Chapter 9
The voice on the phone was noisy, but the clearest one belonged to Dewey. He urged excitedly, “Millard, get to Utopia Bar now. You don’t want to miss this show.”
Millard finished his meeting with a client and stepped out of the hotel. The cold wind hit his face.
He raised a hand to loosen his tie, showing little interest in Dewey’s show.
“I’ll pass.”
Dewey had expected the refusal. “Are you sure you don’t want to see a show starring Rosella?”
The chauffeur opened the car door for Millard. He got in, rubbed his brow, and agreed, “Got it.”
The car headed toward Utopia Bar.
He arrived half an hour later.
During that half hour, under Dewey’s orders, Rosella became the target of the crowd. They said it was a welcome party, but really, it was just an excuse to make her drink. She wasn’t good with alcohol. After a few glasses, it felt like a fire was raging in her stomach, burning her from the inside. One more sip and she’d burst into flames.
Her throat was dry and raw.
Someone grabbed her jaw, forcing a glass of strong liquor down her throat. Rosella choked and vomited it out, soaking her face. Hair stuck
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Chapter 9
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to her cheeks, and the liquor ran down her neck, dampening her skin and staining her collar.
The lights stopped flashing and froze overhead, spotlighting Rosella’s disgrace and misery.
That was the scene Millard walked in on.
The once proud, untouchable heiress had become a toy of the crowd. She was shoved down and force–fed drinks. Everyone raised their phones to record this “sacred” moment.
A woman who once stood high above them had fallen into the dirt, vulnerable to anyone’s cruelty. It was a moment worth commemorating for everyone else.
Millard paused at the door.
Amid the jeers, someone noticed him and kicked the man pouring the drink into Rosella. “Millard’s here!”
“Perfect timing,” the man laughed, grabbing another bottle. “Let Millard do it. It’ll feel even better. We’ve all been dying to knock her down a peg, right?”
The crowd agreed with enthusiasm.
Millard didn’t move, turning his gaze to Rosella’s face. She was still coughing, like trying to expel all the liquor from her lungs. Her face turned shades of blue and purple. She was in pain, yet she didn’t fight back. She shrank into a corner, enduring it all with passive obedience.
Her eyes were filled with trauma and numbness.
Dewey called out to Millard, “Come on, what are you standing there for?”
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Rosella curled up into a ball. Her stomach twisted with pain, but she didn’t dare cry out. With alcohol numbing her senses and a heavy cold clouding her mind, she mistook this place for home.
If she acted out, she’d get hit.
So no matter how bad it hurt, she wouldn’t cry in pain.
Millard stepped inside. The sharp smell of liquor came from Rosella. He glanced at her, then quickly looked away as if the sight dirtied him.
Millard’s indifference became an encouragement.
A woman suddenly stood up. The light hit her face. It was Jillian.
She knocked over a fruit platter, bent down to pick it up, then walked to Rosella and grabbed Rosella’s chin to sit Rosella upright. “Feeling
better now?”
Rosella wiped the liquor from her neck and nodded hazily. Even if she didn’t feel better, she had to pretend.
“Since you’re feeling better, have some fruit,” Jillian said as she handed her the same fruit that had fallen on the floor. “Living with your drunkard father, you probably don’t get to eat this kind of stuff, huh?”
That was true.
She could barely have a glass of warm water in those days, let alone food.
To them, this might be filthy, but Rosella had eaten leftovers from customers‘ plates and scavenged convenience store sandwiches. The food others discarded was what she survived on.
So what if it fell on the floor?
Suppressing the nausea, Rosella reached out with her frostbitten hand, picked up a grape, and placed it in her mouth, feeding their appetite for cruelty.
In Millard’s peripheral vision, she chewed and swallowed the grape without hesitation.
