Chapter 38: Kidnapping

"Sir, we're almost there!" Mika grunted at the driver's words. Although he had lit a cigarette for less than a minute, he took it out of his mouth and threw it out the window. "Are we sure that the area is safe?" "Yes, sir. This place is too remote to let the police arrive in a short time, and we don't even have to fear the wildlife because large predators keep away from the borders of Cartago. We will not be disturbed here" the man replied. "Don't worry, your wedding will go great" "Very good" Mika murmured looking behind him. There, bound and gagged like a salami and held in place by two men, there was a little girl who was no more than twelve years old. As on Earth, even in that messy world where Sobek happened, there were nations more civilized and others less so. Odaria, the nation bordering the forest, was one of the less civilized. In the eyes of the rest of the world, it would have turned out to be a fairly advanced country in terms of technological development, but completely behind in the social one. Although nominally called democracy, Odaria's ruling was an oligarchy controlled by the nation's wealthy families. Odaria's society was strongly class-oriented: where you were born determined your future. If you were born poor, then you died poor; if you were born in the middle class, then you lived as a member of the middle class; and if you were born in the upper class... well, in that case you were a privileged one who dictated the destiny of the nation. Even if there were elections, they were heavily controlled so that the result favorite those politicians the families wanted to go to power. And if some politician tried to rebel, in less than a week he ceased to see the light of the sun. In such a society the role of women was also strongly backward: it was taken for granted that their role was exclusively that of wife and mother. There had been exceptions, of course, but they could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Even though they had equal rights and duties in the point of view of the law, most of them didn't even vote. And of course the big families absolutely didn't want things to change. Any attempt at progress was stopped by any means. And one of the worst laws that families had tried not to change was that marriage was absolutely impossible to dissolve, regardless of the wishes of the spouses or relatives. This is because the power of families was based on wealth, and the best way to obtain it was to kidnap the daughter of a rival family and marry her, so as to become its heir. Unfortunately, such things were also normal on Earth where Sobek came from: they happened in many third-world countries and even in some more civilized ones. It was customary to capture the daughters of a rich family, take them to an isolated place, marry them and then rape them to consumate the marriage. Mika was obviously one of those who absolutely didn't want this law to disappear. He was the second son of the Magni family, which meant that while his brother inherited the role of head of the family he could only become his henchman; however, he had long since set his sights on the wealth of the Jersey family. Their head of the family, Marcus Jersey, had no male heirs but only a twelve-year-old daughter. So he had set up a plan. His father and brother had immediately supported him: after all, marrying Marcus Jersey's daughter meant making his wealth the property of the Magni family. They had given him means and men for a raid. Thus, when Mika had learned that Marcus Jersey was going to be visiting the new colonial city of Cartago, on the edge of the Odaria territory, with his family, he had immediately prepared the kidnapping. Kidnapping the girl in town or in the Jersey family mansion would have been impossible, but in a developing town like Cartago it was easy. So one night they left and took the baby. Unfortunately, something had gone wrong and at the last minute the guards raised the alarm. Marcus Jersey had unleashed the police on their trail all over town, so the only solution was to get out. And since the roads leading to other cities were controlled, they had no choice but to head for the adjacent jungle. This wasn't really a problem. They had no heavy weapons, but they wouldn't remain there too long. Besides, the large carnivores didn't get that close to human territory: the most they could encounter was some utahraptor who would go down with a volley of bullets. When the cars stopped, Mika ordered: "Get off!". In an instant, twenty armed guards got out of the vehicles and formed a circle around the clearing. As he got out, Mika saw the kidnapped girl being dragged out of the jeep by her two men. He was surprised at how small she was: she looked less than twelve years old. The thing bothered him a bit, accustomed as he was to the women he saw in brothels, but he dismissed that thought: he had to fuck her only once, then he could forget about her and wait for her to grow up and become attractive to his eyes. Speaking of the eyes, in the girl's he read nothing but fear and despair. She wasn't crying just because she had already run out of tears. She had blood all over her face and a swollen eye: they had no qualms about dragging her from side to side to get her, so she was full of scratches, cuts and bruises. A normal person might have felt pity, but it was neither hot nor cold for Mika. 'Wait and hope', he thought as he stared into her eyes begging him to let her go. Anyway, he thought, if it wasn't him it would be someone else: the wealth of the Jersey family was too tempting. Indeed, it surprised him that no one had ever tried to kidnap the girl before: some would have thought it was because of her age, but it wasn't. Child brides were normal in Odaria. Probably the fact that she had never been kidnapped was due to the fact that it was thought that Marcus Jersey would have a second son in a short time. Unfortunately, or fortunately, fate had denied him such joy and his wife was now too old to make children. "Take off the gag" he ordered. As soon as her mouth was free, the little girl let out a cry. Mika, however, answered her with a slap. "Shut up!" he growled. "I'll be clear: all you have to say from now on is 'yes', understand? Do it without being begged and you will be spared further pain" The girl closed her eyes in terror. Mika paid no attention: all that mattered was that he said yes. A man dressed in black appeared next to him with several cards in his hand. He was a government official. In Odaria, for a marriage to be binding, it was necessary to marry before the law and then consume it, so it was necessary that there was someone to officiate it all. And it wasn't hard to find a corrupt politician willing to marry a scion from a good family to a kidnapped child. "Sir, I have already prepared everything, I just need your confirmation. Do you want to proceed?" "Obviously" "Very good. Mika Magni, do you want to take Jocelyne Jersey as your rightful bride?" "Yes" "And Jocelyne Jersey, do you want to take Mika Magni as your rightful husband?" The little girl was shaking like a leaf, but that didn't matter to anyone. The man holding her gave her another slap. "What do you have to say?" The blow was so strong that blood came out of her mouth, but the girl still found the strength to answer: "Y... Yes" "Perfect" concluded the satisfied official. "Put your signatures here and..." "ROAAAAR!!!" A roar and a sequence of shots immobilized the man. It wasn't just him: even Mika had felt his blood freeze in his veins. Turning around, he saw his guards shooting wildly in a vain attempt to injure a giant dinosaur that was staring at them with a very angry look. The first to recover was the poor official, and you could tell by the smell that he had been on his own. "M... M... MONSTER!!!"