"Now, while the money was certainly good, African customs are very strict about maintaining virginity before marriage, horribly so. She had planned to go back and find a nice husband to marry with her accumulated wealth, so she had naturally turned down such offers gently."

"However, my mother was not foolish. Turning them down would only make them more lustful and could lead to trouble, so she ended up compromising. She would satisfy her solicitors through other means but never go all the way."

"This had worked greatly for her... until the local governor who had been going through a rough divorce had decided to drink away his problems with the locals. Once he saw my mother, he also ended up soliciting her. He ended up accepting her counter-offer like the others that came before."

"However, apparently he decided that he wasn't satisfied enough after mother had eased him, so he took matters into his own hands, whether she liked it or not. Afterward, mother was left pregnant with me, and she could no longer return home with a bastard child as her tribe's people would have drowned me and sterilized her according to custom."

"As such, she could only stay in a foreign land while raising me. Luckily, I had gained Scottish citizenship by birth, so I had a pretty normal upbringing through my early youth. Mother also won some money through court after having reported the rape."

Darius frowned here. "He was actually convicted?"

Deia snickered. "Of course he was. This isn't the 19th century where women are cattle, richboy. All mom had to do was report to the local NGOs and they took care of everything from there, bypassing the police and using social media to gain attention."

"Once the court forced him to take a paternity test which came back positive, there was nothing my 'beloved' father could do but get tried and convicted. Most of his estates were passed over to mum to raise me, so I didn't have to struggle in my early years."

"Of course, there was the occasional bullying through insults by the girls for being a rape child, same with some of the boys, out of jealousy or due to conflict. Eventually, I got used to it. The stigma only hurts when you refuse to accept it, to be honest." She shrugged calmly.

"However, using social media and public outrage was a great tool to bypass the barriers of safety some powerful people place around themselves. Still, as is with any event or scandal, the heat would eventually die down at some point."

"It could be a year, two years or more. In my case, it was about 10 years. As the case was being uplifted by the small NGO we went to as their shining example of moral superiority, the local district I lived in was quite safe."

"Unfortunately, that NGO collapsed, and so too did the remainder of what my mother went through. With the public no longer watching over her, she was now open to retaliation."

"It didn't take long until police found her body in a dumpster, cut, bruised, and smeared all over with semen. Her eyes were filled with horror and her mouth open in a silent scream."

"I was called out of my class, at the time I was in 4th-year primary, to the police station to verify that the corpse was indeed my mother. After that, I was assigned a caretaker by law who 'managed' the estates mother left behind to 'raise' me."

"Suffice to say, the money only lasted about 6 more months before the caretaker disappeared after cashing everything else out. When I went to the city hall, I was politely told that there was nothing they could do, and that they would do everything in their power to catch the culprit. Take a wild guess how that turned out?"

"I spent the next 6 years living on welfare, and what a pittance it was. It wasn't that Scotland was cruel to welfare users per se, but rather that the administrator wanted me to sleep with him or 'I would suffer' as he put it."

"Yes, you heard correctly, despite me being a child back then, one who had lost her mother not too long ago, he wanted to sleep with me... I naturally refused, as the one lesson mother had drilled into me all my life is to protect my virginity with everything I have."

Darius was stunned.

"So you're still a virgin?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.

Deia glared at him with disdain. "Of course, richboy. If I drug every man who is my target and steal their wallets, how am I supposed to lose my virginity?"

"Er.." Darius mumbled as he realized she had a point. Unless she really was into sex with unconscious men, she would still be pure.

Deia turned to face the setting sun once more and spoke in a softer tone. "I managed to survive like that until I was 16. I had pretty great grades in school since it was my only lifeline to escape poverty, but that lifeline was cut once I came of age."

Darius spoke wryly. "Lemme guess, another person with power wanted to have you?"

Deia glanced at him askance. "Good you know what your gender is like. Anyway, as I had matured back then, and my feminine charms had arisen, I ended up having many suitors."

"Instead of getting caught up in love, I began to play a game of deception. I took many lovers and drained them of cash without ever letting them go past a fleeting touch."

"I managed to accrue a lot of money and a reputation in Edinburgh around that time, which was about 2-4 years ago. For some, I used the same method I used on you and for others, I studied them and tricked them into mistaking me for their Soulmate, so they heavily invested in me."

"This blissful life ended when I turned 18 and ended up crossing the wrong man. He was a high-ranking member of England's mafia who was visiting his grandparents he had safely stowed away in Scotland to hide from his enemies."

"It wasn't until I was kidnapped by his men that I realized just how much I had messed up. I was certain that I was going to face the same fate as my mother, so I gave up."

"Thankfully, his grandmother pleaded on my behalf and so I was spared. Instead, I had to pay off my debt by working for him."

"In these past two years, I have been pushing drugs and working as a small-time fixer, and through that, I learned more about the underworld."

Deia turned to Darius with a bitter smirk on her face. "You were my biggest target. Your wealth should have been enough to pay off my debts, but here we are."