His Obsession His Redemption

Welcome To This World II

Serena slowly turned back around, tears spilling down her cheeks. Why? she thought, her heart pounding against her ribs. Why would he do this if he’s human? Where is his conscience? What made him so cold?

Lucian turned back to the trembling survivor. “I'll give you two chances. Talk now, and you get a chance to leave.”

The man stared through his ruined, blistering eyelids. “You’re the devil. You’re Lucifer... I know even if I tell you, you won't let me go. So just kill me already!”

Lucian smirked, his eyes devoid of warmth. “You killed your friend. I told you that you would live longer than him. You have at least a week to live.”

Lucian grabbed the man again, driving his hands deep into the container of acid. The man shrieked as the flesh on his hands dissolved. Then, Lucian dragged the man’s bleeding, mutilated hand onto a wooden block, grabbed a heavy hammer, and brought it down hard—crushing his fingers into splinters of bone and tissue.

A deafening scream echoed through the chamber. Serena’s body convulsed violently at the horrific sight. Tears streamed down her face, her mind spinning out of control.

Lucian cast the bloody hammer aside and spoke calmly. “Xavier.”

A voice answered from behind the guard line. “Yes, boss.”

Serena froze. That voice.

She turned her head slowly, her eyes widening in sheer disbelief. Stepping out from the shadows was her friend—Xavier.

Their eyes met. Shock flashed across Xavier’s face for a fraction of a second, but his expression quickly hardened into a cold mask. Serena wanted to run into his arms, to beg him to tell her this was a nightmare. But seeing him stand there, ready to obey Lucian's barbaric commands, cut her to the core.

Xavier looked away from her, grabbed the wailing, broken man by his arms, and dragged him across the floor. “Take him to Hell’s Chamber,” Xavier ordered the lower guards as they dragged the screaming spy away.

Serena watched Xavier disappear into the dark corridors, unable to process the betrayal. He was part of this nightmare. He worked for Lucian.

The crowd slowly began to disperse, guards moving chairs back into place and cleaning the blood off the center floor. Lucian cast one final, cold glance at Serena before turning on his heel and walking out.

The girl who had brought Serena down stepped up beside her and grabbed her arm, leading her back toward the residential wing. “Welcome to this world,” she said quietly.

When they reached Serena’s room, the girl pushed her inside and closed the door behind them. “Vomiting or losing your mind in a place like that isn't nice. You need to be strong for the fact that you are the don's wife.”

“No!” Serena snapped back immediately, her trembling voice laced with rage. “I am not the don's wife, and I will never be his wife!”

She paced backward, tears falling freely. “How could they do that to another human being? Tell me... could you do something like that to a person?”

The girl remained quiet for a moment. Then, she walked over and squatted directly in front of Serena, looking straight into her eyes.

“Life doesn't always give you a choice,” the girl said softly. “Life treats you in ways that strip away your conscience. If you ever find yourself in a situation where you have to do it to survive... you will.”

Serena shook her head, but the girl pressed on. “You have to adapt. This world is not a place for feeble, fragile-minded people like you.”

She stood up and walked toward the door, resting her hand on the handle. “Get some rest. From now on, you’ll be seeing much more of this.”

She stepped out, and the heavy door clicked shut, locking Serena into the suffocating quiet of her room.

Serena stood alone in the silence. Her hands were shaking uncontrollably, her chest feeling tighter with every passing second. The violent images played in an endless, gruesome loop behind her eyes: the pool of fresh blood, the smoking acid, the crunch of crushed fingers under the heavy hammer, Lucian’s ruthless, unblinking face... and Xavier’s cold, detached eyes.

Suddenly, her throat constricted.

Serena gasped, but the air refused to reach her lungs. Her breathing rapidly turned hard, shallow, and ragged, echoing loudly in the quiet room. A sharp panic seized her chest as oxygen deprivation set in. The room began to tilt. Her head spun wildly, darkness creeping in at the edges of her vision.

The drawer...

Stumbling backward, her feet caught on her own heels, but she forced her weak, trembling legs to move. She lunged toward the nightstand, practically throwing her weight against the wooden frame to stay upright. With shaking, slick hands, she yanked the top drawer open, scattering its contents until her fingers finally wrapped around the cool plastic of her inhaler.

With the last bit of strength in her chest, she pressed it to her lips and took two deep, desperate puffs.

She leaned heavily against the drawer, closing her eyes as the medicine slowly forced her airways open. Her ragged gasps gradually evened out into long, shuddering breaths. She slid down the side of the nightstand, collapsed onto the floor, and clutched the inhaler tight against her chest.

As her head stopped spinning and her heart rate slowly backed down from the edge of panic, the heavy, crushing reality settled back over her.

She stared blankly across the floor, her voice a hollow whisper in the empty room.

“How... how did I end up being part of this world?”

For the first time since arriving, Serena truly understood her reality. She hadn't simply been brought into Lucian's manor as a captive. She had been dragged into his living hell. And as she sa

t trembling on the cold floor, she had no idea how she was going to survive it.