Chapter 3: 5 minutes to respond or consequences

I nodded aggressively because my life depended on it if I wanted to make it alive.

He stepped closer, the heavy leather scent of his jacket filling my senses, slowly, deliberately, he reached out and touched my cheek. His calloused thumb brushed against my skin, sending an electric jolt of pure terror straight down my spine.

What can you do for me? and what’s your name? he asked. his emerald eyes digging deep into mine.

My breath caught, I opened the notebook with trembling fingers and wrote as quickly as the graphite would allow.

My name is Delia Stacia sir, I can do anything for you, Sir Don Lazarus. Please give me a chance.

”Delia Stacia“ he repeated, the way the syllables and the tone of my name rolled off his tongue sounded like a heavy dangerous melody.

Stand up.

My legs shook, but I pushed myself to my feet. He was so tall that I had to tilt my head back to keep looking at him.

His eyes moved over me, from my soaked uniform to my shaking hands still clutched against my side. He was studying me the way he might study a lock, deciding if I was worth the trouble of opening. He let out a quiet hum.

"Small," he murmured. Quite Easy to overlook."

I didn't know if it was an insult or a plan.

How long have you been in this mansion? he asked suddenly.

Two years sir, I wrote

He began to walk around me, slowly the way a man circles something he has just bought. I stood frozen, my fingers digging into the notebook. My heart pounding in my ears. I could feel his gaze on me the whole time, calm and patient in a spooky way.

He stopped in front of me.

"Two years in my house," he said, "and I have never noticed you."

I lowered my eyes, well cause I‘ve been invisible and also pushed into works that the low maids do and I also try to avoid been seen. I thought.

Look at me.

I looked up. I didn't dare not to.

That's the part that bothers me, he said, his voice dropping. "Something in my own house, right under my nose, and I never saw it. His mouth curved, but there was nothing warm in it. 

He looked at me like something he was ready to tame and train under his wings with an evil smile on his face.

He was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice was calm, and that was worse.

Let me explain how this works, Delia stacia. He said my name slowly, like he was testing how it felt to own it. You heard something you weren't meant to hear. By every rule I live by, that should be the end of you.

My stomach turned instantly. Pleading with my face and eyes that I won’t betray him.

Because you can’t speak doesn’t make you trustworthy, at least you can understand and you can write? Can’t you? he said

I can, I wrote down but I won’t betray you sir, I wrote, I promise you with my life.

I knew I was going to regret it in the long run by swearing with my life, but I didn’t have a choice, not with the mafia city god.

With your life, he repeated, and the smirk faded as he read the page again. "You're offering me the one thing I could take from you tonight.

I nodded, my face as open as I could make it. I wanted him to see that I wasn't lying, that I had nothing left to lie with.

Understand something, Delia. He stepped closer, and I had to tilt my head back to keep looking at him. "I don't take promises. I take guarantees."

My throat felt tighter. I lifted the pencil, but he caught the notebook before I could write.

Don't answer yet. His voice was quiet. Listen.

I stayed still.

You understand every word I say. You can write. You can run to someone with a note in your pocket and tell them what you heard." His eyes held mine. "So your silence isn't proof of anything. It's just a door I haven't locked yet."

Locked. The word made my skin go cold.

Here is how I lock it, he said. From tonight, you don't belong to this house. You belong to me." He said it slowly, like he wanted each word to land. "Your hands. Your eyes. Your silence. Your life, since you offered it so freely.

I couldn't breathe, I felt powerless and more seen than I had ever been since I got to the mansion.

He continued…

"You go where I send you. You answer when I message you. You‘re not to tell anyone about me, You will report only to me!!." His gaze dropped to the notebook in my hand. "And if I ever find out you have, I won't ask how or why. Cause you will be a dead meat."

Okay?

I nodded frantically, my whole body shaking.

”Good girl." He reached out and tucked a strand of wet hair behind my ear. It was a small, almost careless gesture, and it made my heart stop..Your life is mine now, You’re mine ”And Nobody else touches what's mine. Remember that."

I stared at him, frozen. ”Nobody else touches what’s mine”? I wasn't a person to him. I was a thing he had found in his garden and decided to keep and yet I was already his. I shivered at the thought.

And yet his fingers had been gentle for half a second, and I hated that I noticed

Say it, he said.

I froze. He knew I couldn't. He watched me struggle, and something flickered across his face, too fast to read, and scary to try to think of.

I lifted the notebook with trembling fingers and wrote one line.

I belong to you, Don Lazarus.

His plump lips, smiling. A smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. As he read it.

Say it again, he said suddenly

I wrote it sharply again.

I BELONG TO YOU. 

His lips curved again to something definitely not warm, then he took the A5 Medium notebook and slid it into his pocket. Like everything I have belongs to him now.

 I stared at him in a frozen state. 

That was my voice. My diary. My only safe space in this house since my only friend eliva was taken from me. I wondered if she was dead or alive after what happened to her.

It wasn’t just feelings in there. It had my recipes for cooking and mostly everything I had noticed about this house,about him, his guards and other whispers and warnings l‘d heard from the maids concerning the mansion businesses.

God, I was so dead, if he gets to read it, I thought to myself in terror.

Then he said

”you will be given a phone instead” that way you will be able to respond to me immediately I message you. You’ll have 5minutes to respond if not there will be consequences.. More information will be passed to you soon by my guards

“And Leo” he called out sharply to one of his slim guards. Whom I noticed was giving me a perverted look since Lazarus was talking to me.

Get her a blanket.

He turned to leave, and my legs gave up there in the quiet garden with the rain still drizzling a bit, my cheek still warm where his hand had been, and the terrible, confusing knowledge that I was no longer invisible, no longer free, and no longer sure which of those frightened me more.