by Sabre Rose
If only she knew the truth.
I lay out each of the bottles, tins, and containers and stare at them hopelessly until the creak of the door startles me back to reality.
“You’re not ready?” There is no annoyance in his tone, and inwardly I breathe a sigh of relief.
“I don’t even know what most of this is.” My throat is still raw from the night before, my voice coming out deep and husky.
Sebastian chuckles and picks up one of the bottles, turning it over in his hands. He’s so different from the man he was the night before. “I think we’re going to need some help.”
Pulling his phone out, he presses a number then waits for an answer. “Cameron, ask my father if we can borrow one of his girls and bring her up here, would you?” He’s quiet for a moment then adds, “Daisy. Straight away.”
He seems calm today so I risk asking a question. “Who’s Daisy?”
“Just one of my father’s,” he says, as though I understand.
Coming to stand behind me, Sebastian gathers my hair in his hands and twists it tightly at the top of my head. “I think you should wear your hair up today, don’t you think? It shows off your neck.”
He rests his other hand on my shoulder, dangerously close to the dark marks that match the thickness of his fingers, and reaches out to stroke my skin with his pinkie. His eyes darken and his tongue darts between his lips. A sick feeling of dread rests in the pit of my stomach and I close my eyes, blocking out the reflection of him.
When the door creaks open again, the man who helped Sebastian deceive me walks in, a pretty red-haired girl following in his wake. I narrow my eyes and glare at him as the girl’s eyes skip around the room excitedly.
“It’s so pretty in here!” she exclaims.
Cameron shakes his head almost imperceptibly, warning her to keep quiet. She clamps her hand over her mouth and giggles. Sebastian lets out a groan of annoyance and rolls his eyes, allowing my hair to slip between his fingers and fall back over my shoulders. The sensation makes me shudder.
“We need you to do her makeup. Something bold, something dramatic.”
Daisy’s own face is covered expertly, her lips perfectly framed in pink, her cheeks subtly blushed, her eyes rimmed in darkness, her skin flawless.
She walks over and picks up one of the bottles. “May I?” she asks.
Sebastian nods, giving her permission to start sorting through the products. “I will return in one hour. I expect her to be perfect by then.”
Daisy does a little curtsey in his direction and waits until he walks out of the room before bouncing over to me.
“Hi,” she says happily. “I’m Daisy. Well, that’s not my actual name but it’s what everyone calls me.” She sits herself down on Sebastian’s throne. “What’s your name?”
She seems impossibly young, fifteen, maybe more, maybe less. I wonder why she’s here. What her role is. All Sebastian said was that she was one of his father’s, but surely he didn’t mean she belongs to his father like I belong to him. She seems much too happy for that.
“Mia.”
Daisy looks up at the croak in my voice, her eyes narrowing in on the bruises around my neck. Getting to her feet, she walks over to stand behind me, her hands coming to rest either side of my neck.
“You’re new here, huh?”
I nod and curse the tears that well.
“It’s okay,” she says. “You’ll get used to it. We all take a while to adjust. I’ve only been here for just over a year myself. It’s taken a while.” She smiles sweetly but sadly.
“A year?”
She nods, picking up one of the creams and twisting the cap off. “It’s not that bad once you get used to it.”
She comes to the side and begins to wipe the cream over the skin of my cheeks, the coolness soothing the places Sebastian had struck.
“I don’t want to get used to it.”
She nods knowingly and screws up her nose. “I used to feel the same way, but you’ll change, you’ll see. We all do eventually. You learn to find the good in this place, you learn to adapt.”
“Or you escape.”
She laughs. It’s pretty and I almost smile at the sound of it. “No one escapes.”
Turning away, she drags Sebastian’s throne chair closer and sits herself down, reaching over to apply something else to my skin. Already the redness has faded.
“There are three of us that are Senior’s.” She uses the same term for Sebastian’s father as Ryker did. “You are the first for Sebastian. He’s not a bad guy, quick to anger, sure, but he’s passionate and talented. You’ll learn to appreciate his good aspects.”
I find myself steeling against her words. I will never find the goodness in Sebastian. He’s stolen me away from my life. From everything and everyone I hold dear. I will never forgive him.
“As well as me, there’s Iris and Lily. Yes.” She rolls her eyes. “We’re all named after flowers and no, I don’t know why. Has Junior got a pet name for you?”
“Junior?” I question, bristling at the use of the word ‘pet’.
“Sebastian. Both father and son have the same name, so the family just call them Senior and Junior.” She frowns and not even a wrinkle appears between her brows. “I don’t think Sebastian likes it though. Junior,” she says, “not Senior.”
“He calls me his songbird.” I peer at her closer. “How old are you?”
Twisting the cap back onto the container, she places it on the dresser and picks up something that shows a hint of pink through a clear top.
“I’m twenty, but I know I look younger. I think Senior gets a thrill out of it, the forbidden and all that.” She decides against whatever it is she just picked up after rubbing some over her hand and selects another container. “You sing? Is that why he calls you his songbird?”
I shrug as she blends something into my cheeks, deepening the hollows beneath my cheekbones. “I guess so. I don’t sing all that often, but apparently he heard me and that’s what made him decide I was his. I wish I’d never opened my mouth.”
“Oh, don’t say that. I bet you have a pretty voice.” She falls silent as she studies my face. Deciding against the container in her hands, she picks up another, choosing to work on covering the bruises around my neck. “You’re very beautiful, you know that?”
“So Sebastian keeps telling me.” I don’t hide the bitterness in my tone.
She stops what she’s doing and looks directly at me, lowering her voice to almost a whisper. “Don’t fight. You’ll just make things harder on yourself. For months I fought this life, determined not to let them win, not to give them the satisfaction of accepting this, but the only person I hurt was myself.” She starts rubbing lotion into my neck again. “Lily has been here the longest. She’s the only one that ever escaped.”
I lift my eyes to meet hers in the mirror. “So it is possible?”
She shakes her head, her concentration once again on my skin. “For three years she lived a life in hiding but he never gave up. He hunted her down and dragged her back here. She says that it was more devastating than if she had stayed.”
Content with how the makeup covers my bruises, she moves back to my face, making me close my eyes as she sweeps powder over my eyelids.
“I know it seems impossible for you now, but you’ve got to learn to look for the good. Figure out what Junior wants and how to make him happy. It will make your life here easier.”
She works quicker now, covering my lashes in thick black mascara and highlighting my cheekbones with a brush of shimmer. I grit my teeth, vowing never to become like her, never to accept that this is my life.
“And Sebastian is devilishly handsome, is he not? At least he hasn’t got Senior’s wrinkled old pecker that only works with aid from a little blue pill.” She winks and laughs as her attention turns to my hair. “Did he say how he wanted your hair?”
“Down,” I lie. “He said he wanted it down.”
She nods and reaches into a
box to pull out a curling iron, plugging the cord into the wall socket.
“So, a year?” I prompt, wanting her to keep talking. “You’ll be familiar with everyone that works for them then?”
“Sort of,” she agrees. “Well, the ones that Senior allows to come into our little areas anyway. The three of us live together, on the level directly below you.” At my obvious frown she says, “It’s not so bad. We have beautiful dresses, our food is served to us, we live in a beautiful home even if we don’t get to see all of it.”
I ignore her comments and ask the one thing I want to know. “Do you know Ryker?”
“Senior’s guard? Yeah, I see him around from time to time, but I haven’t seen much of him lately, not for a few weeks now that I come to think of it. Why do you ask? You’re not sweet on him, are you? Because I’ll tell you right now to get him out of your head. You’re Junior’s and no one else’s. He’ll kill you if he thinks you’re keen on someone else. He’ll kill Ryker too.” She leans closer, whispering in my ear. “It’s happened before.”
“He was my trainer,” I say. “I stabbed him in order to get away.”
Her eyes grow wide and her mouth forms a small ‘o’. “You escaped? Then how come you’re still here?”
I let my eyes fall to my lap as she arranges my hair. “Sebastian stole me back.” I flick my eyes toward the mirror in time to catch her knowing look.
“And you want to know if he’s okay?” She peruses the collection of lipsticks, picking up a deep red and motioning how she wants me to hold my mouth by demonstrating with her own.
I nod, trying not to let my desperation for the knowledge to show too much.
“Well, if you didn’t kill him, the Attertons’ would have. They don’t tolerate failure.”
She speaks of killing people so easily, it burns fear into my heart.
CHAPTER FIVE
MIA
“Perfect.” Sebastian circles me. “Simply perfect.”
He doesn’t seem to notice or care that my hair is down; instead he rubs his hands together, his tongue darting between red lips and smiles appreciatively.
“Cameron, take Daisy back to her room. You can bring her back tomorrow to do Mia’s makeup again then.” He never addresses Daisy, only Cameron, his bodyguard, or lackey, or whatever he is. “Come,” he orders me, his fingers urging me to follow.
I hesitate, looking at myself in the mirror and seeing someone else. Someone with perfect makeup and perfect hair. Someone who isn’t me. But then I think of what Daisy said and as much as it pains me, I get to my feet, walking over to take Sebastian’s outstretched hand.
“I am going to give you a tour, would you like that?” He doesn’t wait for my answer as he opens the door, ushering Daisy and Cameron out before him. His skin feels hot against mine, clammy and sticky, and for a moment, a faint swell of hope washes over me that he might be sick. Deadly sick. The sort of sick that leaves him in bed, weak and crippled, unable to do much more than lift his head from the pillow. I smile at the fantasy and follow him out into the dark hallway. Lights are spread evenly along the walls, but they only let off a dim glow and it takes a while for my eyes to adjust. The corridor is narrow with old photos covering the walls, strange shadows cast over their faces. Different versions of Sebastian stare back at me. Sebastian with curly hair and a sweet smile, his pudgy hand wrapped around the reins of a horse. Sebastian a little older, a little more coldness in his blue eyes, staring directly at the camera. Sebastian with his hand resting on the back of a chair where a regal woman with blonde hair sits. Sebastian sitting at a piano, eyes closed, head thrown back and lost to the music. There are so many pictures I lose count as I follow behind him, his hand still hot and sticky in mine.
Pushing through a doorway, we walk down a flight of stairs and along more hallways and through doorways until I’m lost. I wouldn’t even know which direction to head in to go back to my room, or which way leads to freedom. Sebastian talks about his family history and the famous horses that have come from their stables, but I block it all out, my eyes eagerly scanning each open doorway, each passage for a glimpse of the outside. A door. An open window. Freedom.
He stops in front of double black doors, turning to me with a gleam of excitement in his eyes. “Are you ready? This is my favorite room in the entire mansion. One that is solely mine, but now it will be yours too. Only when I’m with you, of course.”
He lets my hand go, and for a moment I think about running, but there is nowhere to run to, and just as quickly as he lets it go, he grabs it again, the doors already pushed open.
“My music room.”
He drags me inside, tugging me behind him as he makes his way to the center of the room. The doors slam shut behind us and my skin jumps. But then I open my eyes again and stare around in wonder. The room is as large as a ballroom and filled with musical instruments, the focus being the grand piano, glimmering darkly under the chandelier, reflecting the teardrops of light. The ceiling is peaked, rising in the center with exposed black beams leading up to the intricate molding, replicating the one on the ceiling of my room but on a much larger scale. The walls are gold and the floor is patterned in blocks of black and white like a chess board. I turn around slowly, taking in the cellos resting on stands, the drum sets arranged in the corner, the violins mounted on the walls, the flutes and brass. There’s even a harp gracing one corner.
“What do you think?” He’s walking around his kingdom, arms held wide, a smile spread across his face. “It’s beautiful, is it not?”
I can’t help the admiration as I stare. It’s a work of beauty, each instrument basking in its own light while joining together with the others to form a masterpiece. “So beautiful,” I breathe.
And for a moment, I forget. I forget why I’m here, what he did to me last night, and just admire the beauty while feeling small and insignificant in the cavernous space.
“This is my passion,” he says, pulling me over to the piano. “This is who I am. What’s inside me.” He lets go of my hands to take a seat, his fingers lacing together and cracking before he touches the keys. “And I know it’s inside you too. It’s what first spoke to me when I listened to you sing. I knew it was there, burning inside you just like it burns inside me. Music speaks to your soul.”
He starts to play, his fingers gracefully floating over the keys, his body swaying as the music surrounds me, filling the space and my mind. The sound is familiar, a classical piece, but I don’t know what it is.
“Do you like Chopin?” He shuffles over and quickly pats the seat, motioning for me to sit beside him before placing his fingers back on the ivory, not missing a beat.
“I’ve heard of him,” I say, sweeping my dress under me as I take a seat beside him.
“You’ve heard of him?” He laughs. “Surely you know more than to have simply heard of him. Do you not recognize this tune? Nocturne, opus nine, number two. It’s very well known.”
His playing grows louder as his fingers pound the ivory before slowing again, working them up the piano until they alternate over the high keys, trilling back and forth before slowly making their way back down and finishing gently. He looks at me expectantly.
“You’re very good.”
“I should be with all the money my mother spent on tutors.” He laughs again.
He’s like a different person inside these walls. Still mysterious and dark, but with a softer side to him. A place I could almost like him.
“But there’s nothing that can beat raw talent and passion. And that’s what you have. That’s what drew you to me and told me you were meant to be mine.”
“But I hardly know anything about music.”
A frown presses between his brows. “That’s not true. I watched you giving piano lessons to that little girl.”
“Libby?” I ask, then curse myself for telling him her name. “She is just a kid I looked after on Friday afternoons while her parents worked. I would look something up online and then teach her. We ha
dn’t got past lullabies.”
His hands find their way back to the piano and the beauty of another familiar song fills the room.
“Debussy,” he says to my unasked question. “Clair de Lune.”
I sit in silence as he plays, wondering how this person so filled with talent and passion could be so cruel to think he could own someone. His body sways with the music and tears well in my eyes at the enchantment of it. His fingers move like magic over the keys and I watch through blurred eyes in wonder at his talent. His eyes open and close, his chest rises and falls with the swell of the song. He’s so lost to the music, he almost looks beautiful. Almost.
When he finishes, we sit in silence, his hands resting on the keys but not moving. The silence is heavy and thick in the absence of sound. Sebastian’s body is pressed close to mine, his warmth seeping into my skin.
“You know,” he speaks quietly, “Mozart once said that ‘Music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.’” He leans close, close enough that his breath caresses my cheek. “Do you feel it? The in between?”
My chin wobbles as I nod in agreement, feeling both trapped and free at the same time.
“Speak!” he snaps.
I jump, startled by the change in him. “Yes…” I pause, wondering what to call him. Sebastian is what comes naturally, the only name I’ve known him by other than my requestor, but Sebastian seems so formal, so forced. “Yes, Junior,” I decide, “I feel it.”
He gets to his feet abruptly, pushing the stool back from the piano and causing me to fall to the polished floor.
“Where did you hear that name?” he hisses, towering over me.
“D—Daisy. She said it’s what everyone calls you.”
There’s such venom in his eyes, I scramble backward on the floor, pushing myself over the smooth surface, my feet getting caught in the folds of red fabric.
“Never call me that again! It is not my name.” He’s stalking toward me, each step echoing off the walls. “I am Sebastian. Not Junior. Junior implies I’m less, less than my father. I despise it. That man is an imbecile in comparison. Nothing but a bastard born into money. You will call me Master, do you understand?”
