Page 157 of Chandelier Sin
I’d believed they were the enemy—because that’s what I’d been told.
I hoped Atticus would never hear of this session. Shame filled me up to the brink, spilling over, like tears threatening to fall.
I will not cry.
I would not show them that they’d got to me.
I sat quietly with my hands in my lap, feeling more vulnerable than I had ever felt, filled with regret for losing what small power I had come to grasp over the years.
An illusion.
Aemon wanted me to be utterly humiliated. No one escaped his wrath. Not even me.
The door opened and in strolled well-dressed guests wearing the kind of masks that revealed they’d been invited down from the sixth floor. Aemon and Jewel followed them in.
Jewel turned on the overhead light and I felt a sickening wave of panic rush over me—evoking a stark memory.
At eighteen, I’d been auctioned off to Aemon on the day we’dfirst met. And now I recalled it happening in a similar setting to this. Aemon—the suave older man in the dark suit. That night had been so similar, with a multitude of faces staring back at me. Strange men were ready to bid on the girl kidnapped from a bar. My first night out with friends had turned disastrous.
During those years, Aemon had been all I’d known.
And there he was, the man who’d saved me that night from falling into the arms of goodness knows what, taking a seat on one of two high-backed chairs.
He appeared dead behind his eyes; the look he gave when he was in that dark place. The atmosphere matched his demeanor.
In here, no one would hear me scream.
“Who will it be?” I whispered to no one in particular.
They ignored me, merely chatting amongst themselves. To draw out my fear, perhaps, and enhance my punishment.
I tried to focus on anything but the guests taking their seats—those who were permitted to observe my punishment. Their masked faces made this even more sinister.
Remember how you feel. This is what they are doing to those with no power, forcing them to perform against their will.
I’d been part of this.
And now that I knew the truth, there was no unseeing it. Atticus had opened my eyes to what really went on here. The lavish walls of my existence had been torn down by a stranger who I’d fallen for.
There was no going back.
Keeping my gaze low, I tried not to look at the manacles lying at my feet, fearing I’d soon have my ankles shackled. Adrenaline spiked through my veins, providing clarity. I’d always being told how to behave. How to act.
Thiswas the final blow to my self-esteem.
Despite Aemon’s mask, I knew he was garnering a dark pleasure from my suffering.
This was his warning for me never to step out of line again.
Jewel took her place beside him. I imagined her smug expression behind her mask. I knew she was already enjoying my predicament.
There had been a time when I could have eliminated her from Pendulum. Before she became an integral player. Her rise had seen my fall. She’d found her way into his favor using her sexual prowess, providing the pleasures he constantly craved.
I tried to focus on anything but them, dissociating as I always did when life became impossible to bear.
Aemon pushed to his feet and closed the space between us.
He reached out for my hands so he could hold them. “You look divine.”
