I walk the silent corridor of the stone tomb, not seeing another soul, which is around a gridiron-sized circular length. I’m carrying a bag of things to attend to Whisper.
Somebody had to pay for Santana’s insubordination. Cezar bided his time, waiting for Whisper to wake up, giving her no breathing space before laying his law down. Santana broke the rules. She had been given the role of flight hostess for deliveries and had lasted nearly as long as me, but I knew her time was up after this upcoming event.
Whisper had to know straight up that escape was punishable by death, and somebody always had to pay for another’s fuck up. It was the balance of scales in his eyes.
I am not naïve. I am Cezar’s first courtesan, and I won’t be his last. His insane kingly-role-playing needed to be fed, and so the position of courtesan and assassin was recently born.
At least I can stop the other women from being violated until I can no longer protect them, and that is when my soul turns another shade of black. I take no joy in fulfilling his commands, but I too have a role to play.
I haven’t had to cut any of the other women, just this one. She may have come to us battered and shot, but she is strong-willed and that is dangerous. I saw her determination to survive written all over her face. He saw me in her when I had first arrived at one of his lairs. I was strong, determined not to become a victim, just like he read in her defiant eyes. He cut my tongue out to teach me a lesson, and I’ve folded to his every whim from then on.
I became a machine.
I’ve killed for him.
I am a shell to be fucked.
Every time I do his bidding, a bit more of my true self dissolves away, never to return, but I am unable to stop without being taken down.
I am trapped in a vicious cycle.
I am allowed to freely move around The Pen area when he chooses, this being one of those times, because there is no escape for me. All exits are locked with security-coded panels. Cezar takes no chances.
The other girls here have already been given their information booklets. I can’t teach them with speech. They needed to study them and learn why they are here and their part in this contorted game of Cezar’s.
Their heads have been filled with promises of freedom, and they are all willing to believe it, because they’re all in survival mode. Hope will keep them in line, keep them obedient and submissive.
All I have to do is plan the event and let Cezar know what I need, and he gets it sorted for me. His outside persona has no ties to this hidden world.
I’ve planned one event before this one. Filip and Cezar used to plan them, but he decided a woman’s touch was needed to take it to the next level. I had to perform or be executed, because he can’t really bring in an event planner.
This upcoming event has to be more spectacular than my last, and worthy of the over-the-top money these rich, wicked fuckers fork out, or I’ll be signing my death warrant sooner than later. Cezar will not be made a fool of.
All the girls have to do is look beautiful and tempting on the night of the event and let the best man reap his reward.
Simple, right?
Not so much. They haven’t been told the truth. They think they are going to be pretty things to be admired and not touched.
The not-knowing is far better than the knowing.
I am unmasked here while the men hide like cowards, most of their face hidden from the women’s eyes. They are to look imposing and dangerous, and I am to look like you can trust me until I am ordered to do otherwise. There will be no fictional ending where they walk away with a happily-ever-after, with me as their comic book superhero.
Not this time.
That fucked up information booklet I coerce them into signing their name on the dotted line for their services and their release is all a ruse, but they are all too scared not to sign.
They badly want to believe they will survive.
They believe in me.
I am their hope.
Instead, I am their damnation.
When Cezar decides it is time to merge back into his other self, revisit the outside world and regain his respectable place in the business world, it is then my time to perform.
They don’t even know I’m coming for them. They think their contract is fulfilled and Cezar is going to grant them their freedom, because they’ve played by the rules of the booklet. They haven’t been able to identify him or his sentinels due to the masks, so they convince themselves they can survive their ordeal.
Never.
I was granted one boon. It’s his way of caging any thoughts I have of rebelling. I’m allowed to choose the method for their demise, and I choose death by a lethal injection. It’s the best I can do for them. I wait until each girl is asleep, drugged into a carefree slumber by a sedative administered in their last drink, and then I end them, mercifully and without fear or torture.
I am a silent murderess in the night, handing their souls one-by-one to the Grim Reaper. I say a silent prayer for them and their families while I wait for their heart to stop, telling them each how sorry I am for my part. Knowing I am not forgiven.
These deaths are on my head. They all trusted me. I was their mistress who didn’t lay a finger on them, but I was deceitful. I was almost a friend to them, as their minds became more attuned to Stockholm syndrome, the feelings of trust or affection felt in some cases by a victim towards a captor.
I play my role well.
Cezar would have handed them off to Kane, who had previously been the one to dispose of the girls, if I hadn’t accepted my role as assassin. He would again be allowed to take great pleasure in draining the blood from their bodies while torturing them lifeless, and I too would be executed violently. I’ve made myself temporarily useful in Cezar’s eyes. I’m an asset.
I make their short life in captivity as comfortable a lie as I can. Every girl in The Pen receives two coloring books and a packet of crayons and fine line markers. The crayons, she can keep at the end of each day, but the markers are taken from all the girls, counted, and returned each morning, because we can’t have anybody making a weapon out of them. I also sharpen their crayons daily and must return the sharpener to Filip or one of the other sentinels at the end of each day. The razor part could be used to slit their wrists or my own, and Cezar can’t have that. Everything is always accounted for. I too am left with only crayons every night.
A man like Cezar leaves no untrustworthy loose ends that can warn the world of an unidentifiable evil creature that exists, although I have been the recent exception.
Filip taught me how to fight. He trained me until I became as much an equal as I could become, weighing much less than him. I’m now strong, but he can still kill me, because he’s built to survive a bullet train head-on.
When I’m not being beaten to a pulp until I’ve learned to defend myself and fight back, I’m with Cezar, slowly losing myself as I’m sexually abused, my body debased.
I am under no illusions. I know I have a use-by date. I have a goal to take down the sons-of-bitches involved. I have been taking mental notes of everything. I’ve been searching for a way to escape this nightmare I’ve been thrown into, but it appears impossible.
I dream of escaping into the real world and revealing this man and his operation. I pray every night that it will come true and there will be enough of me left inside this hardened shell to try to bring justice for the lost lives. It’s the only thing that keeps me going in here, or I would have turned one of those lethal injections on myself a few months ago, if it weren’t for a sentinel watching me closely administer it.
I’ve been made to do very bad things, and deep down I know I couldn’t live with myself on the outside, even if I were to be set free. My soul is marked for death, and I’ve made my peace with this. The vile things this man is getting away with and all the evil bastards paying to enjoy it... somebody has to bring it all crumbling down.
I have to believe it is possible.
I reach Whisper’s room and am about to open the door, when it swings open and my face is smashed against Mathias’s hard, muscular chest as he finishes muttering to himself. All I can think for a second or two is how nice he smells of soap and masculinity, and then he steps back from me and my bag falls to the floor.
I look up at him, although his face is partially covered, he is a handsome man. He’s tense and wired, growling an apology as he gathers up the bag, shoves it into my hands, and then pushes past me. I look to my right, and he’s storming away, his back rigid.
I know I don’t have any allies among the sentinels, nobody I could trust to turn on Cezar, but this new man, Mathias, intrigues me. I am wary of him and pay him no visible attention, but I have watched him these past few days, and he isn’t like Filip, or Kane. I don’t have a clear read on him, but I sense he is different. Mathias isn’t deliberately cruel. He follows orders, only. Yet Cezar trusts Mathias enough to bring him into his inner sanctum, which is saying a lot, because the man is paranoid about the secrecy of his wicked life.
Mathias must have done a lot of impressive bad things to raise his profile to get Cezar’s attention and be welcomed into the fold of sentinels. I need an ally in here, but how can I trust somebody who has worked their way up the food chain to become a sentinel? I can’t.
I shut the door, place the bag on the bed, and open it up, getting out a medical kit, coloring books, black yoga pants—without the drawstrings, in case the girls get any bad ideas—a white tank top, and a plain fleece hoodie.
Whisper’s body language is that of a petrified statue. Fear keeping her immobile. What just happened with her and Mathias?
I brush the thought aside, because it is not for me to know, and yank on her legs without warning, moving her body down until she is lying flat. The last time I was here with her, I hurt her badly and she doesn’t trust me, but she doesn’t fight me.
She is a quick study.
I grab her face and motion with my own mouth for her to open up. She complies. A torn, bloody, swollen lump of mutilated muscle stares back at me, and I get to work. She doesn’t make a peep, but the silent tears escaping her sad eyes tell me enough. I was once, not that long ago, in her exact situation, scared out of my mind and spitting up blood.
I had been stolen.
I was once Ruby Rose.
But I had to leave Ruby behind and become Rose.