All the Butterflies Have Broken Wings

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PROLOGUE

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Autumn light streamed in the window of a rundown cabin nestled deep in the woods, striking the floorboards and washing them with rosy hues of red-gold and pale pink-orange. Before it could strike the low bed shoved up against the cabin's back wall, the gleaming light brushed the shoulders and quavering form of a young woman who knelt beside it. She said her prayers every day as her mother taught her, though she knew they went unheeded. God did not hear them. He would not reply. Each new day he turned His face from her as He had done for the last six years, for God knew everything.

He knew what she had done and what she had become.

She had few memories of her childhood. It had been tumultuous at best. Born back East, her family had pulled up roots and heeded the call of the West, traveling all the way to California where they bought a few acres up north and began to farm. She'd been three at the time and by the time she was eleven she had had enough – enough of back-breaking labor and sleepless nights, of poverty and privation – enough of sitting at the family table with her silent mother and brow-beat siblings drinking water and eating stale bread for which her overly-religious father insisted they give thanks. Her father ruled their house like a tyrant. Her mother was completely subservient and, out of fear of retribution, most often silent. The petite woman was of mixed heritage – half-Chinese and half something 'else' that was called American. As she grew, her mother sensed her unrest. One day, shortly before she left, she'd told her to count her blessings.

Blessings.

And so, at the age of twelve, she ran away, hitching a ride on a stage by batting her eyelashes and letting a strange man put his hands where they shouldn't be. She should have known better – should have seen the writing on the way – but she didn't. She was beautiful in an 'exotic' sort of way, he told her, and she supposed it was true. Like her mother she had long, slightly wavy black hair and big brown eyes and the kind of slender childlike figure older men liked. Unlike her mother, her figure had waves as well – her ample breasts were the one gift her father's line had given her. She'd learned to use all of her assets to get what she wanted on that trip south, and even more so when she landed in San Francisco.

She met a man in the city. He said he loved her. He rescued her from the streets and took her to his home where he fed her and cared for her, dressing her and treating her like a queen. For about a month. Then, he used her – which wasn't so bad – until he told her he 'owned' her and began to 'rent' her out.

And so it began, this thing she called a career.

After the man tired of her, he sold her to the owner of a place situated on the Barbary Coast. It was run by a man from China. A month after she got there, she'd tried to kill herself, but being inexperienced at just about everything other than being used, she'd failed. While she lay recovering, one of the older women came to her and told her she could teach her things that would keep her safe – how to bring pleasure to a man without being violated for one, but also – and this was the most important – what to do to bring a man to the point where pleasure became pain. Her newfound 'talents' served her well and kept her alive, but at a cost.

That cost was her soul.

The word 'Amen' escaped her lips as she rose to her feet and headed for the kitchen area. This run-down cabin in the woods was a far cry from the life she had once envisioned for herself. As was the man who kept her now. She'd gotten into trouble in San Francisco when she used her 'skills' on a high-ranking official and the man had gone to the authorities. Ahab had happened along at just the right time, taking her under his wing and helping her to flee the city. At first, she'd thought maybe God had heard her prayers. At first the older man treated her well and wanted noting more than companionship. But then, like it always happened, he began to use her. Oh, not like the other men – not for what she was, but for what she could do. She was the bait; her fine white skin, shining black hair and ample breasts, the hook.

And her hands, the weapon that extracted it.

The pattern was always the same. They would move into an area and spend a few days asking questions, learning what they could about its richest men and their liabilities. Most often Ahab chose one with a young son or daughter – someone who was an easy mark. She'd expected it would take them some time to work through Virginia City's elite. After all, there were so many fabulously wealthy men in the fast-growing Western metropolis. Surprisingly, there had been no reconnaissance at all. Instead, Ahab took her straight to a large home made of hewn logs with white chink and pointed out a well-muscled young man with a head of chestnut curls who stood beside a pile of chopped wood, leaning on his axe. She watched as the handsome cowboy ran a hand over his brow, wiping away the sweat, and then headed toward another man who was exiting the barn; an older man with gray hair going white, whose rolling stride marked him as an ex-sailor.

'That's the mark,' Ahab said as he placed a hand on her shoulder.

She'd turned to look at him and asked, 'Which one?' Though it was routine for them to kidnap the children of the wealthy and hold them hostage, there had been times when her procurer deviated from what was normal.

Times she preferred not to remember.

'Which one do you fancy?' he'd asked.

Her eyes had rolled at that. She was nineteen, after all. There was no need to ask.

'The handsome one.'

'He's yours then.'

'And the other one?' she'd asked as she watched the pair embrace thinking, surely, this was the younger man's father.

'That's the great and mighty Benjamin Cartwright," the man who owned her snarled. "He's mine."

Passing through the kitchen the young woman moved on to the common room and halted before a cracked mirror hanging on the wall. She was attired in emerald-green today – in a gown that showed everything she had. It had a matching box hat with a feather and a little reticule.

Today, she was a lady – a beautiful young lady who had been done wrong by her husband and left at the side of the road. In other words, a damsel in distress. That young man with the chestnut hair was taking a stage coach ride today. It was her job to get him to leave the stage behind and take her home.

And then to break him.