Chapter Five

Nadia managed to skitter her way up a few more floors to the east wing and onto the corridor that led to her room. As soon as she got inside, she shut the door and rested her back on it. She shut her eyes with chest heaving then busted into tears, mentally kicking herself for what she had let happen. As beautiful as the experience had been, she couldn't believe the reality of it. She had molested a chained and helpless man. All because she had been irresponsible enough to get herself intoxicated to the point where she couldn't even make out the difference between reality and illusion. And she felt even more guilty because she had wanted him right from the first moment she set her eyes on him.  She felt terrible at the import of her actions.  

After going through the episodes of her being the literal ‘mean girl’ in high school and then the first two years of college, she figured she had nipped that evil streak in the bud after realizing the hate she carried in her soul for the way her mother was taken from her was perpetually hurting one person – herself. And thereon, she had prided herself to be morally better than the rest of her family. Perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps she was exactly like the rest of her family. Perhaps who she was then was not a phase at all, but who she really was and being evil and decadence were in her DNA. She had gone and done exactly what any of her cousins would have done if they found themselves lusting after any of the house slaves. Her body shook as she cried. 

After crying till her head began to throb, she got up, discarding her clothing one after the other, and went inside her bathroom to have a bath. Scrubbing her skin off of the evidence of the wonderful yet nightmarish night she spent with Angel, she couldn't stop the tears from pouring. She thought she was the most hypocritical person ever. She had always silently judged everyone around her, felt trapped in a world where exploitation and wickedness were the business, and now she had proven she was no better.

Afterwards, she dragged herself to her bed, crawled under the covers and cried yet again until she fell asleep. 

A gentle knock from the door woke her sometime later. 

"Miss Nadia?" her nanny's familiar voice sounded from the other side of the door, muffled by the closed door. 

Nanny Viktoriya–or Nana as she had dubbed her since she was six–must have been worried and decided to come to check on her. She was like a second mother or rather a doting Aunt. Her father had hired the older woman when she was six and fortunately for Nadia, she had been there when her mother was killed by one of her family enemies. Nadia wondered how she would have coped with her mother’s demise, if not for the kind woman. 

Her father had been more concerned about revenge and simply left her to be cared for by the new nanny. Even though she knew the other woman was handsomely paid, she suspected the reason she had stayed was because of her. She cringed when she called her ‘Miss Nadia’ again. She was the one who had insisted she addressed her as such when her tyrannical streak kicked in. 

Nadia hated remembering who that girl was and how cold she had been. She would inherently be grateful that the other woman had had the patience of a saint and condoned all her nonsense until she grew out of it. And when Nadia tried to make her stop addressing her so formally, she stuck to her gun. Nadia thought she would have succeeded if not for the way her family treated hired help in general. It was even worse in her uncle’s household.  Sometimes she wished they had stayed back in their house but then that could mean death. Her family had a cruel and violent history and as a result, there were always enemies at every corner wanting to kill them all off. 

"I'm okay, Nana," Nadia said automatically, feeling vulnerable as she burrowed deeper into the covers. 

“I brought food…”

“I’m not hungry,” she replied but then her stomach rumbled at the claim. The other woman pushed the door open anyway and the aroma of hot, barbecued steak, deep-fried veggies with shrimps and coffee filled the room. She sighed. Her nanny must have thought to bring her favorite meal to entice her. She has always been able to tell whenever she was in a shitty mood.  

"You missed breakfast and lunch. You have been in your room all day, you need to eat something…" she said in protest as she went to place the tray laden with food on the coffee table at the right corner of the room. 

The table with an oversized, cream-coloured reclining chair was set just by a  side glass wall, overlooking a rose garden. She then pulled to the sides the heavy drapes, blocking the natural light, and causing the room to be illuminated with a bright but grey hue of the evening light.  Nadia let out a sigh.  

"Would you like me to run a bath for you?"

"No. I've already taken my bath," she replied, sounding dispirited, “thank you.” 

The other woman came to sit on a small space by her side and raised a wrinkled hand to brush back the locks of hair, falling all over her face. 

"What happened? Did you have a run-in with Daniel again? You know you can tell me…" she said in a gentle, soothing tone. Nadia shivered at the mention of her uncle’s second son. He was the strangest and meanest human she had ever had the misfortune to meet. And worse, he had this uncanny manner in which he looked at her in a somewhat shifty and lascivious way that made her uncomfortable. She hated being in the same room with me and he always did something to make her feel near homicidal. 

"No. It has nothing to do with him. It is me, Nana, I really messed up," Nadia whispered and tears blurred her vision. She sat up and the other woman drew her into a hug. 

"Tell me what happened. It must be bad for you to be like this. Share it with me, perhaps we can fix it."

"I don't know if this can be fixed…"

"Oh, Nadia. Tell me anyway…"

"I did something … bad to one of my uncle's um … slaves. "

"Nadia! Those poor creatures are already going through enough."

"I know…" she replied, her lips trembling. 

"But since you are sorry, instead of beating yourself up, why don’t you seek the person out and apologize.  I'm certain they will appreciate it…"

"You think so?" Nadia asked in a hope-filled tone, skeptical an apology could fix this one.

"I'm positive. People make mistakes. You are human after all. As long as you let this person know you are willing to make amends, they will surely consider letting it go… whatever it may be."

Nadia nodded, thinking of doing exactly that. Now, the problem was, how she would be able to get close enough to speak with Angel. Or have the courage to do it. She couldn't even understand how he happened to be in that room. She heard her uncle kept him and his kind in some underground building a few miles from the house.  And why they needed to chain him was beyond her. She had seen him leaving the house with her uncle and had even seen him in her uncle's study more than once while her uncle spoke with his work friends. Which to her meant he was no danger to the Antonio Rufus family nor was he a mindless, dangerous beast like her cousins drone about. ‘Why then was he chained?’