The slaps are hard against my skin, but I don't feel anything. I haven't since I was taken. No, that's a lie, before I was taken. When my car came under attack I hadn't cared, still don't. I have no idea if my protectors were killed or not. None of it mattered. Nothing matters. This empty pain is far preferable to the gut wrenching pain I'd otherwise be in.

Since I was brought here I've been treated badly. Hit, beaten, whipped. I don't know why they haven't done worse. Physical pain, no matter what it is doesn't compare to what's inside. That pain is all encompassing and nothing else matters.

No more hits. I feel my head lifted up. I look at the person holding my head incuriously. My eyes reflect my state of being, dead. Perhaps I have a pulse, but I wish I didn't.

The person holding my face is talking but I can't tell what he's saying. It doesn't matter anyway. If they get angry enough they'll kill me. That thought actually brings a smile to my face. Once I feel it there I inwardly curse myself. I don't want any emotion to show.

The man says something more that again, I don't understand and in anger he drops my head. The black swallows me. I feel ice cold water thrown on me, but this time it fails to revive me. Perhaps they've done more damage than I thought. Perhaps now, I'll actually die.

I watch the girl that is tied to the chair. She had been almost completely unresponsive to anything I've done. Grown men have screamed more when I or my men had done less. One look into her eyes and I think I understand. I'd made a mistake, the girl wants to die.

I don't understand. She's young and beautiful. The spoiled princess of the family, or so I'd thought. When we took her she'd not reacted at all. We hadn't even needed to use the drugs to knock her out. She didn't fight, she didn't talk. She just went where I told her to and sat. 

When I brought her to the cells she didn't even flinch. She did shiver since she was cold. She was dressed for the outdoors, but the cells are about twenty degrees cooler than outside and I'd taken her coat.

She entered the cell willingly, not in any way fighting me. I had thought it was all a ruse, it had to be. No one is that calm about going to the cells. Most people never come out of the cells alive. The only thing she did was give a very faint half smile. She even went and sat on the floor. She didn't even flinch when I took her arm and shackled her.

Later when her clothes had been ripped off her to begin the torture she didn't even flinch or blush. She just looked on blankly. Nothing I did would change that. I thought I'd see something when the whip bit into her soft flesh, but there was nothing. 

I had been shocked to see old white markings covering her back. The remaining scars from an old whipping or whippings. Perhaps she wasn't the pampered princess I'd at first thought her. But still that doesn't explain why she hadn't reacted to the bite of the whip. No matter how many times you are whipped it's not something you get used to.

Since the whipping failed to get a reaction I stopped it and ordered her back cared for.

Then I started beating her. Still nothing.

After everything nothing gives me a reaction. Not even the ice cold water.

"She is going to die," I startle at the voice.

"What?" I demand. It's the doctor.

"She's freezing and no longer shivering. She's in hypothermic shock now. It won't be long before she dies. Is that what you want?" The doctor is careful in keeping his tone neutral. He gets away with a lot because of his usefulness but he even has limits I'll tolerate and he knows it.

"No. Take her upstairs and take care of her. I want her to live." I tell the doctor and then leave the room cursing at my stupidity. I hadn't dug deep enough into her life. The kind of apathy she shows doesn't just happen.

She's broken and no longer fighting for life. I'm not the one to break her, so who is? Her family? That doesn't make sense. She's the heir to the family. Isn't she? She wasn't very well protected for an heiress. Especially one that is as weak as she appears to be.

I've met some pretty bad ass female family leaders.

Those eyes don't lie though. There was absolutely no life or even recognition when I talked to her. She was already dead, her body just hasn't recognized that yet.

She's been here for three days already and no one from her family has even started a search. Perhaps her family really doesn't care about her after all. That thought makes me angry.  I'm not even sure what my  anger is for though. I've done this before and even worse to other females and not felt anything. By the time they've left my tender care they are in the shape she is in now. Sometimes I even let them go home to their families before they die.

Somehow I think if she returns home that this will just continue. I need to get to the bottom of this. My plans will not be ruined by her being like this. I head to my study to do more homework on the ragged beauty now being taken care of by the doctor.

I dig far deeper than previously, well my hacker does. I should've had her do the digging in the first place. She's far more reliable than the idiots that collected the information on the girl for me.

"She's the heiress, but the family has no love for her. There's no record of why, but she has a long list of physical abuse listed in her medical file." My hacker tells me when I talk to her  a few hours later.

"They took her to a medical facility?" That does shock me. People like us tend to avoid going to places that draw the attention of the authorities.

"No, their private doctor has her records online. There are xrays of just about every part of her body. Details of whippings and beatings. Truly her family hates her. I just can't find out why." Her words cause me to lose myself in my thoughts.

Something settles inside of me. Her family broke her and doesn't want her. I wonder why. I also wonder how I can use this to my advantage.

I smile, I'll make her fall in love with me. We'll get married and then I'll take what is hers by birth. My revenge against her family will be complete.

Now how am I going to get someone dead inside to fall in love and marry me?