Chapter 4

MARILYN

Voices pulled me awake, my room’s cracked ceiling came into focus.

Turning my head slowly, the girls surrounded my bed, all waiting for me to wake.

I reached out my hand as if to call one of them, but a grunt replaced it as my hand fell midway, and it nevertheless alerted them.

“Hey, Mary. Are you still alive?”

The girls surrounded my bed in no time, and several questions were thrown at me

Me.

“Does it hurt anywhere?”

“Did you remember why it happened?”

“Shall I bring water for you?”

I blinked, surprised by the questions. “How long was I out?”

“Three days babe,” one of them said. “Your body wouldn’t react to treatment…”

My mind slowly wandered to what happened before I blacked out.

“The Latino…” I looked up frantically. “What happened to him?”

“What Latino?” They scoffed. “We didn’t notice anyone through the chaos”

Didn’t they notice a dead body? My hand moved to my neck, and the memory of that devil biting me flashed by.

The skin was smooth like nothing was ever there, but the pain still stung and I felt it like a brand.

I wanted to ask more, but the door opened, and Madam Diana stomped towards us with her usual expression.

“Hey, hey, move aside,” she yapped before positioning herself before me like doom.

She checked my pulse and touched my neck. “You seem to be fine now. Get up and come with me.”

Just like I was surprised, the other girls are also surprised as they look at her with exclamation, “Madam? Did you want to see her dead that soon?”

“Did I say I’m talking her to fuck?” She retorted almost immediately, “Get on your business and stop gossiping!”

As she dished out the abuse, she left, and I managed myself with the help of other girls to get up and walk after her.

I was still weak to the core and I couldn’t even look up to see what was going on around me. It hurts if I open my eyes to an overly illuminated environment.

Madam Diana opened the door to her office and sank into the chair, and then watched me as I struggled to pull the chair and sit down.

I hiccuped for a while before starting, “Why do you bring me here, Madam?”

“Is it the two of them?” She suddenly asked the confusing question, and I looked up with raised eyebrows, but she continued, “Lord Lucian and Lord Lucifer, they’re both your mates?”

“Hey. Are you getting delusional now that you’re getting old?” I scoffed with amusement, even though I know the reality now that I was now mated to the two, “I’ll definitely reject Lucifer that murderer doesn’t deserve a mate”

She banged her hand on the table, “Don’t talk to me like that. We both know that’s the case here now. Your mates are Lord Lucian and Lord Lucifer! Did you still not get it?”

I only stared as she elaborated her explanation, as I found the information rather funny than real.

‘She was right,’ Rina said in my head, but I ignored her.

“Why did you call me here then?” I asked slowly, even though my brain was still in a dilemma on whether to accept that truth or not.

“They’re here for you. I mean, Lord Lucian has already sent a car to pick you up,” she got up and moved to a small storeroom beside the toilet.

She handed me the wrapped package. “He sent a dress for you. Now get ready. You’re leaving with him”

My heart sank. “Why are you giving me up? My family and friends left me here. Even though you’re harsh, you’re still the only guardian I have. Why did you agree to this?” I wanted to cry.

For five years, she’d kept me here. Not that I couldn’t leave, but because I had nowhere to go, and here was basically my home.

And now she was sending me away like I meant nothing to her?

“You have to leave here one day, Dorothy!” She suddenly quipped in a tone that shocked me to my bones.

My bulging, big eyes stared at her. Why did she suddenly call me Dorothy?

Five years ago, after I was left with her, it was in this same office that she’d give me my blindfold and said, “You’re no longer Dorothy McAllen again. You have to choose a name for yourself here and embrace the life that we live here as whores!”

I had refused to accept her judgment and threw the blindfold away, “No, Hag! I will never become a lowly being as a prostitute. I’m going to be a doctor!!”

She’d suddenly raised her hand and dashed me a slap, “Nothing like a dream here, Dorothy!” She quipped. “Here live the girls whose lives and dreams have been crushed like yours. I paid to get you, so do your best to do your money’s worth and toss that name under your feet!”

“My father will tear you apart!!” I had sworn. “This illegal prostitution will be discovered by social media, and my lawyer sister would do anything to bring you down!”

It was at this level that she’d dropped her hand and grabbed another object, which was a knife.

“Take,” she had shoved to my hand and then grabbed another document, “That is the document backing Daughters of Jezebel parlour as a legal sex parlour. That is a silver knife…. Kill me and tear these government approval documents.”

I had a knife at hand, kill this woman, leave, but I couldn’t do it.

My family, whom I bet on, denied me.

Fast forward to today, I looked at her and wondered what on earth was going on in her mind.

“Why…. Why did you call me Dorothy?”

She smirked, “Isn’t that your name? Dorothy McAllen?”

“No!!!” I shrieked and banged the table with the energy I have left, “I refused to go back to be Dorothy again!!! Here is my home and here I will stay!”

“Things don’t always go our way, Dorothy, you see….”

A knock on the door interrupted her, and then the clerk came in, “Madam, you have a guest.”

She stood up, “Oh. She must be here.”

She? I frowned for a while, but stood up to leave, but when she fired at me,

“Where are you going?”

“Don’t you have a guest?”

“You can sit down. She’s here for you,” saying this, she exited the door to usher in whomever it was.

But I was confused. I had a female guest. From where and which female would come to see a slut?

Then, Madam Diana came back with a woman who dressed so distinguished and formal.

She doesn’t look like the kind of person who could come to a place like this, and more importantly, she looked familiar.

I started on without a word, expecting Madam Diana to talk, but the woman only took her bag of popcorn. “You two will have a lot to talk about. I’ll leave you to it now.”

“Hey, Madam…..” I wanted to call but she didn’t allow me to say more before exiting the door, leaving me to face the distinguished lady alone.

I felt so nervous and tense, so much that I fidgeted my fingers nervously, but then again, her voice suddenly rang, “You still do that when you’re nervous?”

I looked up at her with surprise, “How did you know?” I wanted to believe my sight that this was the person I knew from the past, but then, I couldn’t believe it because the person I knew in the past who looked like this wasn’t someone who could come to a place as dirty as this.

She chuckled darkly and took her seat beside me, “How are you faring, Dorothy? Did you eat well?”

Petrification rent my iris, and I stood up abruptly from her. That name again! “Who are you?”

She was still smiling so carefree, “What? Why did you look so startled? Don’t tell me you don’t remember me?”

“I say, who are you!!!?” I screamed again as I didn’t want to believe that this was her.

This couldn’t be.

This is not her, so I have to ask.

“Oh, I’m disappointed.” Then she raised her sleeves and showed me that familiar tattoo that I also had under my armpit.

“No….” I staggered back, trying to control my sanity.

“Come to me. I won’t bite,” she offered again, but I stepped back again until my back touched the walls.

“Dorothy?” She called again and tried closing the distance, but I pushed her back violently.

“No!!!”

Her eyes flared up with shock, “How could you….”

“Why are you here now? Why did you come to see me?” I bawled, pouring out my anger and emotion into a single yell. “Barrister Doris McAllen, why are you at this lowly place where only girls dare to dream of life?”

Doris McAllen, my blood sister, stood frozen as she heard my description of the parlor, “Dorothy…. You don’t have to…”

“Was I lying?” I adjusted my dress, “I dare to dream about my future, but you pushed me here to live that dream, don’t you?”

Doris’s mouth was opened in surprise and astonishment, “Em… Dori you don’t have to…”

“Marilyn Paltan!” I interrupt her potential plea, “I’m Marilyn Paltan, a Prostitute of the Daughters of Jezebel parlour. So, Barrister Doris, if you will excuse me, I have customers waiting.” After saying that, I barged out, but her words stopped me again.

“Gamma Lucian and Lucifer!” She announced, and I stopped but didn’t turn, “They’re your mates, right?”

“The Madam must have called you?” I smirked, “So you thought of coming here now that I’ve found my mates?”

“Not like that, Dori…. I mean Marilyn.” Tears began to drop from her eyes as she fiddled with her bag, “This is the evidence of our betrothal. Dori, you can have Lucifer, but not Lucian, please.”

I turned around now with full confidence and shock, “You’re betrothed to Lord Lucian?”

“Your madam called yesterday and informed us about your status, so I thought I would…” She paused and bowed her head before grabbing my hand again, “Please, reject him. Reject Lucian and go with Lucifer, and I promise I’ll take you out of here and help you fulfill your dreams.”

Her words made me feel like vomiting because they annoyed me to the core.

Now that the issue was about a man, she’s ready to help me? After five years?

I smiled softly with sadness, “Barrister Doris, you’re not in any position to tell me what to do with my life.”

Her tears stopped, and her face went cold. It didn’t surprise me because this was the real Doris McAllen.

“You wouldn’t listen while I’m being nice” she grabbed my hair from behind. “Guess you have to learn the hard way.”

I shirked in pain because I was still weak. “Doris, leave me alone!”

“Not until you agree to leave Lucian for me!” She bargained.

We struggled like this for a second longer and the door was kicked open violently.

I guessed it must be the Madam, but the next thing I heard before passing out again was…

“Mary!!!”