Chapter 2 Chapter 2
He was silent, but I could feel his eyes on me. When the elevator stopped, we stepped out, and he led me to a room. He took a seat and just looked at me. A few minutes later a man in a doctor's coat walked in.
“Mr. Ferro, welcome. Is this her?” He asked, looking at me. Nikolai nodded. The doctor walked over to me and just looked at me.
“Very well, and all the lacerations?” the doctor asked.
“Yes, except the birthmark,” Nikolai said, and the doctor nodded.
“Very well, a nurse will be here to prepare her. You can go to the viewing gallery,” the doctor said before leaving. The second the doctor left, he stood up and walked over to me. I could feel the heat radiating off his body.
He cupped my face, and it wasn't the rough, possessive touch he normally uses; it was gentle, but I still couldn't look him in the eyes.
“Your face will change, a new face, a new name. Isla Rhodes is dead; that weak, meek, pathetic girl that you were is now dead.” He said, his voice low and cold.
“Yes,” I replied.
He stepped back and took a seat just as the door opened and a nurse walked in.
“Miss, follow me this way,” she said, and I followed her. I showered, and she helped me change into a hospital gown and led me to the operating room. As I lay there on that table, up above to the left was Nikolia, standing there looking down. I would follow his orders, his commands. I would do anything he asked me to do because he was the one that saved me.
“Miss, you’ll be asleep in a few,” one of the nurses said.
I closed my eyes, letting the medication put me to sleep, and my thoughts went back to the day I met him.
PAST
ISLA
The rain was brutal. It wasn't even a drizzle; it was pouring for the last four hours. It was that freezing and stinging. It felt like I was being pelted with tiny rocks. I’d been on this concrete for over five hours, all because I said no. This was the least painful of my punishments.
I couldn’t feel my arms anymore. They were above my head, and my shoulders felt like they were being ripped out of their sockets by a pair of pliers.
But my knees were worse. The walkway was rough, jagged concrete stones, the kind that chews up your skin if you so much as trip on it. I’d been kneeling there so long that the grit had basically eaten through my skin. I could see the blood. It was this gross, dark red swirl mixing with the puddles, washing away into the drain like my dignity. It hurt sharp and white-hot every time I even breathed too hard.
The house was right there, glowing, and I knew they were inside acting like I didn't even exist. This was normal; I got treated like a dog until I learned my place. No dinner, no bed, just the rain and the pain until they decided I’d "learned my lesson. And in their eyes I haven't and will never learn my lesson.
I was shivering so hard my teeth were literally rattling in my head. I just wanted it to be over. I was praying for a lightning bolt to hit me or something to just end me right there.
I saw the headlights cut through the dark. A massive black car rolled up the driveway towards the front of the house.
I kept my head down; my hair was plastered to my face like wet seaweed. I didn't even look up, because that would earn me another five hours. I knew the rules; I knew the punishment. The rules were simple. Always obey, never talk back. If I followed those rules, I wouldn't be starved, and I wouldn't have to sleep outside.
I heard the sound of a gunshot, and it made me jump. Then it was quiet again. After a few minutes, but to me it felt like hours until the car left. I was still kneeling when the shadow fell over me.
“Get inside and clean up. I hope you've learned your lesson, you ungrateful brat,” Vivian said, her voice full of contempt. I stood up on shaky legs; I almost fell back to the ground. I stood up but kept my head down and limped down the path. I guess I wasn't walking as fast as she wanted me to because she grabbed my hand and began dragging me towards the house.
Isla Rhodes, I had no idea how old I was, and I was the adopted daughter of the Rhodes family of Riverside. I knew my place at 16, and I was reminded of it every single day after. I wasn't adopted because they wanted me, but they wanted what I had to offer. My body, my bone marrow, even my blood. If they needed to take all my organs out and give them to Blair, they would. It wouldn't even be a loss to them.
Vivian dragged me into the house and to the kitchen. She opened the hidden panel in the kitchen and pushed me in.
“And next time, know your place,” she said before shutting the panel behind me. Suddenly the panel opened and Jacob was standing there. He was the only kind soul in this whole place. He pushed a plastic-covered plate into my hand and closed the panel hurriedly.
If any of them saw this, I would end up outside again for another five hours, and Jacob would face punishment also. I clutched the plate like a lifeline. I took my time going down the stairs; my knees were killing me. When I got to the bottom of the stairs. I walked to the beat-up mattress and sat down. I flicked the one bedside lamp they had given me and uncovered it.
I heard the panel open, and I pushed the covered plate under the worn-out pillow and began taking off my shirt when Vivian walked down the stairs towards me. She threw a loaf of bread and a bottle of water onto the mattress.
“Dinner, and don’t let me hear a sound,” she said before turning around and walking up the rickety stairs. I heard the panel click shut. They wouldn't come down here again; they never do.
This was my room, the basement. It's been my room since I was sixteen. It was cold, damp, and musky. There was just one bed; it was Blair’s. Well, the one she didn't want anymore. There was one floor lamp that she didn't want either. The sheets were thin, and so was the mattress, but it was better than concrete.
There was a bathroom, well, a bathroom without a door, and a toilet all the way at the back of the basement. There was a metal rack that held my clothes; well, they were scraps. Three shirts, three pants, three underwear, and no bra. My bath towel had holes, and I've been using it since I was sixteen.