground to keep from falling further. Her cheek burned, the tears pooling in her eyes. His rough hand snatched the back of her shirt and dragged her to her feet, his face inches from hers, a sneer plastered across his face. 

“I told your mother I would make you better than she ever was. That is a promise I intended to keep.” He dragged her to the desk with one hand, grabbed the wooden chair from in front of, and dragged both of them to the middle of the room, placing the chair down and slamming Kat into the seat. Pain radiated up her back at the impact and a cry left her. “When I told you to break his heart and make him forget about you–that wasn’t figurative, Katherine.”

He left her side, and Kat took the moment to control her breathing, wondering if these thoughts were going to be her last ones. Would he just shoot her? That was what she wanted when she came in here–to be relieved of the guilt. She closed her eyes and dropped her head, bringing the picture of Shay to her mind. If she was dying–it was with his face in her head.

She heard him approach and squeezed her eyes, but he walked past her, the sound of ice cubes and whiskey in a tumbler accompanying him. She swallowed around the fear in her throat. If he was drinking, he wasn’t killing her, yet.

A gut-wrenching scream broke the air and Kat snapped her head up, scanning the room, but it was just her and her Granddad. Another scream, and Kat realized it came from the television, where her Granddad’s undivided attention sat. She looked, too, and it took several seconds for her to process what she was seeing. There was a boy strapped to a chair, his dreadlocks matted with blood, and his sweet brown eyes filled with terror as he looked at the person off screen. But his voice sounded like Shay.

“Please. I won’t ever see her again. I swear.”

“Unfortunately, we are past that being the issue.” Kat’s stomach turned. That was her mother. She wasn’t prepared for the shock of electricity that shot through him–his scream–the way his eyes rolled to the back of his head. 

“STOP!” Kat launched out of the chair and was met with a hand to her throat. His fingers dug in and lifted her to her toes. She clawed at the choke, her consciousness in danger. He didn’t let go and her lips began to tingle. Fuck. She fought harder, but it was useless. The darkness crept in until it was all she knew.  

The hard back of the chair dug into Kat’s neck, and lifting her head felt like picking up a bowling ball. 

“Let’s try this again.” He took a sip of his drink and licked his lips before raising his other hand. Kat braced herself and he smirked, holding up the remote. Her eyes shot to the TV, Shay’s screams returning. 

“No,” she pleaded. “Granddad–”

“I really don’t like that word, Katherine. Especially when it comes to subordinates. You are going to learn that you won’t like it either. Now, watch.”

He pressed play, picking up in the same spot. The world spun around her as her mother tortured him–Shay’s screams searing into her head. She didn’t want to see this–but he had lived this. She did this to him. Bile rose and she emptied it on the floor at her feet. He paused, waiting for her to collect herself. She wiped her hand across her mouth and looked up at him, his patient gaze on her.

“Why are you doing this?” Kat asked. 

“You need to understand.” Understand what? That this was the consequence of loving her? Or of her loving him? Or just love in general? He pressed play. “Watch.”

She looked past him to Shay, his body convulsing, the electricity moving through him. But it was too long. No body could withstand that type of current. And just when she was about to say something, it stopped. Shay didn’t move. Her eyes burned from keeping them open, afraid if she closed them she would miss his breathing. But he wasn’t breathing. “He’s dead,” she breathed, could Dominic have gotten it wrong? 

But he hushed her. “Watch.”

Her mother came into view, checking for a pulse. Kat waited with bated breath as they administered CPR. A cough left Shay as she brought him back to the land of the living. Kat let out a cry of relief, but it was short lived.

“Why are you here?” her mother asked.

“Kat,” he said hoarsely. “You don’t want me to see her anymore.”

Kat’s heart broke even more, and she let the tears slide down her face. Her mother stroked the side of Shay’s face, then slapped it hard. “I want you to forget about her.” She shoved him and the chair tipped back, Shay’s upper body hitting a pool of water, his head falling beneath the surface. Kat closed her eyes, stomach knotting on itself knowing exactly what they were doing. She’d done it herself on many occasions to get information. She listened to him struggle, the questions, the demands, the gurgling, and then repeat. 

The room went silent, and Kat dared to open her eyes. Her Granddad glared at her. “You would let this boy endure this for you, and you can’t even stomach watching it?” Let him? Kat had no say in this, but she kept her mouth shut. “You will watch this, until you understand this is what needed to happen.”

“Please,” Kat begged. 

“He begged too.” He pressed play, the sound of Shay screaming as he was lifted from the water meeting her ears. “Watch.”

And she did. Kat watched them torture and kill Shay. Seven times he died, although it felt like a thousand, as her Granddad rewound the tape and started it over, because as he died the seventh time, as they brought him back, as they asked him why he was there–the only word he got out was ‘Kat’. And then they started again.

“You could have killed him. That would have satisfied me,” he said.

Katherine squeezed her eyes shut, ducking her head down. But Shay’s screaming pierced the darkness and she pressed her spine into the hard back of the chair, relishing the pain that came from sitting too long on the wooden seat. How many hours had he kept her here? How many more times would he make her watch?

“But you didn’t, Katherine. My orders were clear: make him forget you.”

“Granddad…I—“

“Shhhh. This is my favorite part. Look.” He drew the last word out, the command clear.

Katherine barely opened her eyes, spying her Granddad leaning against the back of the couch, his ankles crossed, the glass of whiskey by his side in one hand, the remote in the other. She looked at him through exhausted eyes, voice jammed in her throat. The cries from the video turned garbled, and without looking, Kat knew they’d tipped the chair back and submerged Shay’s head into a tub of water. 

His gaze snapped to her, and the blood froze in her veins and her breath hitched—would he finally kill her? Or would she suffer the same fate as Shay? 

“Look,” he commanded again.

She swallowed the cry begging to come out of her throat and looked toward the screen. The boy strapped to the chair barely resembled Shay—her funny, charismatic, loving Shay. The boy who taught her what real love could be. His dreadlocks were matted with blood, the burns on his arms and chest blistered and oozed, and the entire side of his face was swollen and filled with miniscule cuts. 

The gurgling stopped. Shay had drowned. Her mother came in to administer CPR, clearing the water from his airways. He coughed. His body jerked. A strangled cry sounded—hers from her raw throat.

“Granddad—stop! Please!”

He moved in front of her, blocking the screen. She met a cold, hard, unforgiving gaze. “Not until you understand.” 

She understood that she hated him with her entire being. She understood that loving Shay was the worst thing she had ever done in her entire life. She understood she would never be able to walk out of here until she gave him what he wanted: a broken pawn. 

And she would never get what she wanted: to watch him suffer a million deaths.

She swallowed back the tears and nodded. She needed a plan and an army. But she needed to survive this first. He smiled and stepped aside watching her as she watched the screen. She could almost smell the skin burning off Shay, the piss soaking into his clothes, the coppery blood stench coating the floor. Her mother brought Shay back to life and each time she hoped he wouldn’t wake up—but her Granddad made sure he did.

“One more time,” her Granddad said for what could have been the hundredth time. She needed to keep her eyes on the screen. She stared at the corner, not needing to see to know what was happening, and listened this time to what her Granddad was saying: She’s a special girl, Shay. You will never be worthy of something that important. She is going to change the world, and you’re going to hold her back.

His words were all about her importance to Legacy Inc–to him. 

“I get it,” Kat said suddenly, realizing that this was more than just her not falling in line or his sick obsession with torturing people. He saw Kat as the future. His future. “He would always be a danger to me—to the family.” The words were bitter as they came out, and Kat forced herself to finish. “No one is worth risking this family. I’ll never make that mistake again, Granddad. You were right. We needed to protect the family.”

She tore her eyes away from the images on the screen, praying that was what he wanted. 

His victory smile warmed her, the coppery taste of blood in her mouth as she bit into her lip to keep her face straight. He wanted her to fall in line? Fine. It would cost him his life, though.

He could think he broke her, but he’d failed, just like he had failed to break Shay in the way he wanted. He wanted him to forget her–but until he was dead, the only thing Shay would ever say again was her name. If it was the last thing she did on this earth, no matter the cost, her Granddad would suffer a fate worse than Shay–and she would make sure the only word he ever muttered for the rest of his miserable life would be his name.