PROLOGUE PART 2

Gaia staggered and swayed as she slowly walked home alone in the dark. Her mind was numb. Her body was not.

It hurt to move. It hurt to walk. It hurt to breathe. Every step made the pain in her body throb. She still trembled from shock and fear.

At last she reached the gate in front of her home. The house was dark. Her father had not waited up for her. He knew well what her fate would be, and he had been powerless to protect her.

Gaia slowly made her way through the gate to the front door trying to be quiet. She did not want to wake her father. She did not want him to see her like this.

She needn't have worried.

The first thing Gaia saw when she opened the door was the body of her father hanging from a rope tied to a beam in the ceiling. The small table they ate their dinner on was knocked over to the side.

Gaia stood staring numbly at her father's body hanging silently in front of her as blood ran down her legs and dripped onto the floor.

Slowly she backed out of the house and ran around to the one place left that felt safe. The only place untouched by the horrors of the night.

Her garden.

Gaia slumped to the ground, wrapped her arms around her body and cried. She didn't notice the neighbors coming out of their homes to see what was wrong.

She didn't see them stare at her and begin to whisper amongst themselves. She didn't watch them take her father's body out of the house.

No one asked her what had happened. They made their assumptions and passed their judgment.

Gaia sat alone in her garden shivering in the cold crying until she had no tears left.

Months later Uranus was leaning back in his chair behind the desk in his office. His eyes were glazed over. He gasped and panted while the prostitute on her knees sucked him off.

Uranus's eyes widened and a malicious look came over his face as he glanced down at the woman who had his cock in her mouth.

Suddenly he stood up and began to violently thrust his hips into her mouth forcing his long, thick penis down the back of her throat gagging her.

"Don't you dare bite me you bitch or I'll pull every tooth out of that whore mouth of yours." He snarled at her. "Your gonna be a good girl and sit quietly while I fuck this whore mouth of yours."

The prostitute whimpered desperately trying not to let her teeth scrape his appendage while she gagged. Her distress and fear only made him harder.

Faster and faster he thrust into her mouth until his face broke into a wide smile. "Oh yeah, I'm gonna cum and you're gonna swallow every mother fucking drop. You hear me bitch? Every god damn drop."

Tears rolled down the poor prostitute's face as he emptied himself down the back of her throat. Thankfully, she was able to swallow and not gag.

She sank to a heap on the floor as soon as he pulled himself out of her mouth. Uranus laughed and fastened the front of his pants before sitting back down behind his desk.

He lit a cigarette, took a long drag and then looked down at the prostitute shaking on the floor. "Why are you still here? Get up the fuck up and get out of my office."

The girl didn't need to be told twice. She pulled herself up and scrambled to the door of his office. One of his men was standing on the other side as if he had been waiting some time.

He shook his head as he pulled out a wad of cash and handed a couple of bills to the girl. As soon as the money was in her hand she ran out the door as fast as she could. The sound of Uranus laughing behind his desk made Chaos, his right hand man, want to roll his eyes.

"Come in Chaos." ordered Uranus. Chaos slowly walked in and lowered himself into one of the chairs opposite Uranus's desk.

"Well, how did it go? Are all the arrangements made?" asked Uranus.

Chaos steepled his hands in front of his face and regarded his boss carefully. He had been sent back to the island of Crete to finalize shipping arrangements.

It was all part of the new deal with Arnold Rothstein. The meeting with the American had gone very well.

Uranus would sail to New York and set up a import business. Chaos would manage exports from here in Greece.

Uranus had reorganized and renamed his father's business into a company which he now called Tartarus.

On paper, Tartarus specialized in shipping Greek olives and olive oil to the United States. In truth, opium from the east would be shipped to Crete where it would be repacked and hidden in crates of olive oil and then loaded onto one of Uranus's ships sailing for New York.

In New York, the empty crates would be filled with guns which would be shipped back to Crete where they would be sold to buyers from Africa and the middle east.

They were going to make millions of dollars. Uranus was going to be a King.

While finalizing the details on Crete, Chaos stumbled upon a sobering discovery. The girl from the market was pregnant.

By the looks of it, she was six months gone. Chaos was absolutely certain he knew who the father was.

He was there the night Uranus raped her. He felt badly for the girl. She wasn't one of the opium addicted prostitutes his boss usually dragged to his bed.

That girl from the market had probably never stepped foot off the island in her entire life. She knew nothing of the world. Until that night she hadn't been tainted by its ugliness and cruelty. She was innocent.

A beautiful butterfly tragically caught in a spider's web where she had been devoured by a man he had known since childhood.

Chaos watched as the girl sat behind her vegetable stand staring straight ahead stoically while the locals walked by either ignoring her or casting ugly judgmental looks her way.

Some of them whispered to one another and pointed at her shaking their heads. She pretended not to see them.

Every now and again someone would walk by and mutter WHORE!" She pretended not to hear them.

No one lined up to buy her flowers or vegetables anymore.

Chaos picked up some of the locals gossip. The story going around was that she had an illicit affair with a stranger, and her father hung himself in shame. Her lover abandoned her.

He shook his head in disgust as he reflected on how the world always seems to paint the victim as a wanton harlot and villain while the real monster is allowed to live his life free as though no crime was ever committed. It really was cruel and unfair he mused.

Still, Chaos had been one of the men standing outside the cafe the night the girl was raped, and he did nothing while his best friend she violated the innocent girl. The more he reflected on it, the more he had to agree his lack of action made him a monster too. Chaos really wasn't much better than Uranus.