“How?” I questioned through blurred tears. “How could you if you aren’t here?”
Suddenly her finger was gone, and the start of Ludovico’s song played, and I laid against the wall and listened only to have her stop after a few minutes, then come back and whisper, “Did you feel that, Donovan?”
“Yes,” I whimpered. “It was really pretty.”
“That wasn’t music—that, my dear son, was heaven.”
“Heaven doesn’t exist.”
“It exists in music. Music gives us strength. It has the power to end wars, to change emotions, to humanize a person. So wherever you are, no matter what, you feel this music. You listen over and over again, you escape into the heaven I created for you, and you become strong.”
“I’m afraid.”
She would leave again to play, and for one brief second, I wasn’t trapped anymore.
No. I was free.
With her playing her piano for me.
The clapping around me jolted the memory I was wreaking havoc in. I couldn’t stand and didn’t want to appear weak. I simply clapped with everyone and watched in utter horror as Troy took Juliet by the leash again and walked her to our table, making an announcement that would set off a chain of events even I couldn’t prepare for.
“I’m going to take your little pet to one of the rooms. Her hands play so beautifully, Donovan. I wonder what the rest of her body sounds like.” He winked. “That’s not a problem, correct? You can even watch. I know you like that.”
Juliet’s eyes pleaded with mine.
Everyone watched in rapt fascination at our table as if a war was looming, and I’d already lost.
I shrugged like it didn’t matter and then gulped down my entire glass of bourbon.
“Let’s go.”
I thought I knew real shame when my father made me hurt my mom.
I was wrong.
Real shame was the look of abandonment in Juliet’s eyes.
And sadly, all I could do…
Was look away.
Juliet
I’d never been more terrified in my entire life, looking around the opulent yet disgusting room. It was a horror movie gone wrong.
Donovan was actually allowing me to be in there with Troy.
He’d touch me.
He’d caress me, and my villain was letting him.
Worse off, he would watch it. The man old enough to be my father tugged on my chain, leering at my body.
“You’ll enjoy this, pet.”
Why did it feel so different when Donovan said it than when Troy said it?
Troy made me feel weak.
Donovan said it, and at times I felt strong, impenetrable. He took me to a different place mentally and physically, and maybe I was crazy, or he was breaking me completely, making me crazy, but for a few short moments in the last couple days, I actually believed he cared.
Oh, how stupid I was…
He clearly didn’t. Standing in the corner, arms crossed, face blank—impassive.
I wanted to scream at him.
Turned hero.
Donovan
She was shaking so hard the table was moving.
I did this to her.
I dangled her in front of the one man with enough money and power to take her. This was on me. He was testing my limits, and if I intervened, he’d know with absolute certainty that she wasn’t just my pet—she was so much more than that. Troy circled the X and then stopped in front of a cabinet. He jerked open the doors and made a sound of relief.