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“Sasha, you look absolutely gorgeous tonight. Your father must be so proud,” the woman, whose name I can’t remember, gushes over me as her statement jewelry pieces glint in the carefully arranged party lighting.

Everything is meticulous.

Because my father is a meticulous man.

The decor, music and food are all planned carefully before each party to ensure perfection.

And of course, me, his daughter. The epitome of perfection. He chooses my outfits, how I am allowed to wear my hair, what I should say (enough, but not too much)—everything about my life is so controlled I am scared to take one step out of line.

“Thank you so much." I smile sweetly at the woman as my father steps to my side.

“Isn’t she a vision?” he asks, looking at me with pride.

“She’s just perfect.”

“Come, sweetheart, I want to introduce you to some of our new clients.”

My father slips his arm around mine and leads me into the crowd.

I spend every single one of these parties feeling fake.

I am praised for my beauty, and how well I dress, and how polite I am, but no one ever asks me anything creative or inspiring. I am just here to be admired on a superficial level.

My father will parade me around from group to group, smiling and chatting, and I just stand here nodding, being beautiful, being silent.

I hate it.

I hate every single moment of it.

I can’t wait for the party to end tonight so that I can go up to my room and hide away again.

I glance down at my dress. It’s not even a reflection of my own style. It’s too pompous and extravagant. I want simple elegance, not this tight, corseted uncomfortable monstrosity of a dress. I could be a Victorian lady wearing this.

I bite my lip to hide my frustration and do my best to maintain my smile.

Outwardly, people look at me and think I am a sparkling beacon of happiness.

Inside I am miserable.

The hours roll on, and I sip slowly at my champagne, holding the crystal glass more for show than anything else. The closer we get to the end of the night, the stronger the anticipation gets. Soon I can escape. Soon I can curl up in my bed wearing sweatpants and a comfy t-shirt and read a book.

My cheeks are hurting from this stupid smile plastered on my face, and I don’t even think an idiot would mistake it for a real smile at this point.

I feel like a doll that has been molded to hold the perfect pose as I follow my father around.

I wait obediently for the last guest to leave. It’s always the drunk ones that linger too long, thinking they are welcome. Finally, the butler closes the front door after ushering him out, and I breathe a sigh of relief.

“Goodnight, Papa,” I say politely as my father downs the last of his vodka and places the empty glass on the table.

“Not so fast, Sasha,” he says coldly.

I pause, my stomach tightening. It’s past midnight and I’m exhausted. I’ve been counting the hours and minutes to the moment I can get away, and now he is making me wait longer.

“Did you need something, Papa?”

“Yes. Come with me.” There is rarely any emotion in his voice, which makes it very hard to read him sometimes. His face has tells that I have become pretty good at reading over the years—I had to become hyper-aware of his expressions to avoid his wrath and turbulent moods—but tonight I can’t read anything. The knot in my stomach tightens and flips.

My father is a cold man. He rarely shows genuine joy or pleasure in anything, apart from when he is being fake and friendly in order to manipulate people, or fulfilling his darker hobbies.

I shake my head, pushing those thoughts away.

I follow behind him as he walks through the house, down the stairs to the lower level, and finally arrives at the basement door.

I hate the basement door.

Nothing good ever happens in that basement.

I feel like I want to puke when he pulls the keys out of his pocket and starts opening the heavy iron lock.

“Papa, I’m quite tired, do you mind if I go to bed?”

He spins around to glare at me, and I wince, shutting my eyes tightly when he lifts his hand up.

“You will go to bed when I say you can go to bed,” he snarls.

Then he grabs my arm, pushes the basement door open and shoves me toward the dark staircase. I hear him lock the door behind us.

Nausea pulses in my body as I wonder what he has in mind this time.

I take a step down the stairway and trip over the edge of the long dress. I quickly grab a handful of it and lift the front so that I can see where I'm placing my feet. Far below the stairs, there is a faint orange light glowing, and it’s giving me just enough vision to stop me from falling flat on my face trying to navigate these steps.

“Hurry up,” his dark voice comes from behind me.

I walk a little faster, relieved when I reach the bottom.

My father pushes me to the side as he enters the basement.

I squint into the room, trying to see through the faint light.

He walks over to a wall and flicks a switch, flooding the room with bright, cold, white light.

My stomach lurches.

In the center of the room is a man.

He is hanging naked from a hook that has been pierced through the skin of his back. His body is covered in dark bruises and deep cuts. Some look fresh; others look caked with dried blood.

At first, I think he must be dead with the amount of blood pooling around the floor beneath his dangling feet.

But he isn’t.

With the sudden bright light, he blinks himself awake, trying to clear away the dried blood sticking his lashes together. A cracked sound of pain falls from his dehydrated lips.

“Sweetheart, this is Dimitri,” my father says, ever so politely, as he walks over to a long wooden table neatly laid out with various devices to inflict horrific amounts of pain.

He runs his hands over the saw, across the scalpel, his fingers tracing the edge of a blade, and finally he pauses when he reaches the antique handheld drill. It looks like a kitchen mixer, with a small handle that you spin to make the drill turn.

He picks it up and wanders over to Dimitri. My throat tightens over a scream. I want to yell don’t, please, let me out of here.

My eyes lock with Dimitri's, and I see the desperation in his gaze.

I quickly look away, knowing that I am looking into the eyes of a man who is already dead. His fate is sealed. He will never see the light of day again.

This is not the first time my father has made me watch his chats , as he likes to call them.

“Dimitri thought it would be clever to steal from me, sweetheart. What do you think about that?”

I can’t bring myself to answer, even though I know he hates it when I stay silent. I shut my eyes tightly as he holds the drill up in front of Dimitri’s eyes and horror flashes across the soon-to-be-dead man’s face.

After a moment, my father’s voice pierces the room. “Open your fucking eyes, Sasha. How will you learn anything if you don’t pay attention to what I’m doing? I asked you a question, girl.”

“I think—I think he shouldn’t have done that?” I say with hesitation. My back is right up against the far wall, keeping as much distance as humanly possible between myself and the scene in front of me.

My father glances over his shoulder towards me. He huffs and his eyes darken. Then he marches over to me and grabs my arm hard enough to leave bruises, dragging me closer.

“Papa, please—"

One sharp slap across my face warns me not to say another word.

He turns his back on me and his attention to the man hanging from the meat hook as he presses the drill against Dimitri’s stomach and begins spinning the little handle.

Dimitri screams so loudly that I’m surprised. I didn’t expect him to have that much fight left in him after however many days he has been locked down here.

His body swings from the hook as my father presses the drill in deeper, grinning, enjoying every moment.

Blood spurts from the hole in his stomach and runs in a thick river down his leg, which is twitching with pain.

When I said earlier that my father rarely shows genuine pleasure for anything—well, this is one of those times when the smile on his face is real. The glint in his eyes of the excitement running through his veins is not for show.

He loves this.

“Papa, please, please can I go,” I whimper, fighting back surging panic.

I wasn't made for this. I was not made to witness the pain and torture of another living being. I don’t care what he did. I don’t care what he stole. This is not something I can handle.

My father laughs darkly. “You are a weak girl, just like your mother was. No. You may not leave. You will watch this, because it is the only way you will learn. You think you can just float by in this world and things will come to you easily? Wrong. If you want something, you have to take it. You have to create the power you crave.”

The tip of the drill is entirely embedded in Dimitri, and blood is spilling from his lips. He chokes out a wet sound that I think will haunt me forever.

“Papa, stop,” I scream.

Another sharp slap across my face knocks me off-balance and I land hard on the stone floor.

“Stand up, girl. Where the fuck is your backbone?” he growls.

I hear wet suction as he pulls the drill from Dimitri’s body, and vomit threatens to escape me.

My father turns towards me again.

Then he grins with such an evil look in his eye as he holds the drill out to me, I scoot back on the floor. He steps closer and grabs my throat, lifting me to my feet as I cry out loudly.

“Take it,” he says, shoving the drill, sticky with blood, into my hands.

I push hard, refusing to take it.

He laughs again.

“Just like your mother. I wish I had a child worthy of my name.”

Tears stream down my face as I wish I still had a mother.

I don’t know what happened to her. All I know is that she's gone. She left when I was very young. No one talks to me about it, and my father certainly never took the time to explain anything.

My father is back at the table. He tosses the drill down and picks up an axe.

Walking back towards Dimitri, he smirks at me. “You know how to suck the pleasure out of these experiences, Sasha. You’ve ruined the vibe for me.”

My mouth opens in horror as he swings the axe with ferocious force, and it slams into Dimitri’s shoulder. I hear bones crack and a gargled scream.

My father swings again, and again, and again. Blood showers across the room, spraying across my face and my dress. I can taste it in my mouth.

I shut my eyes and sob heavy, terrified tears.

When Dimitri stops screaming and silence fills the room, all I can hear is my father’s heavy breathing.

He chuckles.

I dare to look.

Dimitri is nothing but a mess of raw meat. His body has been pulverized into nothing, and there is skin and bone hanging in inhuman shapes from the meat hook.

My father is covered in blood and smiling like a psychopath.

I spin around and vomit all over the stone floor, heaving and choking as I try to catch my breath.

I hear my father toss the axe onto the floor. His heavy footsteps move loudly up the stairs. The basement door unlocks, and he walks out.

I’m alone down here.

I stand up in a panic and run towards the stairs. He has locked me down here before.

I trip as I run up towards the door.

But my father is nowhere to be seen.

I hurry out of the basement, up the stairs, to the safety of my own room.

I run straight into my bathroom and start peeling off my blood-stained clothes.

I sit on the shower floor, beneath the steaming water, for an hour.

I wash my body over and over until nothing remains of what just happened.

My mind is filled with memories of all the times my father hurt me. All the times he hurt other people. All of the pain and terror he has inflicted throughout his life, and how I want nothing more than to escape this hell.

One day I will get away.

***

The next day I don’t leave my room other than sneaking downstairs to find something to eat. This toxic environment is devouring my soul. Piece by piece I am disappearing.

In the kitchen, I jump in fright when Marie walks in.

“It’s just me, honey,” she says gently, knowing how I am feeling.

She has raised me since before I could walk. She was my mother and my father, because my mother left, and my father was barely around.

I turn and lean into her hug as she holds me and whispers in my ear, “It’s going to be okay, Sasha. You’ll see. One day it will all be okay.”

She always tells me this. I know she means well. When I was little, I used to believe her, but now—now I am older, and I know what the real world is like.

I step away from her and wipe the tears off my cheeks with the back of my hand.

“Sasha, why don’t you get out of the house a bit tonight? I heard your father is going out. I can help you sneak out once he’s left,” Marie says.

“Will you? I need to clear my head.”

She always helps me when I want to get out of the house. It doesn’t always work, and sometimes we have to backtrack our steps or cancel the entire plan, but tonight I so desperately need to get out of here for a while.

“Meet me at the usual spot at eleven.”

I nod, smiling. I don’t know what I would do without her.

***

Marie helped me sneak out at eleven, and now I am sitting in the back of a taxi on my way to a nightclub out of my father’s territory. It’s a place I go sometimes where I know people don’t know me. On top of that, I don’t take any chances, so as ridiculous as I look wearing these oversized sunglasses at night time, I’d rather be harder to recognize.

The club is thrumming with deep bass that vibrates through my chest and pushes away the horrible visions that have been infecting my thoughts, even more today because of what my father made me watch yesterday. The images are still fresh in my mind and I want to get them out.

I move freely on the dance floor, closing my eyes as and letting the music pulse through me.

I can’t help smiling now. This is the only time I ever feel free, and it’s so rare that I manage to get out I have to enjoy every second of it. I grin as the colorful lasers move over my skin and the thick smoke on the dance floor catches the display.

After dancing until a light glow is glistening on my skin, I walk over to the bar to order a drink.

That’s when the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. A tingle runs down my spine as I feel eyes on me.

Shit.

Maybe one of my father’s bodyguards saw me leaving after all and managed to track me down. My body shivers with nervous energy, but as I glance around the room, I don’t see any familiar faces.

Then my eyes lock with the man who has been staring at me.

His gaze is so intense it pierces right through me.

No wonder I was feeling the heat of his stare.

I can’t take my eyes off him.

He has an intense, commanding presence. Even from across the room, I can see how blue his eyes are and how deeply enticing he is. A slight grin creeps onto my lips and he grins back.

My heart shudders in my chest.