The fifth night began at moonrise.
They did not carry her this time. Amara walked.
Naked, collared, skin still faintly bruised from the previous nights, she descended the grand staircase of the villa flanked by the four men who now owned every breath she took. Torches had been extinguished. Only a single path of black candles led through the corridors to a pair of doors she had never seen open.
Beyond them lay the viewing gallery.
A circular room of smoked glass and dark wood. One entire wall was a window (one-way, floor to ceiling) looking down into a sunken chamber lit by a single chandelier of black iron. In the center of that chamber hung a web of leather straps and chains suspended from the ceiling: a harness designed to hold a body in perfect, helpless display.
A dozen chairs fa
