#EXPOSED

CHAPTER - 39

Sins and secrets. 

Aagnay

I wiped the stupid tear from the corner of my eye as my mother's voice filled the line. "How are you darling?"

"I—" I blinked several times to restrain my rioting emotions. "Mom, I want to go home." My whisper waned when I finished speaking and the dejected silence clouded over the line. "They—Mr. Delgado—I—he is bad." I couldn't manage to talk through my tight throat.

"What happened baby?" There was concern in her voice; it was comforting. My mother didn't hate me enough to throw me in the pit of hellfire and I was hopeful. "Are you alright?"

"No." I glanced in the direction of the hallways and turned to face the payphone. "I'm not alright. I'm miserable. Mr. Delgado—he does bad things to me. I don't like it, he makes me stand in front of everyone."

"How is that so bad, darling?" Her confusion startled me and broke something inside me. "Have you been meeting your targets?"

"Yes—no—but—"

"Then of course he will be angry," she told me exasperatedly and sighed. "You will be punished if you don't do what's expected out of you. That's the rule of the world."

"He makes me stand naked in front of the whole class." The rush in my voice blanketed another wave of silence over her. "He forces me to..." I swallowed hard to stifle my cry but her silence was apparent. I couldn't bring myself to reveal that the sick man forced me to masturbate in front of people.

"I'll speak with him, darling," she assured me comfortingly but I was too lost and indulged in my silent pain. "Don't you worry, it will be alright. You just focus on being the best and everything will be fine."

It was never fine. Months had passed and my family was nowhere in sight. They stopped receiving my calls.

The potent liquid burned through me as I guzzled the alcohol from the glass. Looking at my father's face made me despise him even further. Delgado had told me later that my parents didn't want me anywhere near them. It was no mystery that they were driven enough to abandon their offspring in the face of a child predator. They were served with an ultimatum of my withdrawal and they chose the opposite—leaving me to be subjected to pedophilia while they built their empire together. I wasn't okay, not even close.

"Any update on Ishani?" He looked over the monitor in my direction and I set my ankle on my knee before I drank from the glass.

"I want her out," I demanded and his gaze grew dark on my face. "So far, I appreciate you being flexible about her arrangements but she has a life beyond your madness and she deserves that." I watched him down the contents of his glass in one shot.

"She is lucky she isn't dead already," he told me and I tensed, loathing the weakness that followed his admission. "If she complicates my bearings then she won't live long enough to see another day."

"So you will just wipe her off the face of the earth and pretend like she didn't exist when her family strikes you with a lawsuit?" My heart jerked in my chest and began to pound. "You can't kill her."

"Who says I will?" he shot back and I took a quick, deep breath, grasping his intentions. "Accidents happen, people die. She was a wild girl who got into trouble that got her killed. We have nothing to do with her."

"She has been using my credit cards. She lives in my property." The words broke from my throat like shards of glass. "It will all crash down on me."