I have the information, I have my loyalty, I have my victory.
And I have just lost everything that ever made any of it matter.
I’m a fool.
A stupid, stupid fool. How have I forgotten who this man is? What he is?
He’s a liar, a manipulator, an absolute piece of shit and I fell for it, I fell for it all.
The silence in our room is thick and heavy, like a shroud smothering every sound, every breath. It tastes of ash and betrayal.
This diamond collar around my neck is choking me more with each passing second and though I tried, I tried and I tried, I cannot get it off. I cannot unclasp it.
I sit in a high-backed chair, my legs drawn up to my chest. My arms are wrapped around them, making myself small, like an island in a sea of his opulent, gilded cruelty.
I don’t look at him.
I haven’t for days.
My eyes trace the patterns in the Persian rug instead, follow the intricate swirls of burgundy and gold until they blur and become something else.
They become the leering lines of a stranger’s face.
My mind keeps flickering to what Mateus gave me; that vial that I have stashed away in the back of the drawer, but Antonio hasn’t left me alone for even a second and I don’t dare risk trying to retrieve it and him then realising what I have.
Antonio moves through the room, his presence a violation of the silence, a disruption I feel in my very bones. He is trying to fill the void his actions created with noise, with things, with the force of his sheer will.
It’s pathetic.
He stops in front of me, and I keep my eyes on the rug.
I’m not allowed to look at Master without permission, am I? Wouldn’t want to break the rules.
“Grace,” he says, and his voice is strained, a wire pulled too tight. It’s the voice he uses when he’s trying to sound reasonable, but is anything but. “Look at me.”
I don’t. My gaze remains fixed on a particular gold thread, following its path.
I feel his hand then, descending toward my shoulder. A gesture that might have once been possessive, claiming, even tender in his twisted way. My body reacts before my mind can. I flinch violently, jerking away from the contact as if his fingers were white-hot brands. A full-body shudder racks me, and I squeeze my eyes shut.
It’s a bad move. A fatal error.
Behind my eyelids, the world dissolves into memory. The feel of the other man’s hands, coarse and unfamiliar; grabbing, groping, claiming what was not his. The smell of his cheap cologne and sweat, a foul cocktail that drowned out the scent of Antonio’s expensive cologne. The brutal, rhythmic thrusting, a violation that tore through more than just my body.
It shattered something fundamental inside me.
And through it all, the audience. I open my eyes, desperate to escape the memory, and they land on him. Antonio. He is watching me, his expression unreadable but his eyes are alive with a dark, voyeuristic fire. He is not disgusted, he is not angry on my behalf. He is interested, he is enjoying the spectacle of his own possession being defiled.
The image is seared onto the back of my eyelids, and I can’t tell if it’s even real anymore. All I can see is Antonio lounging in a chair, one leg crossed over the other, his fingers clutching that damned necklace, watching. Always fucking watching.
“Dammit, Grace.” he snarls, his patience evaporating. My recoil has angered him.
My silence is now a weapon he doesn’t know how to defend against. He strides to the sideboard and picks up a small, velvet box.
He throws it into my lap. It lands with a soft, insulting thud against my thighs.
“Open it,” he commands.
I don’t move. The box sits there, a scarlet pimple on the fabric of my dress.
