Chapter 22
From the outside, the mansion seemed perfectly ordinary. The staff bustled about, each absorbed in their own tasks. Whenever they crossed paths with Nestor, they paused–sometimes mid–stride, sometimes with hands stilled–to greet him politely before carrying on.
Everything remained normal until, with a low creak, Nestor pushed open a hidden door. A narrow, pitch–black passageway stretched downward alongside a winding staircase, yawning like some endless abyss ready to swallow anyone foolish enough to venture in.
For a split second, Daphne’s mind spun with wild, irrational thoughts.
Thankfully, Nestor flicked on the lights a moment later, and the once–sinister staircase lost much of its menace beneath the warm glow.
He started down first. Daphne hesitated, torn between turning back and following him into the unknown. In the end, she forced herself to descend.
As she made her way down, Daphne glanced around. Unlike the elegance and opulence upstairs, the basement was clearly designed for storage. Boxes and old furniture were piled in the corners, thick with dust. By contrast, the hallway leading to a room at the very back was remarkably clean–whether from frequent use or some other reason, Daphne couldn’t tell.
Nestor gestured, and a bodyguard stationed at the door pulled out a key, unlocking it before switching on the room’s overhead light.
Only then did everything inside come into full view for Daphne.
In one corner, a crude bed–just a few wooden boards–sat beneath the harsh light. Josephine lay there, shackled at the wrists, ankles, and neck with heavy iron chains. Her clothes were filthy, stained and torn, as if she hadn’t changed in ages.
Beneath the tattered fabric, her skin was crisscrossed with scars–old wounds layered over new.
The sudden brightness made Josephine instinctively squeeze her eyes shut. Before she could adjust to the glare, the sound of footsteps echoed across the tiles. Fear sent her shrinking deeper into the corner, but with the chains already pinning her there, there was nowhere left to run.
The footsteps stopped in front of her. Josephine kept her eyes tightly closed, trembling from head to toe, bracing for the punishment she knew was coming.2 But instead of the sting of a whip, it was a voice that broke the silence.
“Daphne, look. I told you–I don’t care about her anymore. I know she hurt you, lied about you, did terrible things. From now on, she’s yours to deal with. Do whatever you want with her. How’s that sound?“?
The moment she heard Daphne’s name, Josephine’s eyes flew
open in shock, searching for the woman standing behind Nestor.
Daphne was wearing a pale blue dress that fanned out at the hem like petals, a delicate bow at her waist as light as a dream. She looked untouched by the filth of the room–untouchable, almost ethereal.
There was almost no expression on her striking face–or perhaps it was full of something Josephine struggled to name…pity, maybe.
But what shattered Josephine most was the realization that the woman she’d once dismissed as beneath her now stood above her, so completely out of reach. Hearing her fate had been handed over to Daphne, Josephine felt paralyzed–she didn’t know whether to rage, scream, weep, or just give in to terror.
She’d been locked in this basement not long after Daphne left. By now, she’d lost all sense of time.}
All she knew was that after about fifty revolting, barely edible meals, Nestor would come and drag her out for another round of torment.
Sometimes it was a whip; sometimes she’d be dunked in water; sometimes he’d draw her blood.
She’d screamed and pleaded, then begged in agony, and finally grown numb, her mind drifting toward thoughts of death.
She’d tried to end it all, bashing her head against the wall until blood ran down her face. But even then, she survived. Later she tried to strangle herself with her own chains, but whenever she was close to suffocating, her body betrayed her, forcing her to let go.”
She couldn’t override her survival instincts, so in the end, starvation was her last hope. But every time she grew too weak, they forced food or fluids into her, then hooked her up to an IV until she came back around.%
Josephine never understood–if Nestor hated her so much, why didn’t he just kill her?
Now, she finally understood.!!
All those months of torture had been his way of venting his anger. Keeping her alive was for something else entirely—for Daphne’s return.
Would Daphne kill her? Josephine had no idea &
