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Otto

After the party, the noticeable anguish set in. Day after day, Victoria stayed in her room, waiting to be taken to some place where she definitely wouldn't want to be.

She scrutinized every corner of the room, contemplating finding some object that could serve as a weapon.

As the days passed, she found it strange that everything was so calm, considering they seemed to be working on many parallel projects — not to mention criminal ones.

She looked out into the garden every day, seeing the flowers harvested in her favorite time of year: spring. Some flowers were picked, others discarded for having some defect or bugs. Others were still blooming. Victoria found it curious that, at the same time, as some lives were being generated, others were being rooted or discarded. And that's how she felt, like an object about to be discarded.

She was aware that she was alive because she had some usefulness for the Mazzini, but she feared what that unknown quality might be.

And from the nature of the conversation she overheard, she knew it involved one of the seven — and most coveted — deadly sins: lust.

This new club, still with an unknown name, would serve men and women, prominent members of the family that ran the Mafia Capital, to explore desire in dirty and perverse ways they could imagine.

Fetishes, paraphilias, whatever they needed, they would have at their feet, literally.

The bodies that would work in the place would serve solely and exclusively to satisfy all the desires these people might have. They are not souls, consciousness, or emotions; they are just bodies. Objects of desire and pleasure, displayed in a showcase to be used as they prefer.

Just thinking about the possibility made Victoria's stomach churn. Her hands were sweaty, and her body had chills. Contemplating the possibility made her remember when Carl, one of the henchmen, tried to rape her on her first day.

She was completely debilitated, dirty, and unable to defend herself. But that was exactly what excited him, and considering that other people felt the same, was too sick to be considered. Unfortunately, it was real.

The feeling of power and domination over a body that had lost its rights was intensely seductive for other people who shared a sick mind.

It was something dark and difficult to process, but Victoria couldn't help but think about it after the experience she had. She felt so grateful for Damiano entering that bathroom, and at the same time, she felt repulsed seeing him for the way he behaved. It was a bittersweet and confusing feeling.

As she thought about it, the redhead thought she heard Mazzini's voice through the door. And questioning her sanity, for a moment she thought he might have access to her deepest thoughts, a possibility that frightened her completely.

She recoiled on the bed, trying to protect herself in some way with the blanket covering her feet, hugging it as if it were a shield. Even so, she didn't feel protected enough when she heard arrhythmic knocks on the door.

She hadn't been there long enough to know everything, but she knew the way Damiano knocked on the door, as if he were a horror movie character warning her he was about to attack if she answered. Regardless, she answered it. She had no choice but to act as expected of her in the mansion.

She left the door ajar and went back to bed, remaining in the same position as before, not looking directly at his face.

He completely ignored any hints Victoria gave about being frightened in his presence and sat at the end of the bed.

At that moment, the redhead looked at him, and he noticed how her greenish gaze seemed to glare at his face. He remained silent, continuously staring at her, without saying a single word.

She desperately wanted to understand what was going on in his head, to read his thoughts, to find some trace of humanity inside his conscience. And even though she tried hard, looking into his eyes, she only found what she saw. The most complete and despairing void, like a cave that, upon entering, there is no way to see an exit.

She felt trapped again, just as she would be in the situation she had created in her head at that very moment.

Her mouth was slightly open, moving a few times, trying to hiss some words that came out without any sound. Then, still staring at him, she noticed his gaze changed. The emptiness disappeared, and all the fury she used to see had returned, almost making his eyes turn red with anger.

"Why are your hands dirty?" Victoria asked, fearing what the expression on his face would reveal next. Trying in every way to avoid the subject he might bring up.

He extended his hands, displaying the fabric of the white shirt he was wearing, also stained with the same ink spread on his fingerprints.

"I was painting," he replied without hesitation, and then clenched his jaw, almost as if he didn't want her to know about it.

"I used to paint when I was a child, but nothing grand. Just drawings of flowers or birds that my father brought for me." Victoria smiled faintly.

"It's just a hobby for me, too. But I don't paint birds or flowers." He still stared at his hands, stained with red paint.

"Show me someday," she asked, trying to get closer in some way. Having contact with a family member was the only way to get information about her parents.

"Maybe," he got up suddenly, grabbing a suitcase from the hallway, "Put the rest of your clothes on; here are others I bought to be enough. We're going to travel." He spoke and left without any explanation.

At that moment, Victoria believed that the day had come.

She would be put in a car and sent to a place full of security, where she would be forced into prostitution or even something worse.

Despair invaded her, and as she put the clothes haphazardly in the large gray suitcase, all her hope seemed to dissipate with the tears rolling down her face.

Sometimes, she cried for relief at being out of the room she hated so much; other times, for fear of what might happen to her and her parents if she never came back. She couldn't even say goodbye; it was cruel to imagine that she would die without seeing them one more time.

She hoped that perhaps by using her to contribute to their new source of income, they would forgive her parents' debt. And in an ideal world, they would live in peace in another city, growing old peacefully, as they deserve.

After finishing packing the suitcase, she leaned on the balcony bars on the window. Staring at the beautiful sunset that was happening, she watched the orange sky and the clouds overlapping in front of the majestic and gigantic sun, which illuminated the flowers in the garden less. At that moment, she thought it seemed like a beautiful scene to die.

Perhaps it was the only way to escape the nightmare she had been living in the last month. Her body struggled to remain firm, and sanity left her constantly. The hallucinations and visions of how everything could be perfect, the way it should have been, were maddening.

The room, dark and decorated as if it had been created for a vampire in the 14th century, was stunning. That house, the guards, and employees lurking at all times, Damiano, all designed to keep her less sane.

Absolutely everything present in Victoria's new life was suffocating, unbearable.

Unsustainable in the long run, and she knew it. There would be a moment when she could no longer pretend that everything would be okay because she knew the moment she stepped into that room that nothing would be the same again.

So, she put one foot on the firm bar, mustering the courage to support the other. She thought that if she fell backward, it would be less frightening. She could watch the sky, and it would be the last image she would have before ending the constant nightmare.

On impulse, she put the other leg, still supported by her hands, which held onto the iron bars. She sat on the firm bar that supported the lower ones, her feet swaying over the balcony, and the dress she wore followed the movements that the wind made.

She closed her eyes, squeezing the last drop of tear that had come out of her reddened eyes. And she remembered her parents and all the good things she had experienced in life, mentally thanked them for all the effort they had made to raise her and told the wind to try to find them at that moment and that they could feel how much she loved them unconditionally.

Finally, she released one hand, feeling her body sway slowly away from the surface she was on. She felt like she was living a moment in slow motion, and before she could stop feeling anything forever, a hand pulled her arm that hung in the air, bringing her back to the cold porcelain floor.

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