Chapter 405/Venomous Accusations

Chapter 405

Julie’s POV

I froze completely under the suffocating, dark glare that crashed into the room from the doorway. Robert stood there in all his towering, mountain-like stature, absorbing every single inch of oxygen in the space until my lungs burned. A deadly, razor-sharp irony dripped from beneath the layers of his gravelly voice.

Carlos turned slowly, relaxing his posture with deliberate composure as he met his gaze without flinching. "I was simply checking on Julie, Robert," he said, his tone bone-dry. "It’s been a long time since we last met."

Robert took slow, unhurried strides into the room. His dark eyes darted with terrifying precision between Carlos and me, as if he were meticulously calculating the exact distance of betrayal lingering in the air. He tilted his head slightly with cold mockery, his voice dropping into a low, venomous hiss that made my pulse spike with bitter indignity:

"Checking on her, were you? Excellent... Now, I believe your friendly visit to our club has come to an end, Carlos. I have plenty of duties waiting for Julie to attend to."

Carlos clenched his fist so tightly his knuckles turned stark white, the veins bulging beneath his skin. He turned toward me, his eyes sending a silent wave of support to keep my feet grounded. Before he stepped out, he turned back to face Robert, his posture unyielding and resolute.

"I actually came here regarding business, Robert... But since my presence seems to bother you this much, fine. I’ll leave."

Carlos withdrew from the room with calm, measured steps, leaving behind an agonizing, suffocating silence that wrapped tightly around my neck. I was left alone with this monster, who pulled the door shut with a agonizingly slow click a sharp, metallic sound that signaled the beginning of a brand-new round of hell.

He stopped a single inch away from me, leaning his massive frame down until his burning breath slapped against my face, heavy with the suffocating scent of strong whiskey and expensive cigarette smoke. His pitch-black eyes locked into mine with brutal intensity, his voice dropping into a chilling, sub-zero register:

"Have you already started spinning a new web around Carlos?"

I looked at him in absolute disgust, my voice trembling. "Excuse me... what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

He twisted his lips into a poisonous, mocking sneer. "It seems every time I turn around, you’re looking for a new man to play the helpless victim for."

I stared at him, my breath catching in sheer, disbelieving shock. A wave of bitter fury exploded inside me. "I’m the one playing a role?! Me?!"

He thrust a finger toward my chest, his hand trembling slightly with suppressed rage as he snapped coldly, "Don’t play the fucking victim with me, Julie."

I grit my teeth so hard my jaw ached, a burning hatred coursing through my veins as I cut him off fiercely: "I am not playing the damn victim!"

He lunged closer, eliminating whatever space was left between us, and spat out a single word that slapped my face and shattered my dignity in one brutal blow:

"You’re nothing but a whore."

My pupils dilated wildly as a scalding, suffocating sense of humiliation ripped through my ribs. I reflexively raised my hand to slap the arrogance right off his face, but I forced a ragged breath into my lungs, barely restraining my trembling hand as Max’s persistent advice echoed in my mind: *(Tell him everything... maybe there’s a huge misunderstanding, Julie).*

I took a step back, locking my tear-rimmed eyes onto his, my breathing heavy and erratic. "I will tell you why I fled this place four years ago!"

He jerked his face away in complete, dismissive disdain. "For God’s sake, I don’t want to hear another damn lie coming out of your mouth."

I gathered every remaining drop of courage I had left, balling my hands into tight fists as I pushed past his wall: "You don’t understand what actually happened! That’s precisely why—"

He didn’t let me finish. A deafening roar ripped from his throat, shaking the entire room: "I don’t have time for this filthy bullshit! Get over here!"

His massive hand clamped around my wrist with violent force, wringing a muted cry of pain from my throat. He dragged me behind him like a prisoner in chains. We flew up the grand staircase at a manic speed while I frantically tried to wrench my arm from his iron grip to no avail.

"Where the hell are you taking me?!" I panicked, my voice echoing down the hall. "Let go of me!"

He ignored my screams entirely, dragging me through the private upper corridor until he slammed to a halt in front of the dark wooden door of *that* specific room that cursed, dimly lit room used by the club’s elite clients. He threw the door open with a single push and violently shoved me inside.

My eyes immediately landed on the wide, low platform bed draped in dark silk sheets, and the massive, tilted mirror mounted directly on the ceiling above it.

A crushing wave of terror and utter degradation slammed into my chest, my heart hammering wildly against my ribs. A paralyzing fear took hold of me—a gut-wrenching horror that he was going to keep me locked in here to hand me over to one of his incoming clients without a shred of mercy.

I turned back to face him, my face drained of all color, my voice breathless and shaking uncontrollably: "What on earth are we doing here?!"

He stepped back toward the threshold, his features hardening into a cold, unreadable mask. He spoke with a arctic, detachment:

"Stay here... I have a surprise for you."

Before I could move a muscle toward the door, he slammed it shut and turned the key twice in the lock.

I pounded my palms against the heavy wood, the loud thuds echoing down the hall as I screamed hysterically, "Get back here, damn it!! What the hell is wrong with your sick mind?! Open this door!"

I backed away from the entrance, my breathing ragged as a suffocating weight settled on my chest. Horrifying possibilities and dark scenarios invaded my chaotic mind without mercy. I pressed my palm over my pounding heart, Max’s desperate words flashing in my mind once again. *I have to lay it all out the second he walks back through that door. I have to throw the raw, brutal truth in his face... I have to scream that he had a son that I buried with my own two hands in the dark... Ethan.*

I whispered the name in a cracked, raspy voice dripping with agony: "Ethan..."

His pale details flashed vividly in my memory his cold, still features. I had never heard his voice, never heard his first cry, and never even got to see the color of his tiny eyes before he vanished from this world forever.

Suddenly... the key turned in the lock, and the door swung open slowly.

My eyes locked onto the doorway in sheer, unadulterated terror. My body paralyzed, and my pupils dilated in absolute shock at the monstrous sight that materialized right in front of me.

The heavy door pulled back with a agonizingly slow creak. My chest relaxed for a fraction of a second, on the absolute verge of catching a breath, before the blood in my veins completely turned to ice and my pupils froze in place from a catastrophic shock.

It wasn’t a shadow, nor was it a figment of my tortured imagination. It was Sarah... standing right at the threshold in a state that alone was enough to utterly pulverize whatever remaining sanity I had left. With her wide blue eyes overflowing with deep, utter defeat, and her blonde hair cascading messily over her shoulders, she stood there wearing a revealing set of luxurious silk lingerie. Her skin was drenched in a loud, suffocating perfume and styled in an aggressively seductive manner the only girl Robert would isolate to sleep with himself, far away from the eyes of the club’s clients.

I stumbled backward on instinct, as if the ground beneath my feet had cracked wide open.

My lips trembled violently, but no sound escaped my throat; she was the second face of Robert’s personal hell, the living symbol of every betrayal and humiliation I had ever swallowed in this place.

Before I could utter a single word, his massive palm appeared from behind her. He shoved her forward, forcing her to step into the room with buried terror. Then, he slammed the door shut with a deafening thud, turning the key in the lock with a sharp, metallic click that stabbed into my ear like a dagger.

Robert turned toward me, locking his pitch-black eyes onto my pale, bloodless face.

He spoke in a cold, venomous hiss that dripped like ice:

"You’re going to attend a little party today, Julie... and you’re going to stand right here and watch me take her with your own two eyes."