Chapter 3

The basement was damp and dark.

This was the second time I'd been locked down here.

The first time was still fresh in my mind.

I'd caught Seraphina sneaking into Julian's bedroom in the middle of the night. I found her in his bed.

She cried and said it was sleepwalking brought on by childhood trauma. She didn't know why her feet had carried her to Julian's room. She just felt safe there. She didn't mean it.

My parents and Julian believed every word.

Julian even told her, gently, that she could come to him whenever she was scared.

Back then I was at the peak of my obsession with him. I wouldn't tolerate a female assistant anywhere near his office. Apart from junior staff, no woman was allowed on the executive floor.

So I slapped Seraphina across the face.

And my parents locked me in this basement.

Seven days. One bowl of plain rice porridge a day.

They didn't let me out until the hunger broke me and I agreed to apologize.

This time, they clearly had no intention of stopping at starvation.

My father walked in with a cane and Julian followed behind him.

"Thirty would have been fair. But Seraphina begged me to go easy on you, so I'm using the switch instead of the belt. That means fifty."

Crack.

The first blow raised an instant welt across my skin.

He hit me a dozen times.

The welts split open one by one.

Every strike after that came with a numb, searing burn.

I remembered them saying Seraphina had begged for the switch.

It had been soaked in something. Pepper water, from the feel of it.

"Apologize to your sister!"

"Are you going to apologize or not?!"

He never got the answer he wanted, so he just kept hitting harder.

After fifty strikes, my entire back and arms were covered in open wounds. The skin had peeled back in raw strips and blood ran down my spine and dripped onto the floor.

I was numb from the pain.

I curled up in the corner and gasped for air.

My father threw the cane on the ground and left.

His last words on the way out were, "Stubborn to the bone."

Julian crouched in front of me.

"Seraphina sent medicine and clean clothes for you. She's never been anything but good to you, Celeste. You're her older sister. I'm about to be her brother-in-law. We should be taking care of her. Why do you always have to make her into the villain?"

"Just apologize and get it over with. Stop putting everyone through this."

He unfolded the clothes Seraphina had prepared for me and laid them over my back.

The fabric touched my open wounds and my entire body seized like I'd been dropped into a vat of salt.

I doubled over and curled into a ball.

"Drama queen. Seraphina turns white every time she's in pain and you don't see her making a show of it."

Julian stood up with a look of disgust and walked out.

I finally managed to catch my breath.

Two more days. I just had to hold on for two more days.