The Sinner of Mute

Weeks bled into a month, marked only by the sun’s arc across the Los Angeles skyline.

 Sorina’s body mended with clinical precision, but her mind remained a labyrinth of shadows.

Lucien’s duplex, a monument of steel and glass, became her gilded purgatory. 

The wound on her foot had closed, leaving a jagged scar that ached in the cold.

 Lucien’s personal physician a gaunt man with nicotine-stained fingers visited twice weekly, changing bandages and administering antibiotics under Lucien’s watchful eye. “No infection,” the doctor muttered each time, avoiding Sorina’s gaze.

The scar tissue was thick, rope-like, a permanent brand of her punishment.

 Lucien insisted on daily “therapy” ten minutes of forced walking, her shackle replaced with a shorter chain that permitted three shuffling steps before yanking her back. 

“Again,” he’d command, sipping espresso as she limped circles around the bed, sweat beading on her brow.    

His care was a blade disguised as mercy. He bathed her himself, his hands impersonal as a nurse’s, scrubbing her skin raw with lavender soap.

He dressed her in cashmere sweaters and linen gowns  that  didn’t hid bruises for her to see and reflect upon her past mistakes.

 Meals were precise grilled fish, steamed greens, protein shakes all monitored by him.

Once, she refused the shake, he gripped her nose until she gasped, then poured it down her throat. 

“You’ll be whole,” he said, wiping her chin. “I require you… presentable.”

Lucien’s empire thrived.

 Mornings were spent in video conferences Tokyo high-rises, Dubai casinos, Parisian boutiques all laundering fronts for darker trades.

Afternoons, he’d leave for meetings, the duplex’s security system beeping as he exited.

Sorina mapped the sounds: three tones for disarmed, two for armed.

 The guards outside never spoke, their faces blurred by frosted glass. 

Evenings, he returned with files and foreign scents cigar smoke, women’s perfume.

He’d narrate his triumphs as she picked at dinner. “Bought a senator today,” he’d say, or “Burned a rival’s yacht.”

She’d stare at her plate, her silence a fragile rebellion. 

Her ankle bore a new shackle, platinum and slim as a bracelet, chained to a bolt under the bed. At night, he locked it with a key in the closet and left the closet key outside of their bedroom..

Fear curdled into a numb detachment. She moved through routines like a ghost eat, walk, bathe, stare at the city below.

During the time of Sorina’s recovery Lucien visited one of his brothel.

Lucien’s brothel in Los Angeles was a tomb draped in velvet.

The Sapphire Lounge*, its neon sign hummed over a door guarded by men with hollow eyes.

 Inside, the air clung with jasmine and lust.

 Crystal chandeliers dripped light over plush chaises where women lounged like mannequins bodies sculpted by surgeons, faces painted into masks of invitation.

They wore silk and sequins, their laughter a rehearsed melody. None of them were her. 

He came most nights after Sorina’s recovery began, his Bentley idling out front like a predator catching its breath.