Chapter One: The Masquerade
1108 Words
I couldn’t move.
A soft murmur rippled through the masked crowd below. Someone clinked a glass. Someone laughed too quietly. Then someone spoke, his voice warm and polished, echoing off marble and velvet like this was art.
"Now we have a beautiful lady, up to twenty-two years of age. Educated. From a respectable
family”.
A pause…
"We will start the bidding at two million”
Silence…
And then…
“4 million dollars,” a voice said, smooth as velvet, thick as smoke.
Then another, deeper. “4.5 million”
I blinked.
Or at least, I thought I did.
My eyelids felt heavy, Sticky, Like someone had glued them shut with sugar and sleep. My tongue was dry. My lips stuck together when I tried to move them. “Where was I?”
My fingers twitched, but they didn’t move freely. My wrists were restrained behind me. Silk.
Velvet. Something soft that still bit into my skin when I tugged. I tried to breathe. Inhale. But the air was… wrong. Fragrant, sickly sweet, A hundred fading roses in a coffin. It stuck to my skin, my throat inside. And then I heard it again.
“5 million”
Another voice. Male. Detached.
Not close but not far enough. My eyes opened fully. The world bled in gold and black and crimson. Shadows. Shapes. Masks.
Rows and rows of them. Faces blurred beneath jeweled masks, porcelain grins, feathers and
bone-white visors.
They were all looking at me.
I was standing on a platform. No a stage. Under a spotlight. Bare feet against cold glass.
I saw my own reflection beneath me. Pale, Confused, Dressed in…God “What am I wearing?
A dress if you could call it that. Silk, sheer in places, clinging to skin I hadn’t permitted anyone to expose. My hair was done. My lips are painted. My lashes curled. I looked like a doll In a music box, the lid was cracked open too soon.
My knees wobbled.
I tried to move. Step back. Run. Nothing happened. My body refused to obey me.
And then a flash. A memory…
The car.
My stepmother Lucienne, laughing in her silver dress, sequins catching the light like scales.
She'd looked beautiful, radiant even. The warmth of my father taking hold of my knee. Powerful hands that had taught me to ride a
bicycle, to pitch a baseball, to have an idea that the world was basically good.
“I know you will like this,” he had said, in that special tone which he put on when he had
something of which he was especially proud.
It is simply a masquerade ball. The old type.
Classy,Traditional, Very private, The sort of thing your mother would have loved.
Lucienne leaned over and her scent--that powerful floral fragrance--enveloped me in a net. Her hands were soft and she tied the black satin mask over my eyes hiding my face on one side with silk and lace.
“Smile, baby” she whispered her lips to my ear.
“Tonight is different” I laughed. I trusted them. I knew I should have followed my gut I drank the champagne. That’s where it stops. That’s all I remember Until now.
“6.2 million,” someone called lazily.
“6.5 million,” another answered, bored.
The numbers didn’t make sense. They repeated like a dream. A dream I couldn’t wake up from.
My heart pounded. My throat closed.
No music. No chatter. Just soft murmurs. Calculating. Assessing.
I looked out into the room into the theater of masks and shadows. And I understood.
I wasn’t a guest.
I wasn’t attending a party.
I was the event.
Me.
“7 million” My throat burned.
I couldn’t move or scream. My body shook, like it understood something my mind hadn’t yet.
Another bid echoed through the dark:
“7.5 million,”
Laughter followed, amused.
“8 million,” someone called out.
I bit down on the gag, forcing my breath steady. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. But it was.
“8.5 million” They were bidding on me.
Louder now.
“9 million”
The numbers came sharper, each one a nail into whatever was left of the lie I’d believed. My
knees bent. I nearly collapsed.
And then—
A pause.
A silence long enough to feel like a held breath.
And into that stillness, a voice rose smooth, rich, absolute.
“20 million”
The room fell dead quiet. Just like that… it was over. Everyone knew. No one would top it. They wouldn’t dare. The masked crowd shifted, murmurs subdued, polite. Some lowered their paddles. Others turned their heads toward the man who had spoken to him. So did I.
He sat near the center Alone. Composed. Wearing a charcoal suit that glistened in the top of candlelight. He was lazily placed as a person but with every bit of him exuded strength. A black half-mask covered the upper half of his elegant, sharp face. His mouth was the only thing visible. Lips neither smiling nor frowning.
But I felt him watching me. His head tilted, just a fraction. Like he already owned me. Heat rose in my chest not desire, not yet. It was something darker. He wasn’t just rich. He was
untouchable. The kind of man who didn’t bid to win. He bid to end the game. I stood frozen under the light. His gaze didn’t break.
And in that gaze, I felt it: I’d just been claimed.
“Sold,” The auctioneer said, softer now. Like the outcome had never been in question.
My breath left me in a rush, taking with it the last of my strength.
And then the man stood. Not to leave. Not yet.
Just to make sure I saw him. Taller than I imagined. Broader. He walked with a fluid grace; the grace that is evidence of strength in restraint. It was all slow, unhurried, as though he had gone just so far to produce
just so much effect.
People cleared a way before him without being ordered to do it. Others bowed and he walked
on. Others moved to one side, creating a distance they would give to wild animals.
He pulled up at the foot of the stage, but near enough where I could catch a glimpse of the little smile he had at the corners of his mouth. Not brutal, at least. Neither kind though.
Satisfied. The world around me blurred the masks, the gold, the velvet stage. All of it faded. There was only that man. And the simple, devastating fact:
I belonged to him now.
- Writer
