For The Good Of the Family Chapter One
Caroline looked in the mirror over her shoulder, running her fingers over the blue black and fading yellow marks that bloomed over the skin on her back. This was the effect of five days spent at home with her father.
It was something she had come to expect each time that she returned back to Mystic Falls and her fathers house. Bill Forbes had never been the world's best father. He had been harsh and brash for the entirety of Carolines childhood. Despite being the figurehead of one of the largest crime families in the south eastern US, an institution that put the loyalty and strength of blood before all else, the wellbeing of his child had never been on the forefront of his mind. He hadn't become violent towards his only daughter until after his wife's untimely death.
Elizabeth had succumbed to an extremely rare form of cancer, something so aggressive that no amount of the seemingly endless disposable funds at the Forbes disposal had been able to save her. Caroline had only been 16, just on the edge of womanhood. Bill Forbes had struck his daughter for the first time the very day of his wife's funeral, sending her sprawling to the ground mere moments after the final guest had left the wake being held at the massive Forbes estate.
Things had only escalated since that day. Bill Forbes was not a stupid man, he knew exactly where to strike his daughter that the marks couldn't be seen. He knew exactly how hard to grab her as to elicit pain but not cause enough damage to draw attention. He was in the business of causing pain and destruction to get what he wanted, and his own child was no exception.
The two years that Caroline had spent living alone with her father between the time that her mother had died and she'd moved away to college had hardened her against the an act of self preservation she had learned to turn off her emotions and not show pain, knowing that would only encourage her father further.
All she had to do was get through university. Once she had a degree in hand she would earn access to the trust waiting for her. That money would allow her to escape her father and the dangerous circles he moved in. Once she had access to that money, she'd be able to finally start her own life.
The four years she had spent at Whitmore College had been a welcome reprieve from her home life, although her other demons had followed her there.
Still, each school break she was expected to return and play the dutiful daughter, presenting a family front to her fathers underlings.
Which was why she was standing in front of the mirror in her bedroom in her fathers house, looking over the marks that spread across her back from each time her father had shoved her against the wall over the past few days, assessing which of the dresses she had in her closet would cover the extent of the damage.
It was her final night at home before returning for school for the remainder of the spring semester. Her final semester of school. Her freedom was so close she could almost taste it. There were only a few months left of her senior year at college. All she had to do was get through tonight, and whatever hellish dinner party her father planned to trapse her out to.
With any luck this would be the last night she spent in her fathers house.
"Caroline!" Her fathers booming voice flooded her senses as he called for her from the bottom of the stairs.
Caroline jumped. She glanced at the clock on her nightstand and was startled at the time. She hadn't realised how late it was. She grabbed the first dress she touched from the pile on her bed and pulled it over her head. She grabbed a pair of the sensible black heels she knew her father favoured and hurried out of her room and down the stairs to where her father was waiting.
Bill was standing at the foot of the stairs, typing furiously at his phone. He didn't even look up when she came to a standstill in front of him.
"Let's go!" He snapped, stalking towards the front door and expecting her to fall in step behind him.
Caroline hurried after him, not wanting to give him any reason to lose his temper with her. She slid into the back seat of the sleek black town car that was idling in their driveway, waiting to whisk them off to whatever hellish gathering her father had planned for the night.
Caroline picked at the skin around her thumb, not paying attention to where they were headed, figuring they'd be pulling up to one of the numerous restaurants where her Father kept private rooms arranged with the owners, or the sprawling manor homes of one of his top men.
The car came to a stop and before Caroline could look up, her father had a vice-like grip on her wrist.
Carolines breath came out in a shocked gasp as the pain shot up her arm.
"This is a very important meeting Caroline. This partnership with the Mikelsons cannot fail. Do you understand me?" He hissed.
Caroline recoiled, half from her fathers harsh actions and half from the shock of the name that had just come out of Bill's mouth.
The Mikelson family was the closest thing her father and his men had to direct competition. While the two generally stayed out of the way, tension had always been high between them, a single spark could explode a fire of a war that neither family may survive.
Caroline glanced out the window and could hardly believe her eyes. The car was parked outside of the Mikaelson Manor, a place Caroline had only ever seen in pictures in the society pages.
She had had no idea her father had even been considering approaching the Mikelsons for a business partnership, let alone that it had progressed to a face to face meeting.
"Do you understand?" Her father hissed again, tightening his grip on his daughter's wrist to the point where every nerve in hand was on fire.
"Yes" she responded quickly, not meeting his gaze.
"Good" Bill spat, letting go of his daughter's wrist and straightening his tie.
Caroline took a deep breath as she exited the car behind her father and followed him towards the front door.
She could hardly believe she was about to step in the Mikaelsons manor. She could hardly believe she was going to be in a room with one Mikaelson, let alone all of them. She wasn't a stranger to being around dangerous men. Nearly everyone at the dinner table at any function her father forced her to attend was a killer. She knew her own father had killed and tortured more people than she could count.
The Mikaelson family however was inphemis. While her father controlled the majority of the eastern south, The Mikaelson's group was an international empire. Their hold in Virginia and the surrounding states was just a fraction of the power they held.
This wasn't the only reason Caroline knew her father was Jealous of Mikeal, the family's patriarh. Mikeal had five sons, an heir and more than enough spares to his empire, while Bill had only Caroline. He had no son to follow in his footsteps and carry on his family name. Caroline had always suspected that was one of the reasons her father held so much resentment towards her.
The grand doors of the manor swung open and they were greeted by one of the most intimidating men Caroline had ever laid eyes on. This she knew must be Mikeal Mikealson.
He and her father shook hands, and Caroline could only imagine the force that both men put behind the action. Michaels eyes appraised her body before her face as he greeted her and ushered the two of them into the house where the rest of the people were gathered.
Caroline's eyes scanned the crowd and she exhaled slightly at the site of a few friendly faces. Grayson and Miranda Gilbert were two people that Caroline knew her father trusted explicitly. Caroline had grown up alongside the couple's twin daughters, Katherine and Elena. Caroline wasn't sure if she would have made it through the nightmare that the last few years of her life had been without the support of those two girls. They were the only people in Carolines life who understood what it was like to be the daughter of a parent in that type of business. Katherine was even Caroline's roommate at Whitmore. While Elena had originally moved to Whitmore with them, she had transferred to a smaller private university only 15 miles from Mystic Falls after she had become engaged and then married to Damon Salvatore. Damon and his brother Stefan were also present that evening, but unlike the girls, they were active members of Carolines fathers organization and not just there as guests. The Salvatores father had been killed many years earlier in a business deal gone wrong, at which point both Damon and Stefan stepped into their fathers' role in the business.
Damon was a few years older than the others, however he and Elena had been together since they were children. Damon had proposed the year after Elena had graduated high school and she'd happily moved back to Mystic falls to start her life with him.
Caroline couldn't imagine it. She was 22 now and she couldn't even fathom being a wife. Elena had only been 19 when she and Damon had been married. Half the town had been convinced that she must be pregnant, but the figure hugging dress at her wedding and the lack of baby materializing proved the onlookers wrong.
"I love him" Elena had explained simply when Caroline had asked by the hell she and Damon were getting married so young.
"I know what I want"
While Caroline didn't envy Elena's life, she envied her certainty. The comfort. The safety. She thought of her own relationship, if you could even call it that, with Tyler Lockwood. She shook her head, trying to dispel that thought from her head.
The group was called into the large immaculate dining room where dinner was about to be served. While the manor Caroline had grown up in was large and oppulente, this house made it look like a hovel. To think, Caroline mused, this isn't even the Mikealsons main residence. They had homes across the world, but their main operations were based out of what Caroline had often heard described as a Palace in the english countryside.
Caroline fathers steered her by the elbow to her assigned seat at the midway point of the table. Her father pushed her forwards towards her seat between Katherine and Elena. Caroline gratefully took it, happy she wouldn't be forced to make polite small talk with one of the men who worked for her father that she barely knew.
She took her seat and without thinking, glanced across the table at who was seated across from her. A pair of startling striking blue green eyes stared back at her from across the table. Caroline sat back slightly in her sleep. She glanced down the table, realizing without noticing it she had sat down directly across from all five of the Mikaelson male heirs. The eldest was clearly a grown man, while the youngest couldn't have been more than 14. The one seated across from her with the eyes that had caught her off guard she thought could be her age, or maybe a few years older. She cast her eyes down at her plate, unsure if it was appropriate for her to speak to him or not.
Was she supposed to be making friendly small talk with these people her father was trying to go into business with? He hadn't exactly given her a game plan of how this night was supposed to go. She decided to err on the side of caution. Better to say nothing at all then say the wrong thing and risk her fathers wrath when they got home.
She didn't have to worry for very long. Damon, who was seated on Elenas other side and never passed up a challenge, quickly struck up conversation with those seated across the table. Leaving Caroline free to spend the rest of the meal counting down the seconds until it was over. She would occasionally feel her fathers gaze boring into the side of her face, at which point she'd sit up a little straighter and make sure the fake smile she'd had on her face the whole meal seemed a little more genuine.
The night seemed to be going smoothly until the dessert was served. As Caroline reached forward for her wine glass, she felt the sleeve of her dress shift slightly, exposing a portion of her shoulder she hadn't intended anyone to see. She didn't notice initially until she glanced up and saw that the boy across the table, the one with the eyes that had caught her attention earlier, now had his gaze fixed on her exposed skin, and more explicitly the dark bruises that had appeared there after her father had shook her by her shoulders violently a few nights before merely because he hadn't liked the tone of her voice when she'd said goodnight. Caroline quickly moved her sleeve back onto her shoulder, hiding the evidence.
The boy, or she supposed he was better characterized as a man, moved his gaze from her shoulder to her face. Caroline couldn't diserne the look on his face, if it was anger, disgust, or concern. Caroline quickly glanced away and towards the elegant dessert in front of her.
"Klaus, pass the wine would you?" Damon asked, extending his arm towards the man across from Caroline.
"Surely" The man replied, picking up the bottle in front of him and passing it towards Damon, not taking his eyes off Caroline the entire time.
….
Caroline didn't press for details but based on her fathers decent mood on the ride home, she assumed the dinner must have gone alright. She wasn't sure what kind of business Bill was looking to get into with the Mikealsons but she decided that after this night, she officially didn't care. As soon as her father was asleep she was packing her bag, getting in her car, returning to school and never coming back.
All she had to do was get through the next few months of school, graduate, get her money and never look back.
…
It was nearly two in the morning by the time that Caroline made it back to her dorm room at Whitmore. She hadn't been planning on coming back to school until the next morning, but she hadn't wanted to risk her father waking up in a bad mood and taking it out on her one last time.
She looked forward to spending a night alone in her dorm room after five days of nearly sleepless nights worrying about her fathers temper.
She had just thrown her bag down on the floor and was about to get ready to climb into bed when she heard a key turn in the door to her room.
Whitemore was a historic college and as part of keeping up the 'charm' of the place, the university still issued students physical metal keys to their rooms, rather than electronic key cards.
She knew Katherine was still at home in Mystic Falls, and there was only one other person who had a key to the room, a person who had taken her key without her knowing and made a copy for himself.
"You didn't tell me you were coming back early" Tyler Lockwood said casually as he pushed open the door and threw his key down on her desk and kicked the door closed behind him.
Caroline had to keep herself from audibly sighing. Tyler had been her boyfriend on and off since they were in the 9th grade, and while they technically hadn't been together since the end of high school, Tyler still showed up at her dorm room whenever he felt so inclined, which unfortunately for Caroline, was often.
She wished she had the energy to get rid of Tyler, but life had beaten her down past the point of caring. Much like her father, Caroline thought of Tyler as something with an expiration date. Once she was out of school and out of the state of Virginia, she planned on never seeing him again, but for now. She was tired.
"I didn't plan to" Caroline muttered, faking an overly exaggerated yawn and hoping that he'd take the hint and leave her to sleep. In reality she knew better than that. Tyler only came over when he wanted something. When he wanted her, there wasn't much she could do to stop him.
"You could have called," he drawled, looking her up and down as she unpacked.
Back when Caroline was still herself, before her mother died and her father began truly hating her and Tyler was still the sweet boyfriend who walked her to class each day, she might have told him off.
Instead, she focused very deliberately on placing her carefully holded t shirts back into her dresser drawer.
"I said" Tyler began again, talking up behind her and forcefully taking hold of her from behind
"You could have called" He hissed into her ear, his breath hot on the back of her neck.
Caroline bit down on the inside of her cheek, knowing what was coming next.
Much like with her father, Caroline could pinpoint the exact second her relationship with Tyler changed. It happened on the same day. At her mothers funeral.
She and Tyler had been dating for a while. She'd liked him, he was kind and sweet and made her feel….different, special.
They had only been together a few months when her mother died. They hadn't had sex. She was only 16 and Tyler was her first boyfriend. She'd never had sex before. She had been thinking she would lose her virginity to him, she'd imagined it even. The two of them in her room, with candles, dim light and soft music, the way it was in movies. He would tell her he loved her and it would be perfect.
And she had lost her virginity to him but it had been nothing like how she had imagined it.
There were over 300 people at Carolines house that day for her mothers wake. With so much going on no one had taken much notice of Caroline getting steadily drunker. It was 9 am when she poured her first slug of liquor into her cup. She thought it would be the only way to get through the endless amount of people she barely knew wrapping their arms around her and telling her they were so sorry for her loss.
By the afternoon, her whole body felt numb.
"Come with me" Tyler whispered into her ear, taking her by her elbow. Caroline went willingly, not really caring where they were going. She didn't think twice when he opened the door to the coat closet and pushed her inside. She didn't even ask what he was doing when he began tugging at her panty hose.
So no, losing her virginity didn't involve candles and soft music. Instead it was her tights ripped, her dress pulled up and her face pushed into a pile of coats.
As it turned out, Tyler liked her vulnerable, and he'd been keeping her that way ever since. Just like that day at her mothers funeral, all she felt was numbness. Numb, and tired.
So when Tyler came up behind her and pushed her towards the bed, she knew that was going to happen. The same thing that had been happening, whenever he felt like it since that day.
He tore at her clothes roughly, disposing of them quickly. She was completely naked by the time he tossed her face down onto her twin size bed, and she heard him begin to undo his belt buckle.
The exhaustion of the last five days hit her all at once. All she wanted was to go to sleep.
"Ty-" she began, attempting to turn over to face him. He moved quickly. He grabbed both her wrists in one of his large hands and kept them pinned behind her. The skin of her bare back was clearly on display to him, the bruises her father had inflicted on her plainly visible. She wondered if Tyler even noticed. Maybe he assumed he had put them there. He was never exactly gentle with her, as evidenced by his grabbing a fist full of her hair as he used his knee to edge her hips up so her ass was in the air, exactly where he wanted it.
"Ty" she tried one more time, but he was already pushing her face down into her mattress, and she knew what was coming next.
He shoved into her harshly. She gasped in pain as Tyler entered her unready body but he had her face pressed so firmly into the mattress that her gasp didn't bring in any air, only fabric. Her lungs burned from the lack of oxygen, she pressed her head back against Tylers fist, struggling for air. He slammed into her again and again, before yanking her up by her hair. She gasped in the air, her breathing laboured in pain. He still had her arms pinned behind her causing an ache in her shoulder blades and now her neck strained as he yanked her hair back so her head was taut against his shoulder.
He bit down sharply on the edge of her ear. She shivered involuntarily, knowing he liked the taste of blood from a wound he had inflicted.
"Say it" he hissed into her ear, pulling her hair harder so her chin was tipped further into the air.
She knew what he wanted to hear. The same thing he wanted to hear every time. The same thing she told him, just so it would be over that much quicker.
"You're mine" he said, his voice hot on her neck, tired of waiting for her to say it.
"I'm yours" Caroline muttered numbly as he shoved her back against the mattress.
Only a few more months Caroline thought to herself. She could make it that much longer.