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I fight nausea and dread, snaking into every cell of my fragile brain.
“Darren won’t stand aside and allow you to break him.” I don’t know if that’s true, but our last conversation makes me believe they love him and consider him their son.
His relaxed demeanor transforms into a ferocious mask in a blink of an eye. I brace myself, waiting for its talons to claw my heart out.
“But they will, since all they want is to have their dead son’s children back in their lives. They’ll sacrifice him for a chance to keep their family safe and sound. Not like Darren’s brother, who chose his lover over his son.”
He has my kids! This monster has my children!
My world shatters into tiny shards, raining down around his feet. My chest expands, but no air passes my lungs as the undiluted panic overflows me. The world dissolves in front of my eyes, and I fall into the abyss.
31
Lies and Deceits
~Cassandra~
Finally, I break down, unable to hold back the terror crashing against my heart and mind like a tsunami wave, tearing apart my sanity. My voice is gone from the tears I shed and screams that tore through my chapped lips as I begged them to let me see my children.
“Hurry up! You got just ten minutes and then I’ll send men to help you. Trust me, you don’t want them to get a chance to touch you again.”
The evil bitch hollers on the other side of the door, and I whimper, hugging myself as I try not to panic. My frame shakes as I remember my last lesson. They stripped me of my dignity, forced me naked on my knees to submit. Lester locked his cruel gaze on me. I understood the message. If I fight, he will hurt my kids. If I run, he will break them and sell to the clients as playthings. It was the first thing he promised me after I woke up.
“I heard you,” I holler, sneering. Anger like coal glows deep in my belly, slowly smoldering into a fire.
In the five days he kept me here, I didn’t get a chance to negotiate with him or probe for information. I wonder why the exchange hasn’t happened yet. Perhaps he’s waiting for me to accept my fate and submit to his authority. My children are the perfect discipline weapon against me. Or maybe he’s still negotiating with the Cades and Mark.
I slip out of the cold bath and pat my body dry, picking the underwear piece the evil bitch chose for me. It’s a hot pink lace bodice with satin stripes, crisscrossing over the torso. It’s the most beautiful thing I ever saw, and yet I loathe every perfect detail, and mostly what it entails. In five days, I’ve had time to think and play out every gruesome scenario.
If the Cades agree to Lester’s terms, my children will be safe, but Mark and I will remain in his degraded hands. Lester Belington will break me and sell me as a plaything to the highest bidder. Either way, I won’t escape this depraved resort unscathed. I know what awaits me. I probably won’t survive it, at least not my soul and definitely not my heart.
On autopilot, I do all the grooming the she-devil insisted on and pull on the lace bodice that hugs my curves, sucking all the air out of my lungs. Just on time, as she unlocks the door and barges in.
Her cold observing gaze travels up and down my frame, and then she barks, “Good, let me do your makeup and then your hair. You are a mess.”
But I don’t care about her. She isn’t the one I’m afraid of.
“Have you seen my children?” I bite my lip to stop my quivering chin, hoping she’ll tell me this time.
Her hands still for a moment, but I receive no answer just a sharp tug on my hair, burning my scalp as a response.
“I need to know if they’re okay, if anyone has hurt them.” My eyes fill up with tears, and I force down a sob. “That’s all, just this small favor, please.”
And at this moment, I grasp why no one used their names in front of me since I arrived here, because it will be way too easy to see me as a human, not a thing to be broken and used. But her face stays motionless as she works like she never heard me. My helpless tears run down my cheeks as she curls my hair.
When she finishes, she passes me a cotton pad to clean up my face. I try not to smudge her work. “They’re scared and haven’t stopped crying ever since they got here, but otherwise Mr. Belington kept his word.”
A whoosh of relief leaves my lungs like a little spark of joy glowing in my chest.
“But if your family fails his terms, this will change. Your boy and girl will be a great addition to his toy collection, don’t you think?”
The thought of my babies being raped and used for other people’s depraved needs coils my guts until I expel all my dinner at her feet. All the strength leaves my body, and I almost fall into the vomit puddle, but she catches me and puts me on the chair.
“Get yourself together, because your family isn’t the only ones that shouldn’t disappoint Mr. Belington,” she breathes the words into my ear and they sear my mind like flesh with a hot poker. “Tonight, it’s a big night for you. Your lover is here for a grand show and so are your in-laws. After tonight the life before this won’t matter.”
She straightens and starts to fix my makeup, putting blush to my ghostly pale face while my mind recalls Mark’s words. I have seen evil and darkness like you’ve never imagined. Except, I’m about to become a plaything to those monsters Mark was talking about. He was right. Some truths are impossible to comprehend. They’re better left in the dark because, in the daylight, they have the power to destroy you.
After she fixes me up, she grabs my elbow and hauls me through the door. “Put these on,” she orders, and I comply, too numb from stress. I wobble on my feet in red lacquer heels, but the evil bitch steadies me and then she slaps me.
