Chapter 3

The next day, the punishment was worse than usual. Liam ordered them to double the intensity of the treatment. The two women who served as my handlers were rough, their hands merciless as they worked the pungent, burning lotion into my skin. Every muscle in my body screamed in protest.

The lotion was a variation of my family's formula, modified by Liam's chemists. It was designed to stimulate my glands, to force my body to produce the unique Monroe scent in overwhelming amounts. The pain was excruciating, a fire that licked at my skin and seeped into my bones.

After the massage, they submerged me in a tub of ice water. The shock of the cold was a different kind of agony, a sharp, piercing pain that made my teeth chatter and my body convulse. This part of the ritual was meant to "set" the fragrance, to lock it into my skin for days. It felt like being buried alive in a frozen tomb.

My family had developed this process centuries ago. It was a guarded secret, a ritual meant to be used sparingly, for special occasions. It was called "The Blooming," a way to heighten a person's natural scent, to create an aura of irresistible attraction. My grandfather had warned me of its dangers. Used too often, it would destroy the body's natural balance, leading to chronic pain and eventual system failure.

My parents had stopped using it altogether. They believed it was unethical, a form of manipulation. They focused instead on creating perfumes that evoked emotion and memory, scents that connected people on a deeper, more spiritual level.

Liam had found my grandfather's journals. He had twisted our family's art into a weapon of torture.

I floated in the icy water, my mind drifting away from the pain. I was so weak, so tired. My vision blurred, the edges of the pristine white bathroom dissolving into a hazy gray.

Later that evening, he forced me into a strapless, backless gown of blood-red silk. He wanted my skin exposed, accessible. In the grand ballroom of the Hayes Corporation's annual gala, he paraded me around, his hand a permanent fixture on my lower back.

He introduced me to his associates, his voice dripping with false pride. "This is Ava. My most prized possession."

One of his partners, a man named Marcus with piggy eyes and a wet mouth, leaned in close. "She smells divine, Liam. Absolutely divine." He ran his hand down my bare arm, his touch making my skin crawl.

I stood there, a statue, my face a blank mask. I had learned to disconnect, to retreat into the quiet corners of my mind where he couldn't reach me.

Liam smiled, a cruel, satisfied twist of his lips. "She's all for you tonight, Marcus. Enjoy."

He pushed me towards the man. Marcus's hands were on me instantly, pulling me against his portly body, his foul breath hot on my neck. I felt my dress being unzipped, the cool air of the ballroom on my naked back.

My dignity, what little I had left, was being stripped away in front of hundreds of people. I didn't scream. I didn't fight. I simply stood there, silent and still. A perfect, broken doll.

"Make a sound, Ava," Liam's voice was a low growl from somewhere behind me. "Let them hear how much you enjoy it."

I remained silent. I would not give him the satisfaction.

He strode over, grabbing my jaw and forcing me to look at him. "I own you," he whispered, his voice a venomous caress. "Everything about you. Your body, your scent, your shame. You are a Monroe. And this is what Monroes deserve."

His eyes were filled with nothing but hate. A deep, bottomless ocean of it. I remembered a time when those same gray eyes had looked at me with something else. A time when we were just kids, before the tragedy that tore our families, and our lives, apart.

His mother, Eleanor Hayes, had been obsessed with my family's work. She had convinced my parents to give her a sample of our original formula, the one meant to enhance human connection. But she had misused it, combining it with other chemicals, trying to create a super-perfume that would make her the most desirable woman in the world.

The result was a disaster. The formula reacted badly, producing a foul, overpowering odor that clung to her for weeks. She became a public spectacle, ridiculed and ostracized. The humiliation drove her into a deep depression, and a few months later, she took her own life.

Liam blamed my parents. He believed they had deliberately given his mother a faulty formula, that they had orchestrated her downfall. He inherited his father's tech empire and his mother's pain, and he molded them into a weapon of revenge.

He destroyed my family's business, buying it out and shuttering it. He drove my father to an early grave with the stress of it all. My mother died of a broken heart soon after. And then, he came for me.

The laughter of the crowd around me was a distant roar. The hands on my body were a dull pressure. I closed my eyes, escaping into the darkness. I started counting in my head. One, two, three... waiting for the night to end. Waiting for the moment I could be alone with my pain again. It was the only thing that was truly mine.