ELEANOR SINCLAIR It was as I lay in bed that I realized that I did not know what he would pay.The thought made me sit up in bed, staring into what felt like endless darkness. A sort of modesty held me from wanting to ask, and I decided that I would hold back until the end of the month, when I would decide if the work was worth doing for as long as I could, something I would do until I had a better job, or something I would not do past the month.Before I knew it, I was waking up to the sun.A new day had come.**First, I moved to work in the living room, cleaning, dusting, and wiping while waiting for him to wake up, which he did in an hour, and came to the living room in quite a dazed manner. At first, he froze when he saw me and only moved when I greeted.“Oh, Eleanor. You almost gave this old man a heart attack.” he laughed in a manner peculiar to old people while going to sit on the sofa. “I forgot that I had you for a while, and wondered who was being so confident in my living
ELEANOR SINCLAIR It was difficult to pretend not to know Damian Blackwood. Everyone knew, and for people like me who were next to nothing, having to serve such a big shot felt like being sent off earth. My mind recounted all I had heard of him—how there were formal, government officials in Vieuti and how he was the single, unofficial ruling force. He reeked of success, and though I had also heard that he was not averse to killing those who made things difficult for him, he looked so solemn when I saw him that I almost could not believe it. It was even hard to think about. The management had chosen me to serve him because they decided I was the most experienced, but experience mattered less before him.I moved towards his table with the bottle of wine that he ordered—clearly some alcoholic vintage beverage I knew was way out of my class—and I knew I had to be careful with it. All of these things made my palms sweaty as I went even closer to where he sat, and I felt less of myself as
ELEANOR SINCLAIR The only thing was that his eyebrows furrowed as he looked at me.“Why do you look so familiar?” He asked.“Because I poured some wine on you once, in a restaurant I was serving in. You made a joke out of it and told the manager that you wanted to see me on your next visit. I could say you saved my job with those words, but never allowed for a next visit.” “What restaurant is that?”I told him the name, and he laughed as the memory came rushing into his head.“Oh. I remember you… not exactly your name, but I think I remember the occasion,” he answered in a tone that made it clear that he was not as intent in speaking to me as I was to him. “I can't remember your name, but I did think of it after a while.”“What a miracle. You know each other.”“She knows me.” Damian smiled. “It's beautiful to see her again in any case. Do you still work at the restaurant?”“The funniest thing happened, Damian. Tell him the story, Eleanor.”.“Me?”“Who else? You saved me and deserve
ELEANOR SINCLAIR It was weird when the car came to a stop in front of a warehouse.“I thought we were going on a date?”A smug smile came on his face, and I thought it made him look cocky. It made him handsome too—not that he had ever been ugly, but there were people who had so many outstanding characteristics that drew your attention that you could not focus on any single one of them. That was Damian Blackwood. He was so many things rolled in one that it was almost unfair to simply think of his handsomeness and leave it there. He looked that handsome too, when he burst into a small round of laughter, his eyes taking me in. “I don't go on dates. The only dates I know are the ones marked down on my calendar for my money.”This confirmed it to me. Damian Blackwood was weird.“I did say I was going to show you something though. Come in with me and see.”“It's a warehouse.” I reminded him.Without another word, he opened his car door and went out, leaving me to decide on my next step. I
Eleanor's POVSLAP!The impact and sound of Damian’s palm hit my cheek with such force that I tumbled backward. For a moment, my vision became blurry, and a strong pain ran through my face. The world around me turned around, the big chandeliers above turning into streaks of gold. Gasps filled the ballroom, followed by a suffocating and usual silence that felt like a heavy weight pressing down on me.I pressed my fingers to my burning cheek, the sting only adding to my pain. While my ears rang from the blow, tingle tingle, the pounding of my heart was even louder. This couldn’t be real. This couldn’t possibly be happening to me.Damian Blackwood, my husband, my love, my everything,g stood before me, his gaze filled with cold, unyielding fury, just like that of a dagger."You ungrateful whore! You bastard" he roared, his voice moving through my entire being.I recoiled at the venom in his words. My lips twisted, trying to defend myself, but my throat felt dry and my mind was a blank and
Eleanor's POVI woke up to a sharp pain all over my body. A piercing, strong, heart-wrenching pain ran through me like wildfire. My arms lay motionless and unmoved. My legs felt as though they were made of lead and steel. My mouth was dried, and my lips cracked and were bleeding profusely.I attempted to blink, yet the world remained an unstable haze of shadow and dim light. The ache in my head was so overwhelming that I thought for a fleeting moment I might be dead by now.But I wasn’t. As much as I wished I were.The instant my vision sharpened, I saw them. And that’s when hell truly began….******I found myself sleeping helplessly on a strong concrete floor, my hands were tied behind me, my body weakened from hunger and exhaustion. The odor in the air was unbearable sweat, urine, poo, something putrid and really irritating.And then I saw them. Three men.Filthy, obese, ugly, stupid men.Their gaze ran over my body like insects, their laughter low and really disgusting."Finally a
Eleanor's POVI didn’t go down without a fight. I kicked and screamed, struggling against the chains restraining my wrists as Vincent’s dogs dragged me down the shadowy hallway. The iron cuffs bruised my skin, the chains twisting with each step.But that didn’t matter. They had taken everything from me. They would not break my spirit. Whatever lay ahead, they would pay for their actions, they would surely pay.******The dark and shabby underground chamber was filled with the scent of cigars and pricey cologne. Heavily furnished, with expensive curtains and caged chandeliers casting sinister shadows over the faces of influential men gathered to bid.I had heard rumors of such place before, a place where humans are being sold. Where women were treated as mere objects, like pieces of trash.Where predators in tailored suits drink expensive whiskey while bargaining on human lives. At the heart of it all stood Vincent Moreau, that bastard, the man who destroyed me.He remained beside me,
Eleanor's POVI had hoped that my torment would stop once I was removed from Vincent's presence and cage. I never knew that more suffering and beating awaited me. I briefly thought that Kieran Lancaster might be my way out of a nightmare, my way out of severe punishment and bitterness, but I was mistaken. I was really wrong, so utterly mistaken.The mansion was really beautiful, with white designs, endless marble corridors, and fine chandeliers that shone like diamonds. It looks like a scene out of a fairytale in movies, yet to me, it felt like just another prison, a place where I didn’t fit in, a place where I looked like a dog, maybe. As soon as I entered, a deep sense of unwelcomeness ran over me, and I knew instantly that my suffering had just begun.I had not even gotten into the house before a loud sound of heels echoed carelessly down the hall like a drum, followed by a voice that reeked with cold hate.“So this is what you brought home?”I slowly turned my head, my body shakin
ELEANOR SINCLAIR It was weird when the car came to a stop in front of a warehouse.“I thought we were going on a date?”A smug smile came on his face, and I thought it made him look cocky. It made him handsome too—not that he had ever been ugly, but there were people who had so many outstanding characteristics that drew your attention that you could not focus on any single one of them. That was Damian Blackwood. He was so many things rolled in one that it was almost unfair to simply think of his handsomeness and leave it there. He looked that handsome too, when he burst into a small round of laughter, his eyes taking me in. “I don't go on dates. The only dates I know are the ones marked down on my calendar for my money.”This confirmed it to me. Damian Blackwood was weird.“I did say I was going to show you something though. Come in with me and see.”“It's a warehouse.” I reminded him.Without another word, he opened his car door and went out, leaving me to decide on my next step. I
ELEANOR SINCLAIR The only thing was that his eyebrows furrowed as he looked at me.“Why do you look so familiar?” He asked.“Because I poured some wine on you once, in a restaurant I was serving in. You made a joke out of it and told the manager that you wanted to see me on your next visit. I could say you saved my job with those words, but never allowed for a next visit.” “What restaurant is that?”I told him the name, and he laughed as the memory came rushing into his head.“Oh. I remember you… not exactly your name, but I think I remember the occasion,” he answered in a tone that made it clear that he was not as intent in speaking to me as I was to him. “I can't remember your name, but I did think of it after a while.”“What a miracle. You know each other.”“She knows me.” Damian smiled. “It's beautiful to see her again in any case. Do you still work at the restaurant?”“The funniest thing happened, Damian. Tell him the story, Eleanor.”.“Me?”“Who else? You saved me and deserve
ELEANOR SINCLAIR It was difficult to pretend not to know Damian Blackwood. Everyone knew, and for people like me who were next to nothing, having to serve such a big shot felt like being sent off earth. My mind recounted all I had heard of him—how there were formal, government officials in Vieuti and how he was the single, unofficial ruling force. He reeked of success, and though I had also heard that he was not averse to killing those who made things difficult for him, he looked so solemn when I saw him that I almost could not believe it. It was even hard to think about. The management had chosen me to serve him because they decided I was the most experienced, but experience mattered less before him.I moved towards his table with the bottle of wine that he ordered—clearly some alcoholic vintage beverage I knew was way out of my class—and I knew I had to be careful with it. All of these things made my palms sweaty as I went even closer to where he sat, and I felt less of myself as
ELEANOR SINCLAIR It was as I lay in bed that I realized that I did not know what he would pay.The thought made me sit up in bed, staring into what felt like endless darkness. A sort of modesty held me from wanting to ask, and I decided that I would hold back until the end of the month, when I would decide if the work was worth doing for as long as I could, something I would do until I had a better job, or something I would not do past the month.Before I knew it, I was waking up to the sun.A new day had come.**First, I moved to work in the living room, cleaning, dusting, and wiping while waiting for him to wake up, which he did in an hour, and came to the living room in quite a dazed manner. At first, he froze when he saw me and only moved when I greeted.“Oh, Eleanor. You almost gave this old man a heart attack.” he laughed in a manner peculiar to old people while going to sit on the sofa. “I forgot that I had you for a while, and wondered who was being so confident in my living
ELEANOR SINCLAIR The one thing I would find out quickly was that if this old man's home was the beginning of a path for me, then I could have as well said it was beginning with dogs. He had had enough of them rushing towards us, and two of them bounced around me. I was not the best person with dogs I didn't know, but none seemed intent on harming me, so I tolerated them. “Come in, Eleanor,” he called to me, and I followed him as he entered the house and sat down in it, plopping in the chair. I sat in the one opposite him, my mind aware that I was in a different house from everything I knew. The air smelled faintly of wood polish and dog fur—I even thought I could see the fur moving about in the air, and the furniture looked like it had been collected over decades, with a kind of worn dignity. A look showed me a grandfather clock ticking in the corner, the pendulum swaying with a side-to-side rhythm that my eyes were compelled to follow.When I could draw my mind from the clock, my n
ELEANOR SINCLAIR I could have sworn that the old man had frozen to death when his prized gold seller lunged to attack me. He was shaking like a reed when I saw him and needed a reassuring hand on his shoulder from one of the crowd standing around us to be touched out of whatever had taken hold of him. Not far from us, the seller was dragged away, and I could only hope that it was the last time I was going to see him. His threats rang too loud in my head, and the look in his eyes, as I recalled them, seemed too wild for me to ever want to see him again. “What was that all about?” A young man who had come close to us asked, coming from nowhere and with genuine concern written all over his face.I looked at his face and observed it to make sure he was safe and to remember it if it was not. Vieuti was the last place to trust a random passerby, as you could be speaking to a criminal on the run from the police so fondly without knowing if you were any less careful. “I saw him trying to s
ELEANOR SINCLAIR I still think of how I met Damian Blackwood through his grandfather.Our first contact was when I served his coffee in the café I was working at the time. He appeared to be a jolly old man—the smile and extra tip he gave me warmed me up so that I ignored the other man who sat next to him. He called me for a second order, and as I turned the hot liquid into his cup for the second time, I tried to listen to them. My eye caught the other man's grin and I thought that there was something off about him. After that, my eyes moved to his hands and I saw what they held onto.It was a gold chain with a small pendant fashioned to look like a dog. I found it hard to understand why he would want a chain made of gold, but saw that it really did have an effect on the old man, who the other man now handed it to. His hands shook so much I could not tell whether it was for joy or for his age, and his expression softened with a mix of nostalgia and longing, highlighting how much he
DAMIAN BLACKWOOD By the time I was twenty-five, I was at the top of the ladder.I had survived a number of assassinations without cuts and made so much money that my next goal was transitioning all the Blackwood assets into legal businesses. My father had retired, leaving everything in my hands—he had done it since I turned twenty—and Michael Black had been dead for four years. I mourned his death after learning so much from him, as we had grown so close that whispers started to go around about him being my true father. Those whispers became even louder when I was one of the first and few at his deathbed, and he went into the afterlife after leaving me a 20% share in his will, an equal amount to the shares he left his own biological children. When he was asked about it, he said:“This one is my son. Did you not know he would have been my grandson if I let his father marry my Vanilla?”All he asked of me was that I watch over his other four, to keep them from harm.“I trust you, Dami
DAMIAN BLACKWOOD A week would pass since that meeting with Michael Black for something to happen.Within that time, I felt that I had gone several steps up the ladder of power, and the world was going to be mine. The alliance I had forged between myself and the Blacks was the talk of every corner, and my name, Damian Blackwood, was whispered with a mix of awe and resentment as was reported. They said that at eighteen, I had climbed higher than most men twice my age. That was when I saw why I needed Michael Black's blessings and advice. The alliance had allowed for me to tighten my hold on the fiends in Vieuti, and with Michael Black giving me so much priority that he made sure my supplies were on time, I was tightening my grip on the neck of the competition. For us Blackwoods, the men worked tirelessly under my instructions, loyal to me not just because of the Blackwood name but because I’d proven myself. Before I knew it, I was in control of half of all Blackwood properties. Just