It suddenly dawns on me that if she wasn’t pregnant before she ended up in Valentine’s clutches, then she must have been stuck here for several months, if not longer.
Is there even a way for anyone to save me from this man?
Or did Dante intentionally send me to my death?
Are they all in on it?
Are they all working with Valentine?!
I press the palms of my hands to either side of my head as I try to force these thoughts out of my mind. I can’t let myself go down this path.
Not yet.
Valentine has made it pretty clear that he has it out for his son, for whatever reason, and I have to hope that reason is because Dante is nothing like him.
Some hope is better than none at all.
Valentine returns from wherever he’s been the past few minutes, a white corset and matching set of underwear in hand.
“Put these on,” he says, tossing them into my lap.
Clutching the undergarments to my chest, I slowly get to my feet and turn my back to Valentine to dress. I’m almost surprised he doesn’t order me to turn around.
I quickly step into the underwear first before shrugging the robe off my shoulders to put the corset on. Loosening the threading at the back, I slip my arms through the shoulder straps as I pull the corset down over my head.
It’s similar in structure to the one Luci chose for me, though this one appears to be truly vintage.
I reach for the laces at the back, only to find Valentine has beat me to it. Recoiling as my fingers meet his, I shrink in on myself as he leans down, his cool breath against my neck sending chills racing over my skin.
“I’ve did like a woman who took pride in her appearance, even above her own comfort.”
I don’t have time to ask him what he means by this before he yanks the strings of the corset tight. I gasp in shock, and he does it again.
If he pulls it any tighter, I’m sure I’ll pop. My breasts are already nearly spilling out of the top, and honestly, without a mirror I’m not sure that they haven’t already.
By some miracle, Valentine doesn’t pull the strings again. Instead, he steps closer to wrap the lengths around my waist several times before tying them tightly behind me.
He spins me around to face him, leaning back to admire his own handiwork, and I feel the hairs at the nape of my neck rise.
He lets his gaze linger on my breasts, a soft growl of approval escaping him.
Not knowing where to look, I make the mistake of dropping my own gaze only to realize that this outfit change has made Valentine’s own excitement start to grow.
Apparently, Luci was right again about him liking a corseted woman.
Not that this makes me trust that Luci told me anything that was actually meant to help me. After all, I still don’t know whether or not the corset will protect me from whatever happened to Anna and the others.
A thought suddenly strikes me.
What if Luci’s suggestion was never really about the corset?
Valentine seems to have no trouble getting aroused with or without it.
What if it was simply to lead me to this room? To see what happened to the last woman whom Valentine set his sights on.
Perhaps this was meant to be his morbid way of warning me to be careful. That the stakes are even greater than they’d let on.
I doubt he expected me to find evidence of the true depths of Valentine’s cruelty on my first day here.