Attachment Knight - Chapter 9

Don Pisano’s office felt like a compressed version of a huge playroom. The concept changed often, and today it seems to be the animal kingdom.

On a pastel-toned mat, children wearing animal masks were playing, stacking blocks. Paint was smeared all over the children’s bodies and Don Pisano’s too, like they’d been shot with human targets.

“Miss Millicent has arrived.”

The temperature in the room filled with warm, soft light was chilling enough to make my body tremble.

The man, completely absorbed in his game, didn’t spare me a glance. It was only after quite some time passed that he pulled his attention back.

“Did you enjoy playing with me?”

“Yes.”

“Good, now go. Bye.”

“Goodbye.”

The children politely greeted Don and withdrew. I felt jealousy toward those kids he smiled at kindly. Even more so when he turned around, satisfied, immersed in the act of a gentle guardian.

“Welcome, Millie.”

“….”

“They’re such cute kids. It feels like I’m looking at you as a child. Don’t just stand there, come sit down.”

He waved his hand vaguely. As if he didn’t care how prettily I’d dressed up.

“But those green pants are annoying. I showed him a little affection and he started throwing a tantrum. There are too many who get cocky when you treat them nicely. Don’t call them into my room anymore.”

“Yes.”

The secretary withdrew and the butler set the table. The movements flowed perfectly without a single flaw, good enough to match the chief attendant of the imperial palace.

After drinking the strongly brewed coffee, Don Pisano let out a deep sigh.

“Millicent.”

“Yes.”

“Now tell me. Why did you do it?”

His gaze grew stern. I pretended not to know and rolled my eyes innocently.

“Grisha told me. She said someone stole her potion. She said you’re the culprit.”

“It wasn’t me.”

“I thought it was nonsense, but it really was you.”

“I said it wasn’t.”

Irritably, he threw the orb in his hand onto the dining table. The orb rolled and stopped in front of me, and a video was playing inside it. It clearly showed me sneaking into that bitch Grisha’s underground lab and stealing the brainwashing potion.

When I looked away, Don’s scolding flew at me.

“I told you not to lie in front of me.”

“I did it with good intentions.”

“What intentions?”

“I just wanted to brainwash Radem more securely.”

“He’s already under mental control. There’s no way you couldn’t tell from his listless eyes and the way his body had no will to resist. It’s a precious potion. Do you know how much labor it takes to make just one? Everything has its proper use.”

“….”

When the silence dragged on, the man’s foot that had been tapping stopped. The eyes looking at me narrowed with irritation.

“If you act on your own without my permission one more time, I won’t let it go even if it’s you.”

I sighed in obvious hurt.

“I did it for you, Don. What if Radem recovers and breaks the brainwashing and suddenly rebels?”

“Then why don’t you understand that if you give him too much of the drug, he’ll lose his function as a sacrifice too?”

“I didn’t think that far.”

I lied brazenly, and Don noticed, but he didn’t press that point any further. Ah, it’s not like I stole the drug because I really wanted to ruin Radem’s mind. It was all in case of an emergency.

“I’m sorry. I was wrong, Don. Are you angry?”

I put on an ingratiating tone and hugged him. Normally, the man would’ve held me as if he couldn’t resist, or unfastened buttons and pulled down my underwear, but today he looked quite irritated. Drawing a line, he shoved me away decisively.

“Millicent. There are plenty of sacrifices to replace that bastard. You aren’t stupid, so you know that much. You know Grisha’s potion goes for tens of thousands of gold on the black market too. You stole it even though you know I’ll grant you almost anything if you just say the word.”

“….”

“You knew I wouldn’t allow a precious potion for that slave. Right?”

His ice-cold gaze stabbed into my body like needles. Under that sharp pressure, I slipped two steps away from him.

“If you were wrong, what should you do?”

Like a child, I knelt in front of him and raised both hands. It was one of the ways Don had punished me since I was little. Of course, after I became his lover, punishment didn’t end with just standing still with my hands raised.

The corner of my lips trembled. So he’s going to do that again.

A bad feeling is never wrong.

A moment later, the secretary came in and fastened cold shackles around both my wrists. The chain led up to the ceiling of Don’s bedroom.

“Don’t do it again, Millicent.”

“Yes.”

Don watched the secretary tie me up while smoking, then left the room coldly. The secretary blew out every remaining candle and, after drawing the curtains, followed Don out. The room soon sank into pitch-black darkness. I writhed in the dark. As time passed, my breathing grew rapid and my heart began to pound fast. I tried to stay calm. Darkness was what I feared most. The experience of being trapped in a cramped, pitch-black secret room as a child, and countless nightmares endured as an experimental subject. The time I was abandoned. Painful memories….

Left alone in a solitary wasteland where I couldn’t feel anyone’s warmth or touch, I desperately tried to close my eyes and imagine something pleasant. But I reached my limit. Cold sweat started to form, and wounds opened on my wrists where I pulled the chain taut.

“I was wrong, Don. I won’t do it again.”

I begged in a voice that crawled like I was inching along.

“Please let me out.”

Save me. Let me out.

The only person who could save me from here was Don Pisano. He was my salvation and my everything. Without him, I couldn’t do anything. The only person I could beg for love from, the only person I had to plead forgiveness from, was him.

When I burst into sobs, only then did the huge double doors creak and twist open.

In front of me, swaying and unsteady with tears and a headache, a shoe stopped.

Don, holding a candle, looked down at me impassively like an absolute being. When he generously unfastened the chain, I ran into his arms because I was so happy to see my savior again, and with that jolt, the candle toppled over. It fell to the floor, leaving a searing pain in my forearm. Don ground the candle out with his foot and grabbed my forearm to examine it. I could see a bright red burn mark too. But the relief that he had come back to me again was bigger, so I barely felt the pain.

“I was going to keep you locked up for one more hour.”

He wiped the wetness smeared messily over my cheeks with the back of his hand. I rubbed my cheek against his hand.

“To think I still come in even though I know it’s acting every time. Stop crying now, Millicent.”

His voice sounded resigned, yet it carried self-reproach. Anything was fine. I smiled as if I’d never wailed, and maybe he flared up again, because he tied my wrist back to the chain.

Next, things went as expected.

As if he were angry at my tears and smile, Don tore the fastening at the very center of my dress with a knife. He shoved my underwear down under my plump breasts and roughly rubbed the nipples that bulged out using two fingers. After looking back and forth between my sobbing face and my bouncing breasts, the man struck the chain with the back of the knife and shattered it, then laid me down on the carpet. A thick body slid in between my legs, spread wide, and his face buried between my breasts. The metal belt that had slipped down touched the hollow behind my knee. The cold, hard feel of iron sent a shiver through me. I felt the warmth of Don’s thighs. And something burning like a lump of fire kept tapping at me between my legs.

We enjoyed ourselves for a few minutes with our bodies fitted together. His fingers glided, swimming between my navel and my breasts. He was a man who knew my body better than I did. I was overly numb to my own body, and he dug in excessively. The pleasure Don gave was like a swamp steeped in sweet drugs, and it was hard to escape from it.

When the climax that had surged all the way to the top of my head finally crashed down, Don pulled me up as if shaking off a body slick with sweat and spat into the air.

“Lock Millicent at the top of the tower. I’m giving her ten days of confinement.”

I lay collapsed like an animal sprawled out, covered in wounds, and only belatedly realized another presence. Someone had watched our act from start to finish, and it was Don’s secretary.

***

“Go in.”

When we reached the top of the tower, the secretary threw open a heavy iron door. I looked at the secretary who waited with the door open. The ambiguous bob-length hair that reached the chin didn’t look like it would even move in the wind. The long, narrow eyes and pale skin, the slender body, made it hard to tell whether they were a woman or a man.

“Meals are twice a day. I’ll return in ten days.”

I was about to ask whether they’d seen me naked, then stopped.

The small, dome-shaped room was luxurious for holding a prisoner. It was covered in soft, cream-like wallpaper, and it even had a bed laid with thick blankets and a vanity.

Along the pillars, vine-shaped gilt decorations glittered, and the four walls were filled with antique paintings. It looked more like a gallery of fine antiques than a room meant for punishment.

If there was one problem….