Eleanor's POV
I thought I had seen the worst of Bianca's ruthlessness and wickedness when she forced me to lick her shoes in that disgusting bathroom. Yes she told me to lick her shoes, she forced my mouth on the tile, I licked poo and a lot of disgusting things.
As soon as she finished dripping in my humiliation, she seized my hair and dragged me through the mansion, ignoring my protests and my shivering body as I stumbled on the icy floors with my bare feet, She really made me suffer.
"You're not finished yet, whore," she spat, pulling me into her big bedroom. "You have something else to clean for me."
I was nearly too weak to stand, yet I forced myself to move, pain running through me with every step. When we reached her room, she flung the door open and pushed me inside.
The disgusting odor of blood hit me immediately.
Then I saw it.
A heap of dirty clothes is on the floor, dark stains of dried menstrual blood staining the fabric.
My stomach twisted violently, the smell was just too disgusting.
Bianca crossed her arms, her lips curling into a wicked smile. "Clean these."
I swallowed hard, shaking my head. "Please… don’t."
Her smile broadened. "Oh, don’t think you can beg, Sinclair." Grabbing one of the drenched, dirty garments, she pressed it to my face before I could react.
The smell soaked into my skin, the fowl scent on my nostrils. I shook, my body sneezing as vomit formed in my throat.
"You wanted to be part of this family, didn't you?" she mocked, leaning in closer. "Prove it."
I gasped for breath, shaking, tears burning my eyes. But she wasn’t finished yet.
She grabbed my chin, forcing my mouth open.
Then she stuffed the bloodied pants inside my mouth, inside my f*cking mouth, and I was forced to taste her menstrual blood.
The taste of blood flooded my senses and reasoning, I couldn't think straight. my life seems to be falling apart, blood so thick and dirty. My stomach turned in horror, my body shaking as I struggled against her grip, but she held me there, shaking softly as I fought to breathe.
"Swallow it," she said.
I tried harder, my eyes rolling back in disgust, but finally, with some mercy, she yanked it out and pushed me to the floor like trash.
"You are absolutely disgusting," she said, wiping her hands on her expensive dress. "Now, wash them all. If I see a single stain, you’ll wish you hadn’t."
Then she shut the door behind her, leaving me there on my knees, shaking, shattered, pained. I cried, hot tears coming from my eyes.
And for the first time in ages…I wished I were dead.
******
After what felt like forever of scrubbing and washing, my hands weak and shaking like dead leaves, I finally left Bianca’s room. My body ached from exhaustion and pain, and my stomach twisted with hunger and terror, but I forced myself to move, desperate for the tiny servants’ quarters where I could finally catch my breath, maybe.
But fate had other ideas. As I turned the corner, I collided with them. Sienna and Camille. Kieran’s sisters.
And the instant their cold look locked onto me, I knew I was about to endure a different kind of torment and suffering.
"Well, well," Sienna said, crossing her arms. "Look at the sad little rat trying to sneak past us."
Camille wrinkled her nose. "Gross, she smells. Did you crawl out of a dumpster, Sinclair?"
I dropped my gaze, holding my dress to keep my hands from trembling. "Please… I just want to leave" A sharp slap interrupted me.
I gasped, my head snapping to the side as pain exploded across my cheek.
Camille tsked, shaking her head. "Who told you that you could speak?"
Sienna laughed, stepping closer. "You really thought you could just leave in this house without consequences?" Grabbing my chin, she forced me to look at her. "You’re nothing, Sinclair. Just a filthy little bastard our brother picked up for entertainment."
I tried to pull away, but her grip tightened.
"Where do you think you’re going?" Camille taunted. "We’re not finished with you."
Before I could react, she threw her sandal at me.
It struck my mouth with such force that I immediately tasted blood.
Pain radiated through my jaw, warm liquid coming down my lips as I collapsed onto the cold floor.
The sisters giggled happily, watching me struggle.
"This is just the beginning," Sienna whispered, standing beside me. "Soon, you’ll wish you had never been born."
Then, like Bianca, they walked away, leaving me bleeding, trembling, and utterly destroyed.
*****
I wasn’t given a moment to rest.
That night, a lavish party took place at the mansion. And I was forced to attend.
Dressed in an elegant gown that wasn’t mine, my bruises barely covered by layers of makeup, I stood at the edge of the grand ballroom, feeling like an outcast in a world that would never accept me.
I tried to blend into the background. But they wouldn’t let me.
As soon as I thought I might catch my breath, Bianca’s voice sliced through the air, filled with feigned innocence.
"Lady Lancaster, I believe I found something… interesting."
All eyes turned toward her as she displayed something small and delicate: a sapphire-studded necklace.
A necklace I had never seen before. Bianca smirked and then turned to me.
"It was found in her room." A collective gasp ran through the hall.
Lady Lancaster’s expression twisted with fury and anger. "You stole from me?" I stepped back, shaking my head in panic. "I didn’t"
"Liar!" The slap came so fast and hot.
Before I could process what was happening, my head swung to the side, my ears ringing from the impact. My body was shaking, and the taste of blood filled my mouth.
But what happened next…
Shattered me. Because it wasn’t just Lady Lancaster who punished me. It was him. Kieran.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he slapped me too, a very hot slap. The force sent me tumbling, my body crashing onto the floor.
The room became silent. Pain ran through me, deep and unbearable. Then
A sharp, painful twist in my abdomen. A sensation so terrible that my body froze.
An overwhelming blood flow spread between my legs, slow and painful.
Then I saw it. Red. Dark. Pooling beneath me.
My hands shaking as they reached for my stomach, realization striking me like a cruel twist of fate.
No. No, no, no Gasps filled the room. Murmurs of confusion and horror.
But all I could hear was my own heartbeat, pounding violently in my skull. Then came the voice. Urgent. Panicked. Kieran.
"Eleanor!" But it was too late. Because the last sensation before darkness consumed me…Was loss….
ELEANOR The darkness swam around me when I opened my eyes.It was frightening, too, to open them and see Lady Lancaster standing alone with her son, Kieran, staring down at me with impersonal looks on their faces. I could have screamed out in horror of how much they made me think of evil—of demons standing by my bedside, with the flowing black clothes they wore and how white their faces seemed. Pale and vampire-like. “You're awake,” Kieran said, as though he needed to remind me.I made a feeble attempt to nod, but my body felt like lead and it made me want to cry. “Why didn't you tell me you were pregnant?” And there, the bombshell dropped. It made my heart start to race, and my skin went damp in that instant. “The girl is weak, Kieran,” Lady Lancaster said, as a smile spread across her lips. “There is no need to ask her such questions, is it not. Besides, the baby from your so-called wife is gone, just like a balloon left off to go on its own.”There was a slight, almost inaudib
ELEANORIt was the oddest thing too, seeing that Kieran Lancaster was a little kinder after that.The slaps from his mother and sisters did not stop, and Lady Bianca Lancaster and her daughters hated me more than ever. She was even more disgusting and hateful after the miscarriage, and her acts, which ranged from mildly disgusting to very disgusting started to reach an all-time high, and, so much of it that I only found solace in telling myself that the woman tiptoed on the edge of madness, and without knowing of it herself. I was the most hated by her in the house, and it was soon clear to everyone when the depraved woman woke all and sundry with her loud cries one morning, yelling for every single breathing thing to come stand around her in a circle. All gathered as she asked, and saw her stand right before a clump of poo, her finger pointing straight at it.“Who did this?” She asked, turning about and looking everyone in the eyes.None claimed responsibility, and none did, because
ELEANORIt was true that Kieran Lancaster proved to be a breath of fresh air a number of times. It also was the one time he called me in to see him in the room. It was something he had never done before, as he was always careful to leave me alone when he wanted me to work inside. I walked in on that day while curious to know what he was about, and sat when he gestured for me to get in the seat.“It's been a year,” he told me, still exuding the aura of power from the very first day.“Already?” I asked him, aware that quite a long time had passed since he bought me as his.“Yes. It has been one year. And I called you to ask which you would choose. To be my slave and stand-in wife for another year, or to leave with what I would give you.”I did not need to think about it. For sure, I wanted my freedom, and I told him of it. He nodded, and pulled out a book that was far too rectangular to be anything but a checkbook.“You have been here for twelve months, and I will be giving you a thous
ELEANOR So much can change and become different in so little time. It was the same for me. Eleanor Sinclair.The first one, for example, was that I was returning to Kieran Lancaster's home after three years of being away from him. I had first come here at night, forced into the interior of his car. Now, I was coming in a car like before, but one with a chauffeur who had a crisp uniform on and held on tight to the steering wheel and stared ahead with maximum concentration.It was the same too, when I got out and started to go inside the house that belonged to the Lancaster. The last time I was here, I had rags for clothes, with each hole a testament to the beating and hitting that I endured as a slave in this very here house. Now, I had better clothes that would make those who saw me rank me among the affluent of society. These had no holes and did not show my skin to people who did not deserve to see it. Quiet swept through the faces of all who saw me too. They must have seen the c
DAMIAN BLACKWOOD I have spent my whole life climbing the ladder of power. It was all I was raised to do from the moment of my consciousness by my father, and from the very moment I understood enough about my environment to know that there was a hierarchy, and men ruled over men in that hierarchy. That those at the bottom suffered while those at the top enjoyed it, and that it took being made of steel to reach the top of that hierarchy and even stronger stuff to remain there. Weak people never remained there for long, but were thrown off for the stronger ones to remain. I have heard from a loudmouth once that I believe this because I had no mother to pamper me, with mine dying while she strove to give me life, leaving me with no one to look up to but my father. Whatever it was, I made sure the lips that uttered those words were struck, that they bled, and I promised they would never speak any words again if such were ever said. For who would dare to speak against my father, who rai
DAMIAN BLACKWOODI like to think of my turning fifteen as a peak for me.Before that, my father wanted me to be fearless, to be strong and to be wise. But on my fifteenth birthday, there was something new for me to see. It was an arc that would change my life forever.That night, he called me—not into his room as he usually would, but into the basement of our house, the Blackwood house. I walked into the darkness without fear and did not shudder when he suddenly spoke in the dark. I had seen the glow of his cigarette and knew who it was.“Damian Blackwood. You must know what your name means…” he spoke up, his voice echoing around the room.I stood, my legs at ease, feeling my muscles drawn taut over my chest as my arms spread from my body. It was how I was raised to stand, to show any staring at me that I felt no fear at whatever would happen.“Yes, Father.” I answered. “You named me Damian because the name means to master, and overcome. Just as your name is Victor, and you have never
DAMIAN BLACKWOOD In the three years that passed, I showed more and more of my Blackwood character.The basement became a second home to me, and I navigated the place so often that I could make my way through with my eyes shut. The other room it ended in was only one of the many Blackwood storerooms to hide our weapons—I was told that it was the oldest of them, connected to the Blackwood family home when it was built a hundred years before, yet it was my favourite. It filled me with a kind of spirit that made me feel as though I was fulfilling history and about to make some of mine. It always had a damp smell, that and something else, which I suspected was the drugs. Still, my father had given me a strict warning never to use drugs. “Anything that causes you to become a slave to it is dangerous,” he would say. “Be it drugs, love, or a woman. A Blackwood is never a slave, but is born to rule.”From the moment of my first kill, I knew I wanted to own it all. My father was not dead yet,
DAMIAN BLACKWOOD Again, the man who whispered to him as I entered the room began another series of silent discussions with him, and I waited for them to finish. A minute later, they were done.“And what is this business proposal of yours, young Blackwood?”I rose and cleared my throat. I wanted to convince him.“I love my father, Victor Blackwood,” I began, and saw the old man before me raise his eyebrows. Still, I was not done. “He is dear to me and has taught me everything I now know. He has raised me to be a man, and I want to do him a favour back. He is growing old and fails to see how many opportunities that our locale, Vieuti, carries. I can see them, however, and I want to use all of them.”“What do you mean?”“Vieuti is a place that has been home to the Blackwoods for years. We rose from among them to serve them, and have carried out their murders and brought them the drugs they want for their euphoria. The only thing is, my family has sold the same kind of drugs for the pas
VINCENT MOREAU The time then came when the Spider found the web he had cast over Paris a bit too small.Something about the Parisian Mafia felt minor and small scale. Nothing much except bank robberies here and there, and a few drugs being sold about. I thought that if I could play the same game somewhere else, I would be far bigger. So I gathered all that I could and moved to America. In Paris, my network had become intricate, but it was limited as well.It struck me that I wanted more power, and a delicate web spun across petty thieves, small gangs and their occasional rivals was nothing. As far as I was concerned, the city’s underworld had grown stale—or I had rather grown past it—and its opportunities had become too predictable. I wanted to be bigger and better. I wanted to be a legend.In America, with its bawling population and rising powers, I thought I was promised a larger river to cast my net over. The continent called to me like the gold rush—a haven of men with greed and
VINCENT MOREAU I would earn the name ‘The Spider’ three years after that, when I turned twenty.It was mostly because I learned the one thing my father did not. To kill. The test of the story was because of something I did, something that brought my name to the Parisian slums. One lesson I learned just as early was that people liked smart people. When you did things that would ordinarily not come to their minds, they liked you and lived in admiration of you. For the gangs, they thought I was smart because I knew everything about everybody. I knew who was plotting to kill his boss. I knew who had done something to attract the Police. I knew who was sleeping with who’s woman. I knew who was going to die next.It made me highly covered, indeed, and in danger of death all the time. They would want to sneak up on me and beat what they wanted to know out of me, which was why I had to learn two skills I found extremely important.How to escape, and how to kill. I made money from both.I r
VINCENT MOREAULooking at Damian Blackwood as he told me about the problems that had arisen between himself and his wife, telling me the details just as he had from the very first instance of their saddening scenarios, I knew I would like him.Oh… do I need to introduce myself as Vincent Moreau, his friend?Maybe tell you a little about myself too…Paris is easily one of the most beautiful cities in the world, so they tell me, but it is hard to say it as a Frenchman myself, especially as one born in the densest slums of Paris, where the eyes refuse to see and the air stinks of rot and every shadow hides a blade. It was where I realised that watching my father, Édouard Moreau, was my first lesson, and it showed me how life chewed up hope between those rugged, closely packed houses we lived in. He had been a smuggler without much traction—a small-time criminal that always went chasing the next sourcd of his jobs—cigarettes, booze, fake watches, whatever he could move. For the longest t
DAMIAN BLACKWOOD The more I thought about it, the angrier I got with myself.And the more I thought about it, the more I started to despise Eleanor. She was a villain seeking control over me, and I was determined to stop her. The day then came when I found her holding up one of my shirts and inspecting it, her hands trembling. The brown stain on it caught my eye, and we both knew it was dried blood, and it was from a human. “Damian,” she began, the tears already gathering in her eyes so that they sparkled.“What?” I asked, fixing an eye on her. “We talked about this,” she said, in a manner that made it look like I was a child who needed correcting, and not a man who had been escaping death for so long. “We’re going to have children who need to be kept safe—”“Or who will learn how to keep the Blackwood name high, Debbie,” I shot back, stepping closer. “Like me. I killed my first man at fifteen and have lived on the edge ever since. I built everything you see around you with blood.
DAMIAN BLACKWOOD At first, the world was mine. Then, and all of a sudden, it wasn't.It started with rumours of a plot against me, and from the ones I expected in the least, from the eldest of the three Black grandchildren Victor Black had left in my care when he died. I had allowed them to have the rights to their property piece by piece and as they advanced in age, and cared for them as I would have with my own siblings. Yet, the eldest of them, Wesley, had somehow nursed hatred and resentment for me all that time, even to the point of wanting to take me captive.Someone must have advised him against it, seeing that I would not be easily taken because I soon set a number of spies on him and the influx of information soon changed. He was no longer setting his eyes on me, deeming me too big for him to catch. Next, he set his sights on the one person he thought he could take to get at me. My wife, Eleanor.I prepared well for him, setting a few men to watch over Eleanor, and asking t
ELEANOR SINCLAIR We moved—myself and the dogs—to the Blackwood home, where I was forced to swallow a bitter truth. I would never get my husband back. He became more distant and started to change after that. It was heartbreaking to watch him go even farther from me, to receive even less attention from him. His kisses became quick and hurried, and our lovemaking became so infrequent that I found myself driven towards the edge of madness.But the climax of everything would come the one evening I found a blood-stained shirt hidden in the laundry basket. It was hidden away, but I found it anyway, and my hands could not remain steady as I held it up, looking at the broken stain in horror. It broke my heart to realise that I was too late. Too late to see him for who he was. To see that he would not change. To see that it was what being a Blackwood meant, to him.At the very moment, he walked in and past me in the most casual way.“Damian,” I called out to him, holding up the shirt so he w
ELEANOR SINCLAIR That moment was a disappointing one for me. I called the man he wanted me to call, and he soon appeared within minutes. I watched my husband give orders to the men who came with the one I called, and watched as they rushed to do them with a dutifulness that made them almost robotic. From inside the house, the dogs were barking, and the whole place had almost become a bedlam of noise.“John, Davis, both of you take him to the warehouse. I'll soon be there with you.”“Romeo, Julius. Both of you stay and watch my wife. Not a scratch must come to her.”“Tim… go get everything ready.”“Ellie,” he huffed, turning towards me as I stood still, watching everything before my eyes. His shoulders slumped a little bit as he looked at me, and he came towards me and to where I stood. “Romeo and Julius will be watching over you. They are my good men, and will not harm you. You will not even know that they are there, and you will be safe with them.”His voice was low in his throat,
ELEANOR SINCLAIR Six months later, Damian and I were married.The six months after that? Blissful heaven.Within a year I had gone from Eleanor Sinclair to Eleanor Blackwood, from Miss to Mrs, from unmarried to happily married, from poor to rich. I could swear that I now had all I could have ever dreamed of, but as everything turned positive for me, it went the other way around for Damian.I continued to live in Grandfather's house and as the housemaid, taking care of the place. At times, Damian would come to me there and the other times, I would go to him. Whatever it was, we spent all our nights together. It was our one rule—never going to bed without one of us seeing the other. I kept to this rule of ours faithfully, and so did he. Until the night my husband came to me and felt eerily like the old Damian Blackwood.The grumpy, unfeeling Damian. His face was turned up in a scowl that only lessened when he saw me, and I thought I could wipe it off completely. So I attended to my ma
ELEANOR SINCLAIR I think love is a creeping feeling.It comes upon you like a thief in the night, and remains with you like your shadow—unnoticed, but realer than fiction. It holds sway over you like a powerful spell, and causes you to make decisions under its full influence. And all the time, it goes unnoticed.Another thing I think is that Grandfather knew that I was in love with Damian. When I did, I did not know. Maybe it had to have seized me on the day that I ruined his shirt in the most egregious of ways, so that I was sure of two things. That I had permanently ruined that shirt and that I was going to lose my job. I do not know about the first, but he graciously saved me from the second and even put the manager down. Maybe it was because I spent days and even months after that waiting for him to come again. ‘So I could serve him better than the first time,’ I told myself, but I knew deep inside that it was more than that. That it was just because I wanted to be seen by him.