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Dad’s hand rested protectively on the lower part of my back as he pushed me down the steps to the car. Reluctantly, I approached our butler, who eyed me. His face betrayed none of his thoughts. Fear crept up inside me, and I almost begged my father to let me walk home. But as soon as we arrived at the car,Dad slipped into his seat and closed the passenger door. I knew he struggled to keep his temper and feared losing it.
I stood alone with Stephan, but instead of him opening the car door for me, he stood in my way.
“Are you all right, Miss Myrina?” he asked with undisguised anger in his voice. Defiantly, I lifted my chin and met his stare.
“Of course, Stephan. I’ve never felt better,” I fired back bitingly.
The butler tilted his head, and while he seemed to be almost looking into my soul with his probing blue eyes, he came closer and sniffed me. An expression of disgust spread across his face, mixed with his anger, and formed a hideous grimace. Immediately, a pressing question popped into my head: Did he know about the attempted kidnapping? Instinctively, I took a step backward. Before I could think further, the butler opened the car door for me. I hurriedly slid past him, but not fast enough.
“You’d better take a shower, Miss,” I heard in my right ear as I brushed against him. I could no longer react to the spiteful comment because the door had slammed shut. Shortly after that, Stephan was behind the steering wheel to drive us home.
Exhausted, I leaned against the window and let the city glide past me. A tremor ran through my body, and I wrapped my arms protectively around my torso. Tears made their way up, burning urgently in my eyes. Desperately, I felt the panic that had struck me during the chase and the attempted rape. Images flashed by the second, and I had to keep telling myself that I was safe now, so real did they seem. Past and present mingled together. When we arrived at East 69thStreet, I could not climb out of the car.
The trembling didn’t want to stop any more than my muscles obeyed me. With the last of my strength, I tried to pull myself together and stumbled directly into Stephan’s arms. Silently, hepicked me up and carried me to the house. He was unusually gentle, and I closed my eyes to avoid looking at him.
“Stephan, please take care of my daughter. I have some work to do, and I'm taking the car!” my father called after us, worried and quivering.
Without responding to my dad’s departure, the butler opened the heavy front door with me in his arms.
"Aza!" shouted the usually quiet man in the entrance hall. Determined, he headed for the elevator I hated. No! Panic welled up in me again. Stephan paused, and I felt his scrutinizing gaze on me. With a hum, he changed direction and descended the stairs to the second floor.
“Stephan, what happened?” I suddenly heard Aza’s voice right next to me.
“That’s what happened,” the butler said coldly. Once again, icy coldness resonated in his words. The girl sucked in her breath, startled. The next moment, Stephan laid me down on my bed.
"She needs a shower or bath. Take care of that and then help her get to sleep," he instructed the maid before his footsteps moved away and the door to the room slammed shut.
Carefully, Aza helped me up. Silent tears were running down my cheeks by now. I could not understand what had happened to me and how much worse it could have been.
"Miss, I'm going to take off your dress now," the girl whispered before very slowly undoing the clasp. She supported me as I stood. The dress slid off my body, revealing first the missing panties, then also several welts and bruises that were already clearly visible. A whimper escaped me at the sight of them, which Aza answered by stroking my hair. Staggering, we moved to the bathroom, where she turned on the shower before placing me under the warm spray.
Remembering the hands that had touched me everywhere without permission, I grabbed the soap and washed my whole body several times in a row. Even after that, I did not feel clean but was too exhausted to rewash myself.
Aza was already there with the bathrobe and wrapped me in it. Then she pushed me to my bed. Dressed in a freshly washed sleeping robe and underpants that gave me a feeling of security, I crawled into the covers. A steaming cup of heavy-smelling tea was held under my nose, and, as if in a fog, I took a few sips. Everything became as heavy as the aroma of the hot beverage. My eyelids, my limbs, my thoughts. It was almost as if everything was pulling me deeper into the mattress. The last thing I heard was the door opening and then Stephan's voice. "We can't let a mistake like that happen again."
CHAPTER 13
Mr. Baldur," I mumbled in a daze.Mr. Baldur!It screamed deep inside me. With a jolt, I was wide awake and sitting upright in bed. Slowly, the image of this mysterious man and his caramel-colored eyes faded from my dream. Or had it not been a dream at all?
My head ached, which was probably due to the many glasses of wine I had drunk the night before, and my thoughts were swirling.
Confused, I ran my hands through my face. My forehead was sweaty despite the nightly cold that penetrated my room through an open window.
A gust of wind swept through the room, pulled hard on the curtains, and brushed my bare skin. Goosebumps covered my arms, and the little hairs on my neck stood up. Hastily, I crawled out of bed and ran staggering to the window to close it. Aza must have left it open. Only with effort did I fight against the wind, which kept coming up, to close the latch finally.
Exhausted, I sank onto the window ledge. The moon was high in the sky, illuminating our garden together with the stars. I could even see as far as the garden wall. Hope welled up inme that Alex might come over tonight. However, it was not a weekend.
After that terrible past evening, I longed so much to be held and comforted by him. To whom else should I, indeed could I, confide my worries? Of course, I would have to tell Dad and Chris about it. It had become more urgent than ever after the events that I resumed my training. Longer than just thirty minutes and regularly.
With disgust and the taste of rising bile on my tongue, I thought back to the two guys. Their hands on my skin, their breath on my face, their fingers under my panties. And then this terrible feeling of helplessness, of powerlessness. I never wanted to have to feel like that again in my life. At the mercy of my fate, I lost all control over my existence, my body, and even myself.
I couldn't even think about where I would be now if this ominous Mr. Baldur hadn't saved me. Would I already be dead?
The nausea continued to creep up inside me, and I had to pull myself together not to let these terrible memories overwhelm me and steal my mind.
But to go crazy, I already believed the moment the brutal men had searched the videos of the surveillance camera and had seen me on the screen together with Mr. Baldur entering the museum—arm in arm.
I knew it could not have been another woman, neither disguised nor a mad acting talent. This so-called Mrs. Baldur had been none other than me. It was my movements, my gait, my smile that had laughed at me from the tablet. Yet, in truth, this moment had never existed. How was that possible? It was incomprehensible to me.
